Abstract
This contribution to a symposium on an article by Roy Baumeister, A. William Crescioni, and Jessica Alquist focuses on a tension between compatibilist and incompatibilist elements in that article. In their discussion of people’s beliefs about free will, Baumeister et al. sometimes sound like incompatibilists; but in their presentation of their work on psychological processes of free will, they sound more like compatibilists than like incompatibilists. It is suggested that Baumeister and coauthors are attempting to study free will in a metaphysically neutral way and that, because this is so, the incompatibilist elements of the article are out of place.
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Notes
The condition just offered is an alleged sufficient condition for free action.
So if the occurrence of x (at time t1) indeterministically causes the occurrence of y (at t2), then a complete description of the condition of the universe at t1 together with a complete statement of the laws of nature does not entail that y occurs at t2. There was at most a high probability that the occurrence of x at t1 would cause the occurrence of y at t2.
As I understand deciding to do something, it is an action of forming an intention to do it; and, as I see it, many intentions are acquired without being actively formed (see Mele [5], ch. 9).
Whether lay folk tend to conceive of free will in a compatibilist or an incompatibilist way is an empirical question. But it is a different question.
References
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Mele, A.R. Surrounding Free Will: A Response to Baumeister, Crescioni, and Alquist. Neuroethics 4, 25–29 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-010-9094-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-010-9094-0