To have free will is to have what it takes to act freely. When an agent acts freely—when she exercises her free will—what she does is up to her. A plurality of alternatives is open to her, and she determines which she pursues. When she does, she is an ultimate source or origin of her action. So runs a familiar conception of free will.

Critical review of Buddhist theories of free will published between 2000 and 2014.

This paper shows that several live philosophical and scientific hypotheses – including the holographic principle and multiverse theory in quantum physics, and eternalism and mind-body dualism in philosophy – jointly imply an audacious new theory of free will. This new theory, "Libertarian Compatibilism", holds that the physical world is an eternally existing array of two-dimensional information – a vast number of possible pasts, presents, and futures – and the mind a nonphysical entity or set of properties that "read" (...) that physical information off to subjective conscious awareness (in much the same way that a song written on an ordinary compact-disc is only played when read by an outside medium, i.e. a CD-player). According to this theory, every possible physical “timeline” in the multiverse may be fully physically deterministic or physically-causally closed but each person’s consciousness still entirely free to choose, ex nihilo, outside of the physical order, which physically-closed timeline is experienced by conscious observers. Although Libertarian Compatibilism is admittedly fantastic, I show that it not only follows from several live scientific and philosophical hypotheses, I also show that it (A) is a far more explanatorily powerful model of quantum mechanics than more traditional interpretations (e.g. the Copenhagen, Everett, and Bohmian interpretations), (B) makes determinate, testable empirical predictions in quantum theory, and finally, (C) predicts and explains the very existence of a number of philosophical debates and positions in the philosophy of mind, time, personal identity, and free will. First, I show that whereas traditional interpretations of quantum mechanics are all philosophically problematic and roughly as ontologically “extravagant” as Libertarian Compatibilism – in that they all posit “unseen” processes – Libertarian Compatibilism is nearly identical in structure to the only working simulation that human beings have ever constructed capable of reproducing (and so explaining) every general feature of quantum mechanics we perceive: namely, massive-multiplayer-online-roleplaying videogames (or MMORPGs). Although I am not the first to suggest that our world is akin to a computer simulation, I show that existing MMORPGs (online simulations we have already created) actually reproduce every general feature of quantum mechanics within their simulated-world reference-frames. Second, I show that existing MMORPGs also replicate (and so explain) many philosophical problems we face in the philosophy of mind, time, personal identity, and free will – all while conforming to the Libertarian Compatibilist model of reality. -/- I conclude, as such, that as fantastic and metaphysically extravagant as Libertarian Compatibilism may initially seem, it may well be true. It explains a number of features of our reality that no other physical or metaphysical theory does. (shrink)

My dissertation develops a novel theory of free will and moral responsibility, Strawsonian libertarianism, which combines Strawsonianism about the concept of moral responsibility with event-causal libertarianism concerning its conditions of application. I construct this theory in light of and response to the three main objections to libertarianism: the moral shallowness objection, the intelligibility objection, and the empirical plausibility objection.The moral shallowness objection contends that libertarianism seems plausible only in the absence of a robust understanding of the nature of (...) moral responsibility. P.F. Strawson's work is the fount of this objection. In response I argue, surprisingly, that Strawson's account of the nature of responsibility, according to which the essence of responsibility is defined in terms of the reactive attitudes (such as gratitude and resentment), actually leads to libertarianism about its conditions of application. In defense of this contention I offer a theory of the normative force of excuse which shows that moral responsibility requires that agents have free will. I then construct the No Opportunity Argument which demonstrates that free will, and thus moral responsibility, is incompatible with determinism.In the remainder of the dissertation I develop and defend this account of moral responsibility against the intelligibility and empirical objections, both of which focus on my contention that indeterminism is necessary for freedom and responsibility. The intelligibility objection contends that libertarians cannot provide an intelligible account of freedom and responsibility because indeterminism is either (at best) irrelevant or (at worst) inimical to control. I respond to these objections by showing that if we locate indeterminism at the moment of free choice, libertarianism can explain both why indeterminism does not diminish control and also how it is relevant to enhancing it.Finally, I turn to the empirical plausibility objection which contends that libertarianism is scientifically implausible. This objection centers on my contention that humans must be indeterministic systems in order to be free and responsible. I argue that my commitment to neuronal indeterminism fares well in light of current physical and neurobiological findings and, therefore, that Strawsonian libertarianism is not as scientifically demanding as many have thought. (shrink)

