Cognitive Biases and Free Will Part 3: Oodles of Biases

Google tells me that the fundamental attribution error (FAE) was first mentioned at the Garden of Forking Paths on Halloween 2004—by myself. This was about twenty months before I discovered Wikipedia’s list of cognitive biases (which I highly recommend) and before I knew anything much about that literature.

But to show that I’m not the only one who considers such biases to be important for the issues discussed here, consider this passage from a book by John Doris (who recently contributed to the GFP Reading Group):

“It is not obvious, then, that situationism unduly complicates standard approaches to the infamous “problem of free will.” Their troubles – if one thinks they have troubles – are of their own making. My trouble is that I think situationism does uniquely problematize two notions central to thinking on responsibility – normative competence (Wolf 1990) and identification (Frankfurt 1988) – notions important in developing compatibilisms with enough psychological texture to provide satisfying underpinnings for the reactive attitudes.”

[Where situationism asserts that: “behavior is—contra the old saw about character and destiny—extraordinarily sensitive to variation in circumstance.]

Note the tension between “it is not obvious, then, that situationism [would make problems for] standard approaches to the free will problem”, on the one hand, and “situationism does uniquely problematize two notions… important in developing compatibilisms…” I would say that Doris is being too modest here about the consequences situationism has for compatibilism.

But situationism and the FAE (two similar, but distinct, concepts which show how people underappreciate the influence of the environment) are just the beginning. As a casual glance of the list of cognitive biases shows, there are oodles and oodles of such biases, and many of them would seem to be relevant to the free will problem.

For an introduction to such biases, consider the following: Daniel Kahneman, one of the cofounders of the heuristics and biases field, has published an article in Foreign Policy arguing that the many cognitive biases are relevant to the question “should we go to war?” and that most or all of them support hawks. The article makes what I will call an Argument from Asymmetrical Vulnerability to Biases (AAVB): because many biases favor hawks and few favor doves, we should be especially skeptical of the hawk’s claims.

In my unpublished article The View from Nowhere through a Distorted Lens, I make an AAVB argument about the free will problem. The relevance of some of these biases to the free will problem is obvious:

The FAE
The illusion of control
The just world phenomenon
Demonization and biased recall of transgressions

What is interesting about this list is: all of these biases favor belief in free will. They let us believe, to the point of error, that character and not environment explains actions, that we have control over our lives, that the world is fundamentally just, and that the actions of wrongdoers are inexplicable and unpredictable.

If you think that I have cherry-picked this list, please feel free to suggest which biases would favor disbelief in free will. I only know of one potential such bias: the anchoring effect, suggested by an article by John Fischer, and I think there is an excellent rejoinder to those who assert its relevance here (details may be found in my unpublished manuscript).

How far my AAVB argument will work will depend, like Kahneman’s AAVB argument, upon (i) how true it is that each bias is relevant, (ii) how asymmetrical the vulnerability to bias really is, and (iii) the magnitude of relevance of each bias. I expect resistance on all fronts, more or less according to each bias.

With respect to (iii), it might be that many biases are relevant to the free will problem, they all happen to favor belief in free will, but the magnitude of their effects, especially upon expert Ph.ds, is small. I doubt this. But I think this is the best strategy for compatibilists and libertarians to pursue.

Whether this is the best strategy or not, I would suggest that Gardeners (and others working in this field) begin to address the heuristics and biases literature. As philosophers begin to use more the tools of psychology, I expect more arguments like Greene’s (previous post), Doris’ (above) and my own to appear. It will be fascinating to see how each responds to these challenges.

Finally, some questions (to stimulate, if I can, some discussion):

1. How      relevant do you think these biases are to the free will problem? Might some be relevant but with only      small effects? Might others be      relevant and with very large effects?
2. How      asymmetrical do you think the vulnerability to bias is, considering the      various camps in the free will debate?

Comments

[Paul Torek]

Most arguments for free will denialism either rely on incompatibilism or rely on principles that can be seen as generalizations of those advocated by incompatibilists. Transfer principles like TNR are particularly notable here. So, one relevant nexus of the cognitive biases question is whether any of the known biases would favor or disfavor belief in incompatibilism, or TNR. In accordance with Myside Bias, then :-), here is my list.

