>-- The Garden of Forking Paths --<

Return of the (Son of) the Garden Reading Group

It's past time for another installment of the famous Garden of Forking Paths reading group. Y'all will remember the format: a paper gets posted for your reading pleasure, then a commentator, well, comments, and finally we have a free-for-all careful discussion open to all.

I've asked Mark Balaguer to provide us with the paper. Mark's paper will present part of the argument from his forthcoming book, Free Will as an Open Scientific Problem, which provides a naturalistic defense of libertarianism. The paper I've asked Mark to allow us to use appeared in a recent issue of the Southern Journal of Philosophy. The journal has kindly given us permission to post it here. The paper is called "The Metaphysical Irrelevance of the Compatibilism Debate (and, More Generally, of Conceptual Analysis)". I have taken on the onerous task of being the commentator.

Here's here things will unfold. On June 9 I will post Mark's paper (if you're keen, you can find it yourself beforehand); within a week of that date I will post my comments and Mark's response. Then we shall proceed in an orderly fashion to rip Mark to pieces offer constructive criticism.

An Exchange with Galen Strawson on Free Will

In the comments to Randy Clarke's Libertarianism and the Laws post, Eddy Nahmias asked if standard arguments could be reformulated with my "adequate determinism."

I recently exchanged emails with Galen Strawson asking him whether quantum indeterminism could be limited to the generation of alternative possibilities (and not affect the decision and action directly) without making the ultimate choice random.

Here is that exchange.

Conference Announcement: The Atypical Perpetrator

Lene Bomann-Larsen (Oslo) has asked me to draw your attention to this upcoming conference.

The Atypical Perpetrator

8-9 June 2009

Oslo

Multidisciplinary seminar on ethics, psychiatry and legal responsibility Registration deadline: June 2 (for those who want to have lunch; registration is not required for participation). To registrate your participation please contact higher executive officer Per Jørgen Ystehede: p.j.ystehede@jus.uio.no

Philosophers, lawyers, psychiatrists, criminologists and psychologists share an interest in the human mind and behaviour. Although the perspectives and approaches vary significantly between the disciplines, there is much to be learned from a cross-disciplinary dialogue on these matters, not least with regard to how we should relate to “atypical” agents (agents who lack moral or rational competence), when it comes to questions of moral responsibility, liability to be punished and treatment.  

These questions will be addressed at a multidisciplinary seminar at the

University

of

Oslo

on June 8-9, 2009. There will be speakers and commentators representing the fields of psychiatry, law and philosophy, but also representing the different legal and psychiatric traditions of different countries. Among the speakers are:

• Stephen Morse, Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry at the

  University

  of

  Pennsylvania

•  Matt Matravers, Professor at the Department of Politics, University of

  York

• Vidar Halvorsen, Associate Professor at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the

  University

  of

  Oslo

• Randi Rosenqvist, psychiatrist, former Head of the Norwegian Forensic Medical Board
• Adina Roskies, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy,

  Dartmouth

  College

• John Gunn, Emeritus Professor of Forensic Psychiatry,

  Institute

  of

  Psychiatry

  , King’s College London  

About the topic of the seminar:

 

Most theories of punishment and moral censorship have a retributive component; sanctions are justified by reference to some kind of desert. This is true both of purely retributive theories of punishment claiming that criminals ought to be punished because they deserve punishment, and mixed versions where punishment is primarily justified as a form of prevention, but where desert operates as a constraint, so that no one should be punished unless they are at fault. For an agent to be deserving of desert, he must fulfil certain criteria of moral and legal competence: it is an empirical question whether these criteria are met in a concrete case, but it is also a legal/philosophical question what these criteria should be.

 

‘Atypical’ perpetrators are persons who in one way or another seem to have a defect in their moral and/or legal competence, and who, at least prima facie, are thus not fit for punishment. Psychotics, the mentally disabled, small children and people who are ‘unconscious’ at the time of the crime are normally excluded from legal responsibility. Other cases - paradigmatically presented by the psychopath – are more troubling. Psychopaths may be defined as people who are rational and thus able to predict the consequences of their actions and capable of understanding social rules and the consequences of violating rules; hence they are often seen as legally responsible. Yet they are assumed not to be morally competent

because they lack the ability to grasp, apply and be motivated by moral reasons.