I argue for a soft compatibilist theory of free will, i.e., such that free will is compatible with both determinism and indeterminism, directly opposite hard incompatibilism, which holds free will incompatible both with determinism and indeterminism. My intuitions in this book are primarily based on an analysis of meditation, but my arguments are highly syncretic, deriving from many fields, including behaviorism, psychology, conditioning and deconditioning theory, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, simulation theory, etc. (...) I offer a causal/functional analysis of meta-mental control, or 'metacausality', cashed out in counterfactual terms, to solve what I call the easy problem of free will. (shrink)

Imagine we are at a murder trial. Randy Smith is accused of killing his Aunt Millie. The defense admits that on the night of the murder, Smith had an argument with his Aunt, that he took a pistol out of his jacket and shot her. She died of the gunshot wound. Smith knew that the gun was loaded, that Millie was directly in front of it, and that he was pulling the trigger. He was not insane at the time, there (...) were no abnormal chemicals in his brain, and he was not acting in self-defense. He killed her knowingly, intentionally, and unjustifiably. (shrink)

I argue for a possible Buddhist theory of free will that combines Frankfurt's hierarchical analysis of meta-volitional/volitional accord with elements of the Buddhist eightfold path that prescribe that Buddhist aspirants cultivate meta-volitional wills that promote the mental freedom that culminates in enlightenment, as well as a causal/functional analysis of how Buddhist meditative methodology not only plausibly makes that possible, but in ways that may be applied to undermine Galen Strawson's impossibility argument, along with most of the other major (...) arguments for free will skepticism. (shrink)

K.L. Reinhold advocates a theory of free will as the capacity to choose for or against the moral law. Reinhold’s theory has often been accused of being psychologistic due to its alleged appeal to empirical facts of consciousness. This paper argues that instead of merely positing free will as a fact of consciousness, Reinhold provides an argument for free will as a necessary condition for moral responsibility. This sheds new light on the development of (...) the concept of will in the wake of Kant’s practical philosophy. (shrink)

Bergson argues that there is an incompatibility between free will and determinism: while free will has a dimension of creation, of invention, determinism corresponds to the idea that the future is fixed in advance by laws. In addition, he rejects determinism. According to him, the singularity of our deep-seated psychic states makes that their evolution cannot be governed by laws. However, Bergson does not defend classical indeterminism because it reduces free will to a choice (...) between alternative possibilities, that is to say between pre-fixed futures. Such a conception does not take into account the creative dimension of free will. In fact, Bergson develops an original form of indeterminism based on a certain conception of causation. For determinism and classical indeterminism, causation is always the actualization of a pre-fixed virtual reality. For Bergson, causation can also be a creation, that is, the formation of something which is not pre-fixed. (shrink)

A critical review of the first wave of publications on Buddhism and free will between the 1960s and 1980s.