Mind Projection Fallacy is the notion that probabilities represent intrinsic properties of physics rather than a description of one's knowledge of the situation. This would of course extend to our judgments about the probability of our own or others' actions. Certainty about human behavior is hard to achieve, so this bias would lead us to view objective uncertainty as endemic if not intrisic to mental causation. In short, we are likely to see mental causation as we know and love it as being incompatible with determinism.

Congruence bias is a preference for testing a hypothesis by looking for the evidence it predicts ("direct tests") rather than by looking for evidence against it ("indirect tests"). Now apply this to the hypothesis that, necessarily, if you're not responsible for A, and A causes B, then you're not responsible for B. The bias will move us to come up with examples which are known to be deterministic, and in which you're not responsible for A. It's the "known to be deterministic" part which is problematic, because such examples will decidedly not include the kind of decision-making which compatibilists contend is responsible. We simply don't have any compelling scientific evidence on the determinism or indeterminism of ordinary human action. Therefore, all our direct tests will involve extraordinary cases: Nefarious Neurosurgeons, Harmful Hypnotists, and the like. With this biased data set, the hypothesis will have a 100% success rate, making it look awfully good.

[Eddy Nahmias]

In my book in progress, Free Will and the Sciences of the Mind, I discuss the various ways scientific theories of human cognition may threaten free will and the capacities required for moral responsibility. These theories include the situationist research in social psychology, as well as the related work suggesting our poor introspective abilities (see, e.g., T. Wilson 2002), which, like Doris, I take to suggest significant challenges to free will (I have written about this a lot). But I also argue that many of these theories, including social psychology but more clearly the Libet and Wegner work, does NOT present a viable threat to free will, usually because its implications are misunderstood, especially by the scientists presenting them. Finally, I also argue that scientific theories can help explain how we have the (degree of) free will we have--by explaining how we have the cognitive capacities required for free agency.

Before this discussion in the book, I develop my theory of free will, but the main point I make and the one I wanted to highlight given Kip's post, is that the potential threats posed by sciences of the mind are entirely distinct from the purported threat posed by determinism. These threats are not based on any TNR principles or the fact that there is a sufficient explanation for our actions based on events that ultimately trace outside us or any of the arguments for incompatibilism. The scientific threats, rather, have to do with theories and evidence that suggest we do not have the capacities we tend to think we have to act on our reasons, our deliberations, our reflectively endorsed desires, etc. (basically, various compatibilist capacities).

The upshot is that Kip may be right that cognitive biases, etc. threaten our free will, but:
1) the evidence is not in, and much of the current research does not address crucial questions (e.g., how much our actions are caused by our conscious deliberations when we actually deliberate consciously);
2) the evidence will likely show that we have less free will than we think rather than that we have none at all (hence my "neurotic compatibilism" rather than "skeptical compatibilism"); and
3) these scientific threats are distinct from the threat incompatibilists argue is posed by determinism (or similarly structured arguments like the Basic argument), in part because they are not "all-or-nothing" type threats and in part because they do not require the truth of determinism nor does determinism require the thruth of such theories.

Sorry to go through this synopsis of my views here, but I wanted to try to head off a few problems I see in the way Kip is presenting things (while also pointing out that he is, in my view, raising very interesting issues that certainly do bear crucially on the free will debate).

[Kip Werking]

First: Where's Neil when we need him?

Second, here are responses to the great comments by Paul and Eddy. I wish I could write more but (i) I need to study for the patent bar and (ii) I write enough comments to the GFP as it is.

For Paul:

The Mind Projection is a good find. I had not even considered that. You frame the issue such that the bias would lead us, mistakenly, to think incompatibilism is true. But my initial reaction was: this is another bias that favors belief in free will. Of coure, there is an obvious sense in which the bias favors belief in (libertarian) free will. My reaction seems to be in tension with your "bias favors incompatibilism" reaction... where did we go wrong?

This raises a crucial point, and one that is relevant to Eddy's comment too: these biases might not just infect how we apply given concepts, they might also infect the concepts themselves.

Let me give an example: suppose, a la the illusion of control, we tend to think we have 90% control, when they actually only have 80% (I'm using arbitrary numbers, and a crude scale, just to make a point). Now, over the ages, when a person says "this person has free will" or "that person is morally responsible" do they just mean:

A. This person has the 80% control they needed for free will and moral responsibility. Indeed, they have even more than that!

Or, might they come to mean:

B. This person has the 90% control they need for free will and moral responsibility, and no less will do, because this amount of control is just what free will means, and it is a condition for moral responsibility.