Among the questions raised by atypical perpetrators, and which will be discussed at the workshop are: 

•  Is there an overlap between legal and moral responsibility, and is the overlap dependent on which kind of theory one appeals to in justifying punishment?
• How do we deal with persons who are rationally capable but morally incompetent?
• What is the significance of underlying neurobiological features for determining when an agent lacks the capacity for being held responsible?
• To which extent does our view on atypical perpetrators affect our views on typical perpetrators? Can we draw general lessons about responsibility from such cases? In particular, if we argue that atypical perpetrators are not legally responsible because of certain neurological defects, what does this imply for the case of typical perpetrators, whose actions are also due to their neurological underpinnings?

Philosophers, lawyers, psychiatrists, criminologists and psychologists share an interest in the human mind and behaviour. Although the perspectives and approaches vary significantly between the disciplines, there is much to be learned from a cross-disciplinary dialogue on these matters, not least with regard to how we should relate to “atypical” agents (agents who lack moral or rational competence), when it comes to questions of moral responsibility, liability to be punished and treatment.

Further details here.

 

Defining Determinism and Such

Given some recent chatter here, I offer my attempt to define some theses and the relationships between them.  I ask some questions along the way, and I’m certainly not claiming they are as precise and complete as they need to be!  Maybe they are just imprecise and incomplete enough to generate some more interesting chatter!

 

Determinism (D) = 1. A complete description of the system at one time, and of all the laws that govern that system, logically entails a complete description of that system at any future time.  (This version is just past-to-future, though some define D to include present-to-past too.  “The system” for all these theses is meant to pick out the scope over which the thesis applies, but notice that a system can only be deterministic as defined here if it is entirely “closed off” from any indeterministic system, which is why indeterminism in the micro-system surely falsifies D in the macro-system, unless the laws of the micro-system include some weird aggregation laws to ensure that the indeterminism never “percolates up.”) 

Because the other theses below will be framed in terms of events and laws, here’s such a definition of D (I’d be curious to know if people think it is accurate and equivalent to the above):

2. For every event E in the system, there is a set of prior events which, as governed by the laws of that system, is logically sufficient for E.

(I wonder whether “logically sufficient” is the best modality to use here?)

(I wonder what the phrase about laws is doing here and how the thesis might work if that phrase was excised.  I also wonder whether there is a good way to define “deterministic laws”; perhaps “D laws = all events governed by such laws are such that for every event E, there is a set of prior events which are logically sufficient for E”?)

(Brian Park’s definition of “determinism” suggests something like this, I think:  “An event E in the system is ‘deterministic’ if there is a set of prior events which, as governed by the laws of that system, is logically sufficient for E.”)

 

Martin Heisenberg on Free Will

This  week’s Nature magazine (14 May 2009) has an essay on free will by Martin Heisenberg (son of Werner), chair of the University of Wurzburg’s genetics and neurobiology section of their BioCenter.

Since the indeterminacy principle was his father’s work, the comment that the physical universe is no longer determined and that nature is inherently unpredictable comes as no surprise.

What is unusual is that Heisenberg finds evidence of free behavior in animals, including some very simple ones such as Drosophila, on which he is a world expert.

He says:

Libertarianism and Laws

I've been surprised to find several writers say that Libertarianism is committed to the view that undetermined free actions are not covered by laws of nature. In some cases, the writer is a Libertarian; in others, the writer thinks that this view is, unfortunately for Libertarians, something to which they are committed. I haven't found much of an argument for thinking that Libertarianism entails any such commitment.

All of the writers I have in mind take Libertarianism to be at least metaphysically possible. Thus, they think there is some possible solution to the problem of luck. Perhaps the idea is that a solution to that problem requires that undetermined free actions be lawless. But why think that?

Any ideas? Also, has anyone else seen much discussion of this question?

At what point should one pull a paper from a journal?