This paper concerns the role of the transcendental distinction between agents qua phenomena and qua noumena in Kant's theory of free will. It argues (1) that Kant's incompatibilism can be accommodated if one accepts the "ontological" interpretation of this distinction (i.e. the view that agents qua noumena are ontologically prior to agents qua phenomena), and (2) that Kant's incompatibilism cannot be accommodated by the "two-aspect" interpretation, whose defining feature is the rejection of the ontological priority of agents qua (...) noumena. The ontological interpretation allows Kant to be an incompatibilist because the ontological priority of agents qua noumena "ontologically undermines" the significance of phenomenal determinism for agents' free will. That is, since agents qua noumena are ontologically prior to agents qua phenomena, the fact that agents qua noumena are not subject to determinism is more fundamental than the fact that agents qua phenomena are subject to determinism, and it is the more fundamental fact that we should be concerned with in the metaphysical foundations of moral responsibility. Recent (independent) work by myself, Eric Watkins, and Robert Hanna is drawn on to demonstrate that the ontological interpretation can mount a better defense against some traditional objections than has often been thought. -/- According to the two-aspect interpretation, the transcendental distinction between agents qua noumena and qua phenomena is a semantic and epistemological distinction. Since it rejects the ontological priority of noumena, it has no way to assert that the non-determinism of agents qua noumena is more metaphysically fundamental than the determinism of agents qua phenomena. For the two-aspect interpretation, the truth of determinism must remain just as fundamental as the truth of any other characterization of agents. This means that, on the two-aspect interpretation, there is no better reason to call Kant an incompatibilist than there is to call him a compatibilist. Since Henry Allison has presented the most detailed two-aspect interpretation of the agential transcendental distinction, the arguments against the two-aspect distinction address his interpretation. Part of Allison's strategy is to argue that phenomenal determinism poses less of a problem for free will if we accept his accounts of the Second Analogy and empirical psychology. I point our problems in these accounts and argue that this strategy cannot be accepted. -/- . (shrink)

Robert Kane's event-causal libertarian theory of free will has been subjected to a variety of criticisms. In response to the luck objection, he has provided an ambiguous answer which results in additional criticisms that are avoidable. I explain Kane's theory, the luck objection and Kane's reply to the problem of luck. I note that in some places he suggests that the dual wantings of agents engaged in self-forming actions (SFAs) provides the key to answering the luck objection, whereas (...) in other places he suggests that the dual willings or tryings of agents is the key. Various philosophers criticize Kane's view by focusing on his concept of the dual willings/tryings involved in SFAs. I argue that despite Kane's efforts to answer these criticisms, they still hold; but I also go on to argue that Kane can avoid these criticisms and also answer the luck objection by just focusing on the important role of the dual wantings in SFAs. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss a problem for Kant's strategy of appealing to the agent qua noumenon to undermine the significance of determinism in his theory of free will. I then propose a solution. The problem is as follows: given determinism, how can some agent qua noumenon be 'the cause of the causality' of the appearances of that agent qua phenomenon without being the cause of the entire empirical causal series? This problem has been identified in the literature (...) (Ralph Walker provides what is perhaps the most dramatic presentation of it). But it has never received an adequate solution. In this paper, I argue that Walker’s objection is only decisive if we must understand our responsibility as responsibility for events, but not causal laws. I argue that we need not interpret Kant's theory in this way. I demonstrate that each agent qua noumenon could be responsible for "limited instantiation scope" causal laws which necessitate only the phenomenal actions of that same agent qua phenomenon. Part of this project involves showing that there are relevant constituents of actions which are "rare" enough to instantiate such laws. I demonstrate that, on Kant's view, events in agents’ bodies are not rare enough, but events in agents’ phenomenal souls are. (shrink)

This paper argues for a view of free will that I will call the conceptual impossibility of the truth of free will error theory - the conceptual impossibility thesis. I will argue that given the concept of free will we in fact deploy, it is impossible for our free will judgements - judgements regarding whether some action is free or not - to be systematically false. Since we do judge (...) many of our actions to be free, it follows from the conceptual impossibility thesis that many of our actions are in fact free. Hence it follows that free will error theory - the view that no judgement of the form ‘action A was performed freely’ - is false. I will show taking seriously the conceptual impossibility thesis helps makes good sense of some seemingly inconsistent results in recent experimental philosophy work on determinism and our concept of free will. Further, I will present some reasons why we should expect to find similar results for every other factor we might have thought was important for free will. (shrink)

At first blush, free will seems obvious. Every day, people have the experience of making decisions, of choosing what to do. Planning a meeting or date, steering a car, ordering from a menu, accepting or declining an offer, playing a game, making a deal, voting, shopping, and much more -- all these confront the person with multiple alternative possibilities. People make choices, fully aware that they could just as well choose differently.