This is all very rough. But the point is: even small errors in judgment, over the years, can infect our concepts, such that we end up with inflated or overly demanding concepts.

Suppose B is on the right track. Then the Mind Projection bias does not undermine incompatibilism... it explains it! (My crucial distinction between concepts and inferences becomes relevant again here.) If a bias leads us to make an inferential error, then that remains an error. But if a bias leads us to use a term in an overly demanding way, over the years, that doesn't mean the definition of the term is wrong. We're stuck with that definition.

Regarding congruence bias: all parties in the debate would seem to be vulnerable to this bias. I don't see any necessary asymmetry.

But you do raise an interesting example. I wonder, though, why you cite the nefarious neurosurgeon, and hypnotist, as examples giving an unfair advantage to TNR, when you've repeatedly say that "responsibility multiplies." If responsibility multiplies in this way, would the nefarious neurosurgeon, and hypnotist, examples (or at the very least, Mele's Zygote Argument example), show that TNR is false, not true? If responsibility just multiplies, as you suggest, I think the ordinary person should come away, after reading these examples, saying "wow, the agent here is just as guilty and blameworthy as the neurosurgeon/hynotist/God." But I doubt most people would say this.

Eddy:

Thanks for your post. Your book sounds fascinating and I can't wait to read it. And I agree that the Libet reseach, etc., is not terribly relevant here (at least not relevant to the problems that interest me).

I do want to address your points in turn:

1. Not all of the evidence is in. But much of it is. The fundamental attribution error, the illusion of control, the just world phenomenon, these biases aren't going to change any time soon. I want to caution against saddling non-realist (or any other view) with unnecessary burdens of proof. One of the great things about using the psychology and social science literature is that so much of the work is already done for us.

2. I'm glad that you'll at least give us this much. But to repeat a point I've made over the years: how fair is it to talk about free will as admitting degrees? Even if there is a sense in which it admits of degrees, and a sense in which it is all-or-nothing, how fair is it to just ignore the all-or-nothing sense? Philosophers have noted that the all or nothing sense is certainly the traditional sense of the term. It seems unfair, and a little too convenient, to start speaking about free will as if we can have more or less of it. Such talk just assumes, without argument, that free will is not importantly like a soul. We don't believe in souls and we don't think that souls can be divided. They are immaterial, indivisible, and related to various religious ideas. But free will has often been regarded in just this way: immaterial, indivisible, and related to various religious ideas. Consider, for example, the pineal gland. The compatibilist needs to at least produce some argument to show why this stronger conception of the term can be discarded so easily.

3. I do not entirely disagree with you here. But I do largely disagree with you. The issue is very thorny and complex, and involves several of the problems discussed in the "Intuitions" thread. I don't have the time to explore these issues in depth here, however fascinating they are. To get a sense for my approach to the problem you raise, you can read the relevant portion of my response to Paul above.

[john m. doris]

Thanks Kip, for this thread. I think I still believe what I said about situationism and agency, but I think the automaticity literature presents a(n even) more unsettling challenge, and badly needs to be sorted out. I'm glad folks around here are working on it, and I look forward to Eddy's book. If any one wants to read 90-odd (!) pages of hand-wringing about automaticity, drop me a note in Feb.

Forward Ho,

Doris

[Justin Coates]

Kip wrote:

"it seems unfair, and a little too convenient, to start speaking about free will as if we can have more or less of it. Such talk just assumes, without argument, that free will is not importantly like a soul."

This strikes me as curious, so I'll try to offer a compatibilist response.

Purely structural compatibilist accounts of freedom (might) hold that an agent S acts freely iff S identifies her lower-order desires with her higher-order volitions. Now, if something like this is sufficient for free will, then it seems possible that free will would allow degrees to the same extent that the concept of "identify" admits of degrees.

It seems right to say that one can identify with desires to different degrees. For instance, I identify with my first-order desire to watch the Colts and the Patriots next Sunday, and I also identify with my first-order desire to make sure my plans for my wife's birthday go off without any problems. But I don't identify with these desires to the same degree. So maybe that has the apparently odd consequence that I'm more free in making my wife's birthday a memorable one than I am in sitting on the couch watching a football game next Sunday, but I'm not so sure that this is odd at all. In fact I would rather be more free (and subsequently more responsible) for the former than the latter, and this, I think, in no way vitiates my freedom (and subsequent responsibility) in the latter case. I freely sit on my duff and watch several hours of mindless entertainment.

