Pope Plagiarizes Wolf?

Well, I doubt it, but I thought we needed a new post with a catchy title to get things going.  Pope Benedict at the World Youth Day said:  "Freedom is not simply about enjoying life in total autonomy, but rather about living by the measure of truth and goodness so that we ourselves can become true and good."  The language is remarkably similar to Susan Wolf's language in her wonderful Freedom Within Reason, where she suggests that free will (of the sort associated with moral responsibility) does not require what she calls "autonomy"--the ability to do otherwise--but rather requires the ability to act in accord with the True and the Good (roughly, so that we ourselves can become true and good).  Just thought I'd point out the coincidence (I'm assuming the Pope has not read Wolf)...but if anyone wants to say what they think is wrong with Wolf's view, if anything, that may start a good discussion.

The Time Traveler's Freedom

At the moment I'm reading Audrey Niffenegger's relatively new book called The Time Traveler's Wife, and although I'm not usually one for novels (I mostly stick with philosophy, for some reason), I'm really enjoying it.  It's a fascinating story about a man who has a condition that forces him to involuntarily travel through time -- he visits his wife when she is a child, befriends her in the past, and she grows up always knowing who her future husband will be.  And it's consistent time travel, too, which makes it all the more enjoyable.  Anyway, I thought the following exchange might be of interest to you all -- this is a scene in which Henry's March 1979 self has involuntarily traveled back to visit his November 1978 self.  The dialogue (or perhaps it's a soliloquy?) runs as follows:

Henry 1: Free Will?

Henry 2: I was just talking about that with a self from 1992.  He said something interesting: he said that he thinks there is only free will when you are in time, in the present.  He says in the past we can only do what we did, and we can only be there if we were there.

Henry 1: But whenever I am, that's my present.  Shouldn't I be able to decide...

Henry 2: No. Apparently not.

Henry 1: What did he say about the future?

Henry 2: Well, think.  You go to the future, you do something, you come back to the present.  Then the thing that you did is part of your past.  So that's probably inevitable too.

Henry 1: But then I'm not responsible for anything I do while I'm not in the present.

Henry 2: Thank God.

Henry 1: And everything has already happened.

Henry 2: Sure looks that way.  But he said that you have to behave as though you have free will, as though you are responsible for what you do.

Henry 1: Why?  What does it matter?

Henry 2: Apparently, if you don't, things are bad.  Depressing.

Shameless self-promotion is the new modesty

In addition to the recent orgy of free will articles in Midwest Studies that Kip mentioned, the latest issue of Metaphilosophy features the symposium on Daniel Dennett's Freedom Evolves (or, as Al Mele suggests in his essay, Elbow Pad) that was presented in draft form on the papers blog a while back. The authors include Dennett, John Fischer, Al Mele, Tim O'Connor, and yours truly.

Not that anyone needs more free will reading at this point in the summer.