Sometimes you make a choice. Whether or not you made it was up to you. The choice was free. But how can this be? A scientific view of the world may leave no room for free choice. Free will literature continually explodes. Yet experts still focus on control or on a power to do otherwise. Sadly, they neglect another intuitive feature of free will: being an underived source or ultimate originator. When acting freely, one (...) is a self-determined, self-directed, sole author of change. Surprisingly, though the literature is replete with this pre-theoretic feature of free will, virtually no one makes rigorous use of it when constructing arguments. Equipped with fresh research, this book contends that agent-causation—currently an unpopular theory—deserves serious reconsideration. Only agent-causation accounts for ultimate origination, and popular objections fail under rigorous scrutiny. This book is tightly argued. It challenges and deepens recent advances in free will scholarship made by Peter van Inwagen, Robert Kane, Carl Ginet, Randy Clarke, Stewart Goetz, Tim O’Connor, and others. (shrink)

Anselm is known for offering a distinctive definition of freedom of choice as “the ability of preserving uprightness of will for its own sake.” When we turn to Anselm’s account of the devil’s fall in De Casu Diaboli, however, this idiosyncratic understanding of freedom is not at the forefront. In that text, Anselm seemingly assumes a traditional understanding of free will defined in terms of alternative possibilities for the angels. These alternative possibilities must be present so the (...) angels can engage in ‘self-determination.’ God, however, does not face alternative possibilities to achieve His self-determination. Anselm thus explicates his notion of free will in terms of three different concepts: his distinctive definition of free choice, self-determination, and the principle of alternative possibilities. Despite attempts (by both scholars and Anselm) to explain how these three concepts are related, I argue that their relationship is problematic. In particular, I argue that Anselm is guilty of conflating and equivocating with regard to these concepts. I further importantly claim that the conflation obscures the fact that his understanding of self-determination calls into question God’s excellence over that of the good angels. (shrink)

본 논문에서 자유의지 문제가 경험과학의 문제라는 발라규어의 ‘탈형이상학적’ 견해가 비판적으로 검토된다. 발라규어에 따르면, 모든 형이상학적인 문제는 1) 경험과학의 문제이 거나 2) 논리적인 문제이거나, 아니면 3) 무의미한 문제 중 하나이며, 자유의지 문제는 경험 과학의 문제에 속한다. 그는 선결정되지 않은 사건, 즉 ‘갈린 선택(torn decisions)’이 존 재하며, 이 주장은 신경과학을 통해 진위 여부가 판명 가능하다고 주장한다. 본 논문은 발라규어의 사건-인과 자유론이 크제 세 문제에 직면한다는 점을 보여준다. 첫째, 발라규어식 사건-인과 자유론의 핵심적인 개념들이 모두 경험 과학적 탐구 대상이 될 수 없으므로 ‘적용의 문제’가 (...) 발생한다. 둘째, 개별적인 심적 사건과 신경적 사건의 동일 관계가 식별 가능할지 의문이다. 셋째, 행위의 이유 중 ‘실천적 이유(practical reason)’ 는 심적 상태가 아니므로, 신경적 상태에 대한 고려만으로는 파악 가능하지 않다. (shrink)

According to Bergson , the traditional problem of free will is misconceived and arises from a mismatch between the quality of authentic, subjective experience and its description in language, in particular, the language of the mechanistic science of psychology. Contemporary western scientific concepts of the organism, on the other hand, are leading us beyond conventional thermodynamics as well as quantum theory and offering rigorous insights which reaffirm and extend our intuitive, poetic, and even romantic notions of spontaneity and (...) free will. I shall describe some new views of the organism arising from new findings in biology, in order to show how, in freeing itself from the ‘laws’ of physics, from mechanical determinism and mechanistic control, the organism becomes a sentient, coherent being that is free, from moment to moment, to explore and create its possible futures. (shrink)