Furthermore, we might also think that because moral responsibility admits of degrees that free will does so as well. Suppose Mao didn't properly foresee that implementing his Great Leap Forward would result in the starvation of millions of Chinese. We still hold him responsible for implementing this program because he should have foreseen that you can't efficiently smelt steel in backyard furnaces, etc. But consider Mao*. Unlike Mao, Mao* knows that implementing the Great Leap Forward will result in the starvation of millions (to little or no significant benefit). It certainly seems plausible to think that Mao* is more responsible than Mao given his foreknowledge of the situation.

Now I realize that even if I have shown that the concepts

(1) S identifies with X, and
(2) S responsibly Xs

admit of degrees, they are conceptually distinct from the concept in question

(3) S freely Xs.

But hopefully, given the biconditional relationship between (1) and (3) that some compatibilists suggest, it doesn't seem implausible to think that where (1) allows for degrees, (3) does also. Moreover, it is the knowledge requirement on responsibility that makes Mao* more responsible than Mao, but some compatibilists (I think Eddy might fall in this category) would have an analogous knowledge requirement for free will. And this makes it plausible, I suppose, to assume that as (2) admits of degrees (3) does as well.

[john m. doris]

Actually, my view is that free will *is* importantly like a soul ;) Doris

[Kip Werking]

Justin:

1. I think a Frankfurt-type concept of free will and/or moral responsibility begs the question against the non-realist just as much as Eddy's earlier comment (or so I argue). One way to see the deficiency in Frankfurt's account is to consider his hard compatibilist admission:

A manipulator may succeed, through his interventions, in providing a person not merely with particular feelings and thoughts but with a new character. That person is then morally responsible for the choices and the conduct to which having this character leads. We are inevitably fashioned and sustained, after all, by circumstances over which we have no control. The causes to which we are subject may also change us radically, without thereby bringing it about that we are not morally responsible agents. It is irrelevant whether those causes are operating by virtue of the natural forces that shape our environment or whether they operate through the deliberate manipulative designs of other human agents (2002).

And ask whether this really captures what people mean by the terms "free will" and "moral responsibility." You can also consider Mele's Zygote Example.

2. I would distinguish not just between your (1), (2), and (3), but also between your (3) and "free will." If you consider ordinary language I think the adjective "freely" is applied to actions more casually, and implies less, than the noun "free will" does. I think this is a subtle, but important, point.

3. All your post argues for, I think, is plausibility. But I granted the plausibility of this. I didn't dismiss the compatibilist account out of hand. Instead, I wrote:

Even if there is a sense in which it admits of degrees, and a sense in which it is all-or-nothing, how fair is it to just ignore the all-or-nothing sense?... The compatibilist needs to at least produce some argument to show why this stronger conception of the term can be discarded so easily.

In other words: mere plausibility will not suffice to rebut the non-realist's stronger conception. We need more argument or evidence, etc.

[Paul Torek]

Kip,

There's no tension between Mind Projection's favoring libertarian free will and its favoring incompatibilism. It's both. But it does favor libertarian free will more directly, and incompatibilism only indirectly and more weakly.

You're right that Congruence Bias could in principle also work in favor of compatibilist principles. But it could work against them too. For any principle "If A then B", Congruence Bias will make us look for A's and neglect non-B's. Congruence Bias will make us more inclined to accept a principle than we should be, if that principle successfully treats clear cases of A, while meeting its greatest challenges in cases that are clear or probable examples of non-B and are doubtfully A. Congruence Bias may make us more skeptical of a principle than we should be, if the principle meets its greatest challenges in cases that are clearly/probably A and of doubtful B status, while being highly successful with clear/probable cases of non-B.

[Paul Torek]

Correction: make that

Congruence Bias will make us more inclined to accept a principle than we should be, if that principle successfully treats clear cases of A, while meeting its greatest challenges in cases that are clear or probable examples of non-B and are of doubtful non-A status.

[Justin Coates]

Kip,

(1)I suppose one reason to ignore the strong conception is Frankfurt's reason: that compatibilist accounts of free will are all the free will worth having, but clearly, you're not satisfied with these accounts of free will, so I won't suggest this as a dialectically appropriate response.

(2)It seems as if the folk think of moral (or at least legal) responsibility in terms of degrees. The folk recognize that someone who murders their cheating spouse in a moment of passion isn't as responsible as someone who coldly calculates their spouse's murder to cash in on an insurance policy. The evidence of this recognition, I take it, is the various types of murder and manslaughter charges.

