Libertarianism & Category-Mistake

Abstract

This paper offers a defense against two accusations according to which libertarianism incurs in a category-mistake. The philosophy of Gilbert Ryle will be used to explain the reasons which ground these accusations. Further, it will be shown why, although certain sorts of libertarianism based on agent-causation or Cartesian dualism incur in these mistakes, there is at least one version of libertarianism to which this criticism does not necessarily apply: the version that seeks to find in physical indeterminism the grounding of human free will.

Keywords

• Gilbert Ryle
• libertarianism
• category-mistake
• normativity
• indeterminism.