>-- The Garden of Forking Paths --<

History of FW Skepticism

First, a stipulated definition (with apologies in advance to PvI for not following his terminological guidelines):  let free will be the control condition on moral responsibility.

Now, the historical question.  What, if any, philosophers denied the existence of free will prior to, say, 1900?  (This is an arbitrary time; I'm actually most interested in whether any ancient, medieval, or modern philosophers denied the existense of free will.)

Bonus question for those who answer the historical question: What reasons were given to support FW skepticism?

A Flaw in the Standard Argument Against Free Will?

The simple and logical argument against free will is that either determinism or indeterminism is true.

If determinism is true, we are not free.

If indeterminism is true, our actions are random, so we did not will them.

We are not responsible either way. Ergo, no free will. Q.E.D.

The flaw in the argument concerns indeterminacy. Because logic is time and space independent, many philosophers assume that if indeterminism if true, randomness is significant and relevant at all times and all places, independent of scale or size.

But indeterminacy is normally important only for microscopic structures. Macroscopic structures, including our brains and bodies, are adequately determined - except when some useful indeterminacy helps us to generate alternative possibilities, or (and this is very important) allows us to be creative and bring genuinely new information into the universe.

So could you accept some chance in your own causal chain that would not make your decisions random?

Free Will, Computers, and Forbes Magazine

Here. 

Luck Again

I have long been convinced of the soundness of the luck argument against standard accounts of libertarianism (the qualification ‘standard’ is necessary; I believe that libertarianisms that are no more subject to luck than the best compatibilisms are possible, but I don’t want to get into that argument right now). The luck argument, as I understand it, targets moral responsibility: if an agent Xs, where X-ing is bad, and they are lucky to X, inasmuch as had luck played out differently, they would have performed some action incompatible with X (or not action at all), then they are not responsible for X-ing.

The question I am currently grappling with is why are standard libertarianisms subject to an unacceptable degree or kind of luck: that is, what condition or conditions on moral responsibility are not satisfied by an agent who is subject to responsibility-undermining luck? The way in which I set out the luck argument above is influenced by (or perhaps influences) the condition on moral responsibility I am tempted by. Call it the contrastive principle. It is intended as a necessary condition:

An agent is morally responsible for X-ing only if the event of his X-ing is the (non-deviant) upshot of his decision to X rather than Y, where X-ing and Y-ing have conflicting moral valences. An agent can satisfy the contrastive principle either directly – by deciding to X rather than Y – or indirectly; by being strongly disposed on the current occasion to X because of past occasions on which he directly satisfied the contrastive principle.

The above is probably a little obscure, so let me say just a little bit more. Moral valences are polarities; the moral valence of an act is its goodness or badness. Thus, an agent satisfies the contrastive principle directly by choosing a bad action rather than a good one, or vice-versa (actually, I think moral responsibility unlike moral goodness tracks subjective judgments; so really it is by choosing an action that he takes to be bad rather than good that an agent satisfies the principle). I want the contrastive principle to be satisfiable by agents in Frankfurt-style cases (despite my doubts about such cases). The intuitive idea is that we blame agents for choosing the bad rather than the good, and vice-versa for praise.

I have a feeling that the contrastive principle has problems. At the moment, its only a vague feeling. Want to help turn it into a conviction?

Mele in the NYT

The good stuff is here. 

Law and Neuroscience Colloquium

The Law and Neuroscience Colloquium will take place on July 6-7 at University College, London, and the Garden's own John Fischer will be presenting his reply to the luck objection on behalf of the libertarian. 

Cover for Mele's newest book

Al Mele has asked me to post the following message and cover art for his latest book.  The message and art are below the fold.

The Garden Reading Group - Comment Now Open

I hope you've all had the opportunity to read Mark's paper by now (if not, it is available here) and are bursting with thoughts about it. Now's your opportunity. But wait, there's more....

My commentary on the paper is here.

Mark's response to my comments is here.

Thanks to Mark for correcting some misapprehensions on my part. And of course for agreeing to participate in the group.

Now over to you.

The Garden Reading Group - The Metaphysical Irrelevance of the Compatibilism Debate

I'm really excited to present Mark Balaguer's paper, The Metaphysical Irrelevance of the Compatibilism Debate (and, More Generally, of Conceptual Analysis) for your edification. I contacted Mark and asked if we could use the paper as the focus of a reading group as soon as I'd read it, because I thought it deserved the widest possible audience and because it is so provocative. Here it is, with the kind permission of the Southern Journal of Philosophy.

I've closed comments on this post, because I want the discussion to take place in the comments thread of a single post. That post will go up in a few days time, and will contain my commentary on Mark's paper together with his reply.

Most frequently cited free will monographs published between 1980-2005

Partly as a reaction to Kevin's post below, and partly out of perversity, I assembled a list monographs on free will that received 30 or more citations according to Google Scholar. In order to constrain the search, I looked only at books published between 1980 and 2005. I also threw out any book that wasn't a philosophy book and any book that was not centrally preoccupied with free will and/or moral responsibility.

Titles were gotten by trolling the bibliography of the Oxford Handbook of Free Will, and one or two other more recent books near my computer. I did not include anthologies or collections of papers, so influential philosophers who haven't written monographs on free will don't show up. I used 2005 as an arbitrary cutoff date, mainly because any books published since then will not have anything remotely like a representative citation impact given how long it takes reviews, responses, and the like to make it into print. Sure enough, newer books generally fared worse than books that have been out for 10 years or so, so bear that in mind as you look at the results below. Also, keep in mind that Google Scholar is far from perfect. In some cases, it splits references to the same book into several entries, and I surely failed to notice all such instances and to adjust citation counts accordingly. In other cases, it likely collapsed some citations for an article into a book with the same name. And, of course, I strongly doubt that Google Scholar perfectly captures all citations published in philosophy journals. 

If you think I missed something, please look up said author/volume in Google Scholar and verify that it has more than 30 citations. If it does, please post the correction below.

With no further ado, the results are below for your viewing pleasure. Please enjoy with a pinch of salt.