Now perhaps you could say these different charges are there for consequentialist reasons, but I suspect that the folk believe in DEMR.

If this is right, then although

(2) S responsibly Xs, and
(3') S freely wills X

are conceptually distinct, many people think of them as importantly connected. And if this is right, where one comes in degrees, it seems as if we have strong reason to suppose that the other might as well.

But the success of this response hinges on two issues: first, whether the folk believe that moral responsibility comes in degrees, and second, whether the folk believe that (2) entails (3'). And these are obviously empirical questions to which I currently have no answer. Nevertheless, I have my suspicions, and if they're correct, then it seems as if we do have a reason to favor the degrees conception of free will over the all-or-nothing conception of free will.

[Justin Coates]

I should note that where I say

"Nevertheless, I have my suspicions [about the folk's intuitions], and if they're correct, then it seems as if we do have a reason to favor the degrees conception of free will over the all-or-nothing conception of free will"

I don't mean anything like: "The Folk say P, therefore P." I only mean that ceteris paribus, a conception of free will that jives closely with the common usage of the concept is to be preferred. Of course, the folk's conception can be outweighed by a whole host of philosophical considerations.

Sorry for the double post.

[Joe Campbell]

Quick question for John Doris and/or Kip: In what way is "free will ... importantly like a soul"?

I've used a similar analogy before with my students but the analogy was between a certain conception of free will, e.g., the libertarian agency theory, and Cartesian dualism. (I should note that most libertarian agency theorists are NOT Cartesian dualists; that was not the point behind my analogy.)

[Eddy Nahmias]

Presumably, there is an all-or-none sense of free will even if it comes in degrees. Ants have none, perhaps God (if he existed) would have all, but we seemingly possess some degree of it (and we then exercise it to varying degrees in particular actions)--and as Justin points out, we are morally responsible to a degree that roughly tracks the extent to which we possess and exercise free will. This conception of free will would be no different than cognitive capacities, like the ability to do arithmetic, which ants possess not at all, individual humans possess to varying degrees (in part based on maturation and learning), and individuals exercise to varying degrees in various situations.

Incompatibilist arguments aim to show that we possess no free will at all (or that nothing could possess any free will). In that sense, they are suggesting that, when it comes to free will, we're no different than ants. But even such arguments could agree that, IF we possessed any free will, we would possess it in varying degrees. (I don't know if any incompatibilists think that way.)

Finally, if scientific theories or evidence challenge our possession of free will, it is very hard to see how they would suggest that no one has any at all (in the way determinism or the impossibility of agent causation is supposed to show). Perhaps a Libet or Wegner argument could do it if they could show that consciousness never plays any causal role in our decisions or actions (and if free will requires that consciousness plays such a role). Of course, those conclusions are not supported by the data (or the argumentation).

But the work in psychology (automaticity, situationism, cognitive biases, etc.) all seem to be "degree claims"--that is, they suggest we don't have *as much* conscious control as we think, or don't act on reasons we would endorse as often as we think, etc. And I think the work in evolutionary psychology (and genetics) and neuroscience suggests similar potential threats to the degrees of freedom we have.

Going back to my first claim above about the evidence not being in: If any of the scientific claims are meant to show we have *no* free will at all, then the evidence is far (very far) from in. Having said that, I don't want to give the impression that I think the scientific work is not significant to the free will debate--quite the contrary. It is highly significant (much more so, in my view, than some esoteric thesis about causation that physicists may or may not (be able to) show to be true). But the degree to which the relevant scientific work challenges our free will is still a largely open question that awaits more empirical work as well as more philosophical analysis.

[Kip Werking]

Here are some short comments for Justin, Joe and Eddy:

Justin:

1. I do think this isn't a good reason to use the weaker concept at the expense of the stronger. But more importantly, is this even Frankfurt's reason? I ask because I honestly don't know. I know that Dennett focuses upon the varieties of free will worth wanting, but, as far as I know, Frankfurt feels he is capturing just what free will is (without ignoring any variety of it). I would be interested to know what his more detailed position is.
2. I think the folk's views about free will and moral responsibility are: vague and confused (in part of because of cognitive biases), such that sometimes they are more compatibilist, and admitting-of-degrees, inclined, and other times they are more incompatibilist, and all-or-nothing, inclined. The Nichols & Knobe results suggest at least one example of this. Thus when you say that the folk seem to think responsibility admits of degrees, I can grant the plausibility of that claim while also suspecting that it focuses upon the compatibilist/admitting-of-degress straing of thought, at the expense of the incompatibilist/all-or-nothing one.