Recently, some contradictory statements have been made concerning whether or not the Buddha taught free will. Here, a comparative method is used to examine what exactly is meant by free will, and to determine to what extent this meaning is applicable to early Buddhist thought as recorded in the Pāli Nikāyas. The comparative method reveals parallels between contemporary criticisms of Cartesian philosophy and Buddhist criticisms of Brahmanical and Jain doctrines. Although in Cartesian terms Buddhism promotes no (...) recognizable theory of free will, it does promote a primitive theory of compatibilism which shares some keyfeatures with Daniel Dennett's position on this issue. It is argued that the implicit Buddhist stance on freedom of the will allows the existence of choice and responsibility without calling upon an ultimate controlling agency that transcends the causal nexus of mind and body. (shrink)

This paper explores whether human proactivity can be considered an expression of free will. The discussion involves two paradigms, which are mutually complementary and encompass psychological proactivity and reactivity. Both paradigms raise the question of linear and non-linear determinism, which inevitably leads to the issue of free will. The analysis attempts to find a compromise between linear and non-linear determinism through the approach of human dialectical complexity (Lebed & Bar-Eli, 2013). This refers to the relationships of (...) two types of complex subsystems within a human: the perceptual-motor dynamic system (PMDS), which is mostly determined by linear impacts and expressed through reactive behavior, and the “free-will”Footnote1 complex system (FCS), which is mostly determined by non-linear redundant determinism and expressed through proactive dynamics. In summary, it is concluded that there cannot be a categorical assertion of the permanent existence of free will in human functioning. The human dialectical complexity expressed by both proactivity and reactivity causes the “floating” presence of free will depending on the prevalence of proactive control factors and the non-linear determination of a living human system. (shrink)

Philosophers often suggest that their theories of free will are supported by our phenomenology. Just as their theories conflict, their descriptions of the phenomenology of free will often conflict as well. We suggest that this should motivate an effort to study the phenomenology of free will in a more systematic way that goes beyond merely the introspective reports of the philosophers themselves. After presenting three disputes about the phenomenology of free (...) class='Hi'>will, we survey the (limited) psychological research on the experiences relevant to the philosophical debates and then describe some pilot studies of our own with the aim of encouraging further research. The data seem to support compatibilist descriptions of the phenomenology more than libertarian descriptions. We conclude that the burden is on libertarians to find empirical support for their more demanding metaphysical theories with their more controversial phenomenological claims. (shrink)

The cornerstone of the dominant folk theory of free will is the presumption that conscious intentions are, at least sometimes, causally related to subsequent ‘voluntary’ actions. Like all folk theories that have become ‘second nature', this model skews perception and cognition to highlight phenomena and interpretations that are consistent with itself, and pathologize or render invisible those that are not. A variety of experimental, neurological and everyday phenomena are reviewed that cumulatively cast doubt on this comforting folk (...) model. An alternative view, more consistent with the evidence, sees intentions and actions as co-arising in complex neural systems that are capable of anticipating the outcomes of their own ongoing processing. Such tentative predictions, when they become conscious, are appropriated by a ‘self system’ that believes itself to be instigatory, and reframed as ‘commands'. This confusion between prediction and control is hypothesized to arise particularly in selves that are identified in terms of a complex proliferation of partially conflicting goal-states. Such a system routinely needs to carry out detailed and time-consuming analyses of the motivational character of situations, thus creating the conditions in which anticipatory neural states surface into consciousness. The experience of ‘self control’ occurs when the system successfully predicts the dominance of a ‘higher', more long-term or a priori less likely goal state, over another that is seen as ‘lower', short-term or more likely. (shrink)

