Free Will and Fiction

In a few weeks I'll be teaching a course at UCR that is aimed at introducing students to the free will/moral responsibility debate by investigating contemporary fiction.  Since it's a summer course, I'm  planning on using two novels to supplement our discussion: The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.  The former deals mainly with free will, manipulation, and the meaning of life, while the latter focuses more on responsibility, blame, and how we should treat wrong-doers.

It's almost certainly too late to incorporate any new novels into my syllabus, but I'd be really interested to hear if other Gardeners know of any other good novels that deal with free will, responsibility, or other aspects of agency.  I'm also curious if anyone has tried something like this and has good ideas about integrating fiction and philosophical literature.

Comments

[Tamler Sommers]

Jacques the Fatalist and his Master by Denis Diderot. I went into this business because of that novel.

[Eddy Nahmias]

Hi Justin, sounds like a great idea. You may want to have them read the first section of The Underground Man. (If you had time, Invisible Man would be great too). And you may want to try to throw in some movies (Minority Report is an obvious one but not great, and Clockwork Orange, but others that can easily be made relevant are Stranger than Fiction, Memento, 12 Monkeys, Bladerunner, Groundhog Day, Eternal Sunshine, etc.). Let us know how it goes!

[Tamler Sommers]

Dostoevsky's "Notes From Underground"

[Eddy Nahmias]

Yes, yes, Tamler, I was an English major too.
(The funny thing was I was about to try to call you out and say it is "Notes from *the* Underground" but Googled it and saw that of course you had it right.) And now I want to read that Dennis Diddirote novel, Jack Fate's List and His Mother.

[Alan]

Justin, I recommend Groundhog Day. I know of no better medium to illustrate Hick's idea of a soul-building argument based upon something like free will choice second- and third- and . . . chances. Murray's character descends into selfishness and control only to discover the redemption of choice merged with altruistic value.

[Alan]

On a purely lit note, I love Coetzee's Disgrace, which is about choice (and invloves a low-rung prof like me) and reflects a contemporary interpretation of how FW has complex outcomes in terms of mixed and multicultural values. I take the book to be an update of the account of The Fall: how we can choose to be dis-graced, yet still endowed with a form of hope.

[Ian]

I've used a sci-fi short story by Greg Egan called "Reasons to be Cheerful." It's about a brain-damaged man who can control his moods, his attitudes, and dispositions. It does a good job of challenging the determinist intuition that control of our own character is a necessary condition of responsibility.

[brandon w.]

Regarding Eddy's first post: McKenna recently wrote a chapter for a collection of philosophical essays on Memento--it's a good entre into the topics of agency and moral responsibility.

[Cihan Baran]

Ian, I decided to check out that story and happily, a simple google search yielded a pdf version.

Now, qua Strawson's basic argument, who is doing the controlling of his moods, attitudes and dispositions? Something without moods, attitudes and dispositions? I think not and therefore, the challenge stands.

[George Ortega]

Ian,

Adding to Cihan's challenge, it is not only the basic argument that argues against the brain damaged man having a free will. In a science fiction story where anything is presumably possible, then certainly that man can transgress the deterministic laws of nature to control his moods, attitudes, and dispositions. However in our real world, no man, brain damaged or otherwise, possess such God-like power.

[Mike in MI]

_Wise Blood_, by Flannery O'Connor, deals with freedom, but I don't see how it would work for a class on the issue.

[John A.]

I have used Camus's The Plague and Atwood's The Handmaid's tale with good results.

[Ian]

Cihan,

I think you're too quick to dismiss.

The story presents us with a character who can control much more of his character than we can control of our own. The challenge to determinism is that there is, among readers of the story, no shock of recognition, like "THIS is what moral responsibility looks like."

Your response suggests you think we don't recognize more moral responsibility in him because he's choosing new moods, etc. when he's already got moods, etc., and so by the basic argument has exactly the same responsibility as the rest of us. (None.)

First, it's only committed determinists who approach the story with the established intuition that no one has moral responsibility. Students approach the story with typically mixed intuitions. I've only taught this once, but in that class all the students thought he had about the same amount of responsibility as anyone else. (Some thought this was total responsibility, some thought it was a lot, but limited, some thought only a little.) That an increase in control over character doesn't translate into an increase in responsibility suggests the "control is a necessary condition" intuition is not as widely shared as determinists usually think.

