Pereboom on the Weirdness of Compatibilism

I want to write a post about an interesting point Pereboom makes about compatibilism.  It is a point I’ve tried to make, however inelegantly, several times before.  But Pereboom is an eloquent writer and does a better job than I could.  I first heard him give this argument at the symposium on Fischer’s work at Inland 2006.  Now he has published an article with largely the same arguments in Philosophical Books.  Here’s Pereboom:

“While this ‘legitimately calling to moral account’ notion may be a bona fide sense of moral responsibility, it is not the one at issue in the free will debate. For incompatibilists would not find our being morally responsible in this sense to be even prima facie incompatible with determinism. The notion that incompatibilists do claim to be incompatible with determinism is rather the one defined in terms of basic desert.”

Pereboom is writing in terms of desert and moral responsibility.  But, I think, the point also applies, and with more force, to talk about “free will.”  In short, Pereboom is pointing out the remarkable, but obvious, fact that compatibilists are committed to the following claim

WEIRD: The power or faculty of “free will” is something nobody would deny most humans have most of the time.

Now, suppose you were learning about the free will debate for the first time—as all of us must have at some point.  You learn about compatibilist conceptions of free will and you learn about incompatibilist conceptions.  Perhaps you’re sufficiently unprejudiced and trying to decide which one actually captures what “free will” means.  If you are like me—and, I imagine, most compatibilists—the weirdness of compatibilism counts against it.  Personally, I thought something like “well, the compatibilist thinks free will is something that most people have, most of the time, and that just can’t be right.”  But the question is: when I think “that just can’t be right”, am I correct?

Free Will in Behavioral Science & the Law

I haven't yet had a chance to read any of the articles, but I thought I'd post the link to the latest issue of Behavioral Sciences and the Law nonetheless.  My guess is that a number of Gardeners will be interested in its contents.

David Brooks on the Morality Line

David Brooks has an article at the NYT (behind a pay wall) on moral responsibility in the Virginia Tech shootings. A version of the article has also been posted here (free).

Campbell on the Consequence Argument

I just got the most recent issue of Analysis in the mail today, and very much enjoyed reading an article by our very own Joe Campbell, "Free Will and the Necessity of the Past".  A very nice piece of work, Joe.  For those interested, I'll summarize and discuss the piece a bit below the fold.  (But you should really go read it, too!)

Argument from the Authority of my 2 1/2 year old Daughter

As many here know, I’m a huge fan of Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment,” but I’ve never really been convinced by the argument. Why should my proneness to experiencing an attitude connected to moral responsibility make me think that the belief in moral responsibility is immune from rational criticism? Just a few weeks ago, however, as I was watching Toy Story 2 with my daughter Eliza, I felt the force of Strawson’s argument for maybe the first time. For those who don’t know the movie, a toy store owner (henceforth “the Chicken Man”) steals Woody, the toy cowboy voiced by Tom Hanks, from a yard sale just as Woody is saving broken penguin squeaky toy from the 25 cents box. The Chicken Man intends to sell Woody to a Japanese toy museum for a large amount of money. He's about to put Woody on an airplane and make his fortune when Buzz Lightyear, Mr. Potatohead, a slinky dog, and a dinosaur voiced by the playwright Wallace Shawn rescue Woody at the last minute.

By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth!

Coming to this very blog, a display of mystery, illusion, and philosophical prestigiditation! The Haifan Illusionist (aka Saul Smilansky) will expound on the recently discovered text "How To Think about the Problem of Free Will." Ancient sources attribute the text to the Mysterionist of South Bend, Peter van Inwagen.

The prestige will be unveiled sometime during the week of April 30th. Prepare to be amazed.

Warning: The Garden of Forking Paths is not responsible for any fainting that should occur from laws of nature being defied or the revelation of other arcana best not seen by the weak of mind. Indeed, the Garden may not be responsible for anything at all.

(Thanks to Saul Smilansky and Peter van Inwagen for agreeing to comment and provide the paper, respectively).

Show-Me The Argument Against Compatibilism

Patrick Todd over at Show-Me The Argument has posted an interesting argument against compatibilism based on the scenario used in Mele's Zygote Argument.  Go check it out!

Cokely and Feltz on the Folk Containing Both Compatibilists and Incompatibilists

I'm surprised that this has not been mentioned (to my knowledge) at the Garden yet: the Experimental Philosophy blog has a post introducing new research by Cokely and Feltz on free will and folk intuitions.  They describe their main thesis thus:

"Our main finding is that there seem to be groups of people who express compatibilist or incompatibilist intuitions--hence, the folk are not compatibilists or incompatibilists. Moreover, contrary to Nahmias et al's tentative position, our data suggest the biggest group of folk are incompatibilists. Section 3 reports these new findings (sections 1 and 2 are background)."

Their conclusions seem intuitive to me.  But I need to read it again to digest how these new results square with the earlier findings by Knobe, Nahmias, and their colleagues.  I'm also very curious to see how these results might fit with the research that Nahmias, with others, is currently conducting.

The paper is here.
The Experimental Philosophy post is here.

Enjoy.

Habermas on Freedom and Responsibility

Hey Gardeners, Check out the recent issue of Philosophical Explorations.  Habermas has chimed in on the topics of freedom and responsibility.  The volume includes an introduction by Joel Anderson, and critical comments from the likes of Randy Clarke, Michael Quante, John Searle, and Tim Schroeder.  It wraps up with Habermas replying to critics.  Here is the link (though one needs a subscription to gain access):

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g774762416~db=all

Neurolaw Revisited

As I noted a few weeks back, there was a recent article in The New York Times by Jeffrey Rosen concerning the growing new field of neuro-law.  The central issue in Rosen's piece is the role that cognitive neuroscience (CNS) can (and should) play with respect to the criminal law (and its underlying notion of criminal culpability).  In the article, Rosen mentions an interesting paper by O. Carter Snead entitled “Neuroimaging and the ‘Complexity’ of Capital Punishment.”  And while Snead mostly limits his attention to the role that CNS could play with respect to capital sentencing (and punishment) rather than punishment more generally, for present purposes I want to use his argument as a way of jump starting a discussion concerning the general relationship between CNS and criminal law.

For starters, I want to first provide a brief overview of what I am going to call the Cognitive Neurolaw Agenda (CNLA)—an agenda that Snead associates with the following two-fold goal:  (a) the short term goal of CNLA: get CNS findings into the courtroom as mitigating evidence, (b) the long term goal of CNLA: use findings from CNS both to debunk retributivism at the institutional level and to develop a forward looking two-pronged preventative and rehabilitative regime. 

According to Snead, the proponents of CNLA envision the long term goal as a focused attempt to adopt a more humane and compassionate response to the crime problem than the present retributivist regime. Snead criticizes CNLA on two fronts.  On the one hand, he tries to show that the short term goal and long term goal of CNLA are inconsistent.  By his lights, the present goal of using data from CNS to mitigate or exculpate blame would be undermined by the long-term goal of purging the criminal law of retributivist principles.  On the other hand, Snead claims that if the long-term goal of CNLA were to come to fruition, it would make the system of criminal law more rather than less brutalizing and inhumane.