Kant is entitled to his claim that determinism and incompatibilist moral responsibility coexist if he is interpreted as holding that each agent qua noumenon is atemporally responsible for the particular causal laws which necessitate the actions of that agent qua temporal phenomenon. The fact of causal necessitation is imposed on the empirical world a priori by theoretical reason, and it serves to objectively temporally order phenomena. This imposition is purely formal, however, and explains only the epistemically necessary features of the (...) causal series---i.e. the universal fact that there are deterministically necessitating causal laws. Theoretical reason also generates the empirical, a posteriori types under which particular causal laws appear. But theoretical reason is not responsible for the fact that some particular causal laws obtain rather than some others, i.e. it is not responsible for the fact that some particular laws are actual rather than merely possible. Noumena are responsible for the obtaining of particular causal laws, and some noumena are human agents. ;Qua noumena, we are responsible for the obtaining of the particular causal laws which necessitate our phenomenal actions. Our free actions qua noumena are choices of maxims, not choices of causal laws. Our choices of maxims appear in inner sense as temporally extended phenomena of empirical psychology, necessitated by particular causal laws. The practical types under which we choose our maxims and the theoretical a posteriori types and laws under which these choices appear to us are entirely different, and we cannot know why they correlate as they do. But we can know that they correlate: if our choices of maxims had been different, they would have yielded different appearances. We can explain how these appearances could have been different in terms of the fact that noumena are responsible for the obtaining of particular causal laws. If our noumenal choices had been different, their appearances would have been necessitated according to different laws. (shrink)

The Theory of Important Criteria is used to argue that the age?old problem of the compatibility of free will and determinism turns on the question of the importance of causal indeterminacy of choice as a criterion of being able to do otherwise. One's answer to this question depends in turn on one's evaluation of certain moral issues and of the force and significance of certain similes, analogies and diagrams in terms of which one can ?depict? a deterministic universe. (...) It is further argued that the problem of free will and determinism is not a pseudo?problem, but a genuine problem that is hard to solve because of the depth and complexity of the evaluative issues on which it hangs. (shrink)

An overview of my work arguing that peer-to-peer computer networking (the Peer-to-Peer Simulation Hypothesis) may be the best explanation of quantum phenomena and a number of perennial philosophical problems.

Business ethics’ theories have come under a lot of criticism lately. The problem has been the lack of a philosophical base or the inadequate implementation of it. We are trying to solve this problem by examining the roots of ethics and then applying it to the business environment. The root that has been undeservedly overlooked has been the concept of free will, the oldest philosophical problem on which every ethics theory lies. We have chosen two theories (...) that we think would be the best base for business ethics. We will shortly present the others. Since free will presents the core of business ethics, business ethicists must first agree on which theory to implement. Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ theory of free will best amplify the core of economic theory, because it gives reason a central and most important role in the theory. The concept of free will is mainly philosophical as is business ethics so the article follows this tradition, but we tried to give business examples where possible. We do not give a final conclusion because it should be reached by debate and mutual agreement between business ethicists. (shrink)

The traditional disputants in the free will discussion--the libertarian, soft determinist, and hard determinist--agree that free will is a coherent concept, while disagreeing on how the concept might be satisfied and whether it can, in fact, be satisfied. In this innovative analysis, Richard Double offers a bold new argument, rejecting all of the traditional theories and proposing that the concept of free will cannot be satisfied, no matter what the nature of reality. Arguing (...) that there is unavoidable conflict within our understanding of moral responsibility and free choice, Double seeks to prove that when we ascribe responsibility, blame, or freedom, we merely express attitudes, rather than state anything capable of truth or falsity. Free will, he concludes, is essentially an incoherent notion. (shrink)