I have a colleague who has had a paper under review at a Philosophically Respectable journal for about 7 months. (UPDATE: Since several people have asked off-thread whether I'm talking about me, I should confirm that I wasn't actually asking on my own behalf— really!) The journal claims to let authors know within 3-4 months about an initial decision on submissions. A couple of months ago (at the 5 month mark), after not having heard anything, he contacted the journal to see if there was any news. The journal sent a boilerplate reply, apparently, about how the article was still being looked at. So, now my friend is asking me for advice about whether and how to pull the article from that journal. My own advice is to pull it now, explain to the journal why, and move on to a peer journal or better. Still, I thought I'd check with you all for thoughts on the matter. 

Here's an interesting aspect to the case though: time is of the essence for him. The paper is on an emerging "hot topic" in his field, and he has reason to believe that a number of other people are writing papers on this subject matter. He tells me that he is concerned that he might get scooped, or that acceptance will get harder because the terrain will start to shift as these papers get finished and submitted to more timely journals. So, matters are not as straightforward as they oftentimes are. 

Still, this sort of situation pisses me off. If you aren't part of the solution, I hereby declare you part of the problem. ¡¡Viva la revolución!! 

A proposal is below.

The Hokey Pokey, Free Will, and the Brain

Scientists are at it again!  This time, they claim to have isolated one of the parts of the brain responsible for our feelings of free will.  Two blog commentaries on the research can be found here and here.  The research article itself can be found here.  The abstract is:

Parietal and premotor cortex regions are serious contenders for bringing motor intentions and motor responses into awareness. We used electrical stimulation in seven patients undergoing awake brain surgery. Stimulating the right inferior parietal regions triggered a strong intention and desire to move the contralateral hand, arm, or foot, whereas stimulating the left inferior parietal region provoked the intention to move the lips and to talk. When stimulation intensity was increased in parietal areas, participants believed they had really performed these movements, although no electromyographic activity was detected. Stimulation of the premotor region triggered overt mouth and contralateral limb movements. Yet, patients firmly denied that they had moved. Conscious intention and motor awareness thus arise from increased parietal activity before movement execution.

Perhaps it's just me, but "awake brain surgery" sounds like a real drag--especially when the neuro-scientists performing the procedure are not only fixing your head but also screwing around with it!  Happy reading!

A Change in Management

Believe it or not, this month marks 5 years since the birth of the Garden of Forking Paths. In that time, there have been 507 posts and 5,374 comments. The blog has been visited 592,440 times total, for an average of 328 times per day. Especially given the occasional periods of drought that we have had here, I'd say that those are some pretty impressive numbers, and I'm grateful to everyone who has helped add to the community.

In light of the news that John announced in his previous post -- and thanks very much to all the well-wishers -- this 5-year anniversary is an appropriate time for me to step down as coordinator of the Garden. Effective immediately, I'll be handing the reins over to my good friend and fellow UCR grad student Justin Coates, who is committed to helping the Garden continue to thrive. There are various ways in which I think the blog can be improved and the community strengthened, and I think that getting some new blood involved behind the scenes will help. So please join me in welcoming Justin, and feel free to let him know if you have any suggestions for the future direction of the blog (the 'About' page of the blog has been changed so that his email address is there now instead of mine).

As for me, I've grown to love you all so much that of course I'll continue to be a part of the community, just in a different role. Thanks for all the good discussion over the past five years, and may it continue for another five!

Congratulations to Neal Tognazzini

Congratulations to Neal on his new tenure-track job in the philosophy department at the College of William and Mary!  As many of you know, Neal was a super-star on the job market this year, and he had many wonderful opportunities, including three great offers.  We here at UC Riverside will miss him tremendously, but we are very happy for Neal as he gets ready to start a new phase of his career.  (After he defends his dissertation, that is!)

For many reasons, I feel extremely fortunate that Neal did his graduate work at UCR.  Philosophically, I have learned a lot from Neal.  Additionally, Neal has been a a great friend to me and many of his colleagues here in our graduate program at UC Riverside.  Also, his work on the Garden of Forking Paths has been invaluable.  In every context he has been instrumental in building humane philosophical communities.

Neal: thanks a million for all you have done for UCR and for the GFP.  I know that we will continue to see you in the Garden and, no doubt, in the top journals and presses.

I wish you and Anna the very best in the new phase of your lives. 

Vaya con Dios!