Robert Kane (philosopher)

Robert Hilary Kane (born 1938, Boston) is an American philosopher. He is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently on phased retirement.

He is the author of Free Will and Values (1985), Through the Moral Maze (1994), and The Significance of Free Will (1996: awarded the 1996 Robert W. Hamilton Faculty Book Award). He also edited the Oxford Handbook of Free Will (2004) and has published many articles in the philosophy of mind and action, ethics, the theory of values and philosophy of religion. His latest book is A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will (2005), which is widely used in beginning philosophy classes.

Causal indeterminism

Kane is one of the leading contemporary philosophers on free will. Advocating what is termed within philosophical circles "libertarian freedom", Kane argues that "(1) the existence of alternative possibilities (or the agent's power to do otherwise) is a necessary condition for acting freely, and (2) determinism is not compatible with alternative possibilities (it precludes the power to do otherwise)". It is important to note that the crux of Kane's position is grounded not in a defense of alternative possibilities (AP) but in the notion of what Kane refers to as ultimate responsibility (UR). Thus, AP is a necessary but insufficient criterion for free will. It is necessary that there be (metaphysically) real alternatives for our actions, but that is not enough; our actions could be random without being in our control. The control is found in "ultimate responsibility".

Robert Kane (producer)

Robert Kane (1886 – 1957) was an American film producer. He is sometimes credited as Robert T. Kane.

Biography

In 1930 Paramount Pictures put Kane in charge of the Joinville Studios in Paris where the company made multiple-language versions in various different languages. The move was a response to the introduction of sound film which meant English-language films made in Hollywood were no longer suitable for non-English-speaking markets. Joinville produced hundreds of films in a two-year period, before dubbing became more widespread.

In the late 1930s Kane was involved with 20th Century Fox's British subsidiary which made expensive productions rather than the quota quickies that had been made there by American companies earlier in the decade. In 1937 he produced Wings of the Morning, the first technicolor film to be made in the British Isles. He returned to the United States following the outbreak of the Second World War, where he worked on the bullfighting drama Blood and Sand starring Tyrone Power.