In this book, Christopher Evan Franklin develops and defends a novel version of event-causal libertarianism. This view is a combination of libertarianism--the view that humans sometimes act freely and that those actions are the causal upshots of nondeterministic processes--and agency reductionism--the view that the causal role of the agent in exercises of free will is exhausted by the causal role of mental states and events (e.g., desires and beliefs) involving the agent. Franklin boldly counteracts a dominant theory that (...) has similar aims, put forth by well-known philosopher Robert Kane. -/- Many philosophers contend that event-causal libertarians have no advantage over compatibilists when it comes to securing a distinctively valuable kind of freedom and responsibility. To Franklin, this position is mistaken. Assuming agency reductionism is true, event-causal libertarians need only adopt the most plausible compatibilist theory and add indeterminism at the proper juncture in the genesis of human action. The result is minimal event-causal libertarianism: a model of free will with the metaphysical simplicity of compatibilism and the intuitive power of libertarianism. And yet a worry remains: toward the end of the book, Franklin reconsiders his assumption of agency reductionism, arguing that this picture faces a hitherto unsolved problem. This problem, however, has nothing to do with indeterminism or determinism, or even libertarianism or compatibilism, but with how to understand the nature of the self and its role in the genesis of action. Crucially, if this problem proves unsolvable, then not only is event-causal libertarianism untenable, so also is event-causal compatibilism. (shrink)

We argue, contra Joshua Knobe in a companion chapter, that most people have an understanding of free will and responsible agency that is compatible with a naturalistic vision of the human mind. Our argument is supported by results from a new experimental philosophy study showing that most people think free will is consistent with complete and perfect prediction of decisions and actions based on prior activity in the brain (a scenario adapted from Sam Harris who predicts (...) most people will find it inconsistent with free will). We explain why most people are "theory-lite" about the nature of mind and free will--they are not committed to substantive theories of the underlying causal structure of mind, such as Knobe's "transcendence vision". Rather, we suggest a "causal competition principle"--that an agent's actions will be deemed unfree when they are perceived to be fully caused by factors that do not include her reasons. This principle explains why people, including some scientists, perceive neuroscientific explanations as threatening free will when they are described in terms of neural processes fully causing actions to the exclusion of agents' reasons or reasoning processes. (shrink)

The concept of individual free will is difficult to reconcile with a materialist view of the brain. The debate over “free will” involves a series of several questions about the origin of human actions, and their resulting social, legal, and ethical implications. This article sets out the reasons that scientific questions regarding free will have important ethical and social consequences. It then considers the neuroscientific debate over whether a conscious experience of volition does or (...) does not precede the brain's preparation for action. It outlines that conscious volition is a consequence of brain activity, perhaps linked to the capacity to inhibit ongoing actions. A major objection to this view is reviewed, based on social psychological studies of unconscious determinants of behavior, and of attribution theory. Finally, some specific issues for neuroethical debate are suggested. (shrink)

This book explains, in simple but accurate terms, how orthodox quantum mechanics works. The author, a distinguished theoretical physicist, shows how this theory, realistically interpreted, assigns an important role to our conscious free choices. Stapp claims that mainstream biology and neuroscience, despite nearly a century of quantum physics, still stick essentially to failed classical precepts in which mental intentions have no effect upon our bodily actions. He shows how quantum mechanics provides a rational basis for a better understanding of (...) this connection, even allowing an explanation of certain phenomena currently held to be "paranormal". These ideas have major implications for our understanding of ourselves and our mental processes, and thus also for the meaningfulness of our lives. (shrink)