Second, it doesn't matter at all to you that the thing controlling his moods-- the thing that also has moods-- is HIM? Perhaps, for you, the lingering taint of his upbringing wipes away responsibility? What if this man lived a long time, and changed his own brain in many small ways, and through a sort of Neurathian procedure ended up with a character that shares no element with the character he was raised with? Does that count as the sort of control that would underwrite responsibility?

If not, it might be the case that "control," when determinists use it, is an incoherent concept.

[Cihan]

Hey Ian,

I'm still reading the story.

You write that,

"The challenge to determinism is that there is, among readers of the story, no shock of recognition, like "THIS is what moral responsibility looks like.""

Again, I think by "determinism", you mean "free-will non-realism" since the basic argument is supposed to apply irrespective of the truth/falsity of determinism.

"That an increase in control over character doesn't translate into an increase in responsibility suggests the "control is a necessary condition" intuition is not as widely shared as determinists usually think."

I agree that he has an increase in the control over his character but this increase is not relevant for moral responsibility. (His case is roughly equivalent to someone who has a lot of willpower.) What the basic argument shows is that you need a new type of control, not just an increase in the normal control people have. You need to be able to build your character sui generis.

"Second, it doesn't matter at all to you that the thing controlling his moods-- the thing that also has moods-- is HIM?"

Of course it matters to me that the thing/self controlling his moods is HIM. That's why he can't have any moral responsibility. There is a self with a certain dispositions, moods, character traits that's modifying itself. To repeat my earlier point, qua the basic argument, he can't have moral responsibility.

And for your last questions, the answers are no. I think free will/moral responsibility perhaps are incoherent concepts.

[R. Clarke]

There's a passage from John Barth's THE FLOATING OPERA that amused me. The protaganist has to make a fateful decision and is ambivalent. He decides to flip a coin: heads, he'll do A, tails, he'll do B. It comes up heads. He tosses it away and decides to do B.

[Mark Smeltzer]

R.,

I often carry a silver dollar for just that purpose (though any coin will suffice). Understanding our own desires is sometimes hard and can make one think that one is ambivalent when in fact, one is not.

[Eddy Nahmias]

Speaking of coin tossing, remember Javier Bardem's character in No Country for Old Men, Anton Chigurh, who has his victims call a coin toss to determine if he kills them. A nice example where one might feel the attraction of indeterminism (especially if the toss comes out the wrong way) even though it has nothing to do with free will.

[George Ortega]

Ian,

Your response to Cihan's challenge is replete with illogical and straw man arguments.

You write (in quotes):

"The story presents us with a character who can control much more of his character than we can control of our own. The challenge to determinism is that there is, among readers of the story, no shock of recognition, like 'THIS is what moral responsibility looks like.'"

That is no challenge at all considering that those readers are under the same illusion regarding free will and the correlative attribution of moral responsibility that affects us all. Extending your argument to the belief in a completely motionless world, there would similarly be no shock of recognition that "THIS is what the world looks like." However the truth is that our world, planet Earth, is revolving around the Sun at a speed of over 660,000 mph.

"First, it's only committed determinists who approach the story with the established intuition that no one has moral responsibility. Students approach the story with typically mixed intuitions."

Again you are attempting to defend the notion of moral responsibility by way of the perception of moral responsibility, and that is a straw man defense. It is reality, and not perception, that is at issue.

"I've only taught this once, but in that class all the students thought he had about the same amount of responsibility as anyone else."

You're again using the same defense, and the refutation of that defense is, of course, the same.

"That an increase in control over character doesn't translate into an increase in responsibility suggests the "control is a necessary condition" intuition is not as widely shared as determinists usually think."

I'm not sure Determinists conclude such an intuition is, in fact widely shared. What Determinists argue is that the intuition is mistaken, regardless of how widely shared it may be.

"Second, it doesn't matter at all to you that the thing controlling his moods-- the thing that also has moods-- is HIM?"

Because the character is portrayed as having supernatural powers, it is certainly not relevant that he is controlling his moods. In the real world, as determinism demonstrates, the chain of causal events that stretches back in time before he was born, and not HIM, is the thing controlling his moods.

"What if this man lived a long time, and changed his own brain in many small ways, and through a sort of Neurathian procedure ended up with a character that shares no element with the character he was raised with? Does that count as the sort of control that would underwrite responsibility?"

No. That man would be just as completely controlled by deterministic factors as he would be if the changes took place within a few seconds. Determinism is not bound by the kind of time constraint you seem to wish to assign it.

[Gustavo Llarull]

Hey Justin,

Two suggestions:

-The Fall, by Albert Camus, is a short novel (and a quick read; the two aren't always coextensive) that deals with issues of responsibility and blame. I think Alan mentioned it above?

-Also, in the past I tried assigning excerpts -- *excerpts* -- from The Brothers Karamazov. The ones that work the best, and that got people enthused about the business of attributing responsibility, were those chapters in which Ivan and Smerdiakov talk about the latter's murder (called, in a helpful manner, "First Conversation between Ivan and Smerdiakov," "Second Conversation..." and so on). And also, of course, in the same book, that bit called "The Grand Inquisitor."

[Ian]

J. G. Ballard's "The Subliminal Man" is a short story I've used to pump determinist intuitions. It's set in a near-future when advertising has gotten so good at manipulating people that they buy what they're directed to buy without being aware of it.

[Ian]

Hi Cihan,

I hope you enjoyed the story.

To be clear-- I seem to have confused George Ortega-- I don't think a sci-fi short story constitutes a knock-down argument (or any kind of argument) against the hard determinist. Rather, I think it's a great entry point into discussion of the kinds of intuitions that drive compatiblists.

That said... If we're thinking of it as a teaching tool, and not a philosophical paper, I still think the way you're approaching the gimmick of the story dismisses it too quickly.

You write that the sort of control this character has "is not relevant for moral responsibility," and that to be responsible, "You need to be able to build your character sui generis."

Maybe this is OK as a response to a libertarian, but it begs the question against a compatiblist, since the compatiblist's position is that the metaphysically impossible form of control you demand is *not* the form of control necessary to underwrite responsibility.

On the other hand, I can't think of anything to say to back up my claim that "Neurathian" self-creation *is* sui-generis self-creation that doesn't beg the question against you. Which I suppose means we're each at our own edge of the chasm that makes fruitful conversation between the camps so difficult.

Thanks for your comments. I need to be reminded every few days why it is that no (nomologically possible) examples of self-creation, no matter how fanciful, constitute real self-creation for the hard determinist. This exchange should hold me for another few days, solid!

[Eddy Nahmias]

Justin, don't forget plays and poems. E.g., Oedipus Rex is definitely worth having them read if you have time.

There are surely lots of poems to consider (I'd love to hear if others have some good ones to suggest). Here are four:
1. Milton's Paradise Lost (the bits where the fallen angels talk about free will; and the bits where Eve eats the apple--the original in Genesis might be worth including too)
2. Frost's "The Road not Taken" (I use this poem in my paper on Close Calls and the Confident Agent)
3. T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (great poems too)
4. Rush's "Free Will" (well...)

[George Ortega]

Ian,

I appreciate the clarification, but I don't think I was confused by your post, as you suggest.

After all, your original post describes the science fiction story as follows:

"It does a good job of challenging the determinist intuition that control of our own character is a necessary condition of responsibility."

and in your clarification, you write:

"I don't think a sci-fi short story constitutes a knock-down argument (or any kind of argument) against the hard determinist. Rather, I think it's a great entry point into discussion of the kinds of intuitions that drive compatiblists."

As such, whether by your story you're arguing against determinism head on or just offering an "entry point" for the consideration of compatibilist arguments, your post seems to be advocating for the belief in free will and the attribution of moral responsibility.

If you are actually a compatibilist, it seems that we are two good men arriving at different answers to a problem. My concern is that reason and scientific evidence argues against a belief in free will that causes much more harm than good in our world, like the punitive imprisonment of millions of innocent people, and the blaming of, and indifference to, about 2.5 billion people on our planet in extreme poverty that results in 29,000 children under the age of five dying each day from that poverty.

Your concern is that if we human beings abandoned our belief in free will, we would breed anarchy because people would not "assume" responsibility for their actions. I think that concern causes you, quite certainly at the unconscious level, to discount the reason and science in order to defend an irrational compatibilist free will that you hold to be very important to the well-being of many people.

A possible solution may be that we accept that free will is an illusion, but concede that God or nature does indeed reward or punish us according to our acts. That understanding would at once allow us to show compassion for the over 2.5 billion people we are severely afflicting through our belief in free will while motivating us to act morally in order to avoid God or nature's, however unfair, punishment for doing otherwise.

[bobwtodd]

There are a lot of links on this site of mine, but please permit me to offer my two cents worth...
http://home.earthlink.net/~btodd2/freewillnote.html
Bob Todd
San Jacinto, CA