For example, I imagine that if you asked people whether Osama bin Laden was responsible for the September 11th attacks, many or most would say he is absolutely, 100% responsibility, without consideration of his childhood and genetics, without consideration of potential mitigating circumstances. In other words, there is at least one important sense of free will and moral responsibility, according to which we tend to believe that we and others can be morally responsible in what Galen Strawson calls the "heaven and hell" sense: so responsible as to justify punishment in hell forever.

Strawson's example also reveals our concepts of free will and moral responsibility as carrying with them much religious baggage, which compatibilists, I think, are often too quick to ignore.

We could keep going around in circles like this, but I think we both agree that future empirical research, about what these terms mean, and also about how people think, will help settle these questions. Along those lines, it's important to note the various cognitive biases I have mentioned, especially the biased recall of transgressions, which supports the idea that people would think of Osama bin Laden in the way I describe.

Joe:

I meant "importantly like a soul" in the sense that people may regard free will as (i) immaterial (ii) indivisible and (iii) intimately related to precious religious beliefs. I am not sure what John meant by his comment.

Eddy:

You still seem to be assuming that free will admits of degrees. In other words, you seem to be assuming that if you said to the average Joe on the street "how much free will do you have", that this wouldn't sound awkward to his ear, that the person wouldn't think "How much? What is this guy talking about? It's free will! You either have it or don't!"

[On a lighter note, when considering whether we have free will, and whether it admits of degrees, it's important to remember:

The Wisdom of Bruce Campbell ]

I don't see any argument showing why we should ignore this other sense of free will, the sense that G. Strawson and Tamler and I seem more familiar with, where free will is importantly like a soul (immaterial, indivisible, and so on).

And as I mentioned earlier, I have reservations about just how much, or little, the psychology and social science literature can show about the all-or-nothing sense of free will. I suspect it can show more than you seem to think. But that is an argument for another day.

[john m. doris]

Quick question for John Doris and/or Kip: In what way is "free will ... importantly like a soul"?

Both are fictions. ;)

Doris

[Joe]

Kip,

I'm still not at all sure what you mean when you say that free will is 'immaterial' and 'indivisible.' I think of free will as a faculty, as a set of interrelated powers and abilities. I suppose I could wrap my head around what it would mean for a faculty to be indivisible -- though I'm not inclined to think that the faculty of free will is such -- but I have no idea at all about what it would mean to say that a faculty is 'immaterial.'

I will say that if all your free will denialism amounts to is the claim that we do not have an immaterial, indivisible something that allows us to be ultimately responsible for our actions, then I fully endorse the position!

Do I think that free will admits of degrees? That is a hard question. As I said, I think that free will is a faculty: a collection of interrelated powers and abilities. We can divide these into active powers and cognitive capacities. I tend to think that cognitive capacities are best understood as dispositional powers and these clearly admit of degrees. My son's practical reasoning skills improve each day but so far they are not as good as mine. In this sense, I have more freedom than he does.

What about active powers? I used to think that active powers were dispositional powers, too. But reflecting on the following quote from van Inwagen convinced me otherwise:

“The concept of a causal power or capacity would seem to be the concept of an invariable disposition to react to certain determinate changes in the environment in certain determinate ways, whereas the concept of an agent’s power to act would seem not to be the concept of a power that is dispositional or reactive, but rather the concept of a power to originate changes in the environment” (1983, 11).

I now think that the power to act is an essential part of free will and that this is a primitive, non-dispositional power that does not admit of degrees. In summary, free will is a faculty, a collection of powers; some of these powers admit of degrees but some do not.

I also think that in developing the metaphysics of moral responsibility an agent’s power to act plays an essential but relatively minor role. I'm more responsible for my actions than my son is for his actions, and both of us have a higher degree of moral responsibility than our dog. But all of us -- my dog, my son, and myself -- have the same primitive power to act. In order to make the relevant distinctions most of the weight is going to fall on the differences in our cognitive capacities, not our active powers.

Sorry for the multiple posts this morning!

[beepbeepitsme]

RE: freewill

Freewill - "Turn or Burn"
http://beepbeepitsme.blogspot.com/2007/01/freewill-turn-or-burn.html