Are free will and determinism compatible? Philosophical focus on this deceptively simple `compatibility question' has historically been so pervasive that the entire free will debate is now standardly framed in its terms - that is, as a dispute between compatibilists, who answer the question affirmatively, and incompatibilists, who respond in the negative. This dissertation, in contrast, adopts a position that I call `descriptive variantism,' according to which prevailing notions of free will exhibit significant aspects (...) of both compatibilism and incompatibilism. My formulation and defense of this position provides a framework for considering several important issues that cannot be adequately addressed on the traditional conception of the free will debate. The theoretical advantages of descriptive variantism become apparent, I argue, only after adopting needed refinements to the compatibility question itself. As it stands, this question conflates at least two distinct issues: whether free will, as ordinarily understood, does in fact conflict with determinism, and whether free will should be taken to involve such a conflict. The vast majority of work in this area, I maintain, implies that (a) the shared notion of free will exemplified in everyday usage conforms exclusively to either compatibilism or incompatibilism, and (b) the (singular) position suggested by this shared notion constitutes the most adequate response to the compatibility question. This is a mistake: it ignores several other possibilities, among them the prospect that multiple `shared notions' are implicated in the complex network of judgments, attitudes, and social practices related to free will. Having reformulated various aspects of the free will debate in ways that address these issues, I go on to argue that no single account of free will can underwrite the broad range of phenomena associated with this notion. Most importantly, I maintain that contextual features, especially those related to abstraction and concreteness, engender significantly different notions of free will: abstract contexts tend to elicit judgments and other behaviors conducive to incompatibilism, while concreteness often promotes tendencies best captured by compatibilist theories. I support these empirical claims primarily by drawing out the conceptual implications of recent experimental work on these topics in a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, and defend my interpretation against alternative accounts that purport to `explain away' the contextual differences exhibited in the experimental data. If these claims are correct, then the fundamental conflicts inherent in prevailing notions of free will have the potential to manifest themselves in some highly problematic ways. For example, criminal laws enacted in abstract contexts may presuppose constraints on free agency deeply at odds with those implicitly adopted by jurors evaluating concrete violations of these laws. I attempt to make some preliminary progress on these vexing, but vital, issues by suggesting that revision towards compatibilism represents an initially appealing method of resolving some of these practical difficulties. Importantly, though, this suggestion is tentative, particularly insofar as the extent to which such revision is ultimately desirable, feasible, or even psychologically possible remains unclear. Further consideration of these issues thus constitutes an important avenue for future research. (shrink)

This is a contribution to a Book symposium on The Limits of Free Will: Selected Essays by Paul Russell. Russell provides replies to three critics of The Limits of Free Will. The first reply is to Robert Wallace and focuses on the question of whether there is a conflict between the core compatibilist and pessimist components of the "critical compatibilist" position that Russell has advanced. The second reply is to Angela Smith's discussion of the "narrow" interpretation (...) of moral responsibility responsibility (as defended by R. Jay Wallace) and how best to respond to it. The third and last reply is concerned with Christopher Bennett's criticism of Russell's views concerning "motivational scepticism" and the possibility of pure practical reasons. (shrink)

Adopting meta‐level Free Will Subjectivism is one among several ways to maintain that persons never experience moral freedom in their choices. The other ways of arguing against moral freedom I consider are presented by Saul Smilansky, Ted Honderich, Bruce Waller, Galen Strawson, and Derk Pereboom. In this paper, without arguing for the acceptance of free will subjectivism, I argue that subjectivism has some moral and theoretical advantages over its kindred theories.

This paper argues that decision theory presupposes free will. Although decision theorists seldom acknowledge this, the way decision theory represents, explains, or rationalizes choice behaviour acquires its intended interpretation only under the assumption that decision-makers are agents capable of making free choices between alternative possibilities. Without that assumption, both normative and descriptive decision theory, including the revealed-preference paradigm, would have to be reinterpreted in implausible ways. The hypothesis that decision-makers have free will is therefore explanatorily (...) indispensable for decision theory. If we regard explanatory indispensability as an indicator of reality in science, decision theorists should embrace the idea of free will. (shrink)

In this paper I question the claim that the increasingly popular position known as ‘free-will theism’ or ‘the open view of God’ supports a rich religious life. To do this I advance a notion of ‘religious adequacy’, and then argue that free-will theism fails to be religiously adequate with respect to one of the principal practices of the religious life – petitionary prayer. Drawing on current work in libertarian free-will theory, I consider what are (...) likely the only two lines of defence free-will theists might use in response to my argument. I argue that these defences either fail or have features that make them unacceptable to free-will theists. I then suggest that this failure with petitionary prayer is an instance of a larger problem for free-will theism, that the position's distinctive views often differ more dramatically from the common beliefs and practices of most believers than is usually recognized or acknowledged. I conclude that free-will theism can support a rich religious life only for those who make the requisite changes in belief and practice, including changing their expectations about petitionary prayer. (shrink)