Why reading defenses of hard determinism makes people morally worse.

"A study suggests that when people are encouraged to believe their behavior is predetermined — by genes or by environment — they may be more likely to cheat."

Details here.

Modern Day Hobartians?

I've been re-reading Hobart's classic "Free Will as Involving Determinism and Inconceivable Without It."  This got me thinking--what contemporary compatibilists think that free will is compatible with determinism, but incompatible with indeterminism?  I know that Fishcer, for example, intends his view to be neutral with respect to the truth of determinism.  This issue comes up, for example, in discussions of the Luck Objection and the Mind Argument and that many compatibilists think that indeterminism wouldn't help secure free will.  But are there recent papers explicitly defending this kind of Hobartian view where the falsity of indeterminism would, by itself, render all agents unfree?

Book on the Future

I'm at home and don't feel like going to my office, so I'm calling on the collective wisdom of the rest of you.  There is an example that gets used in the free will literature about a person who pulls a book off a shelf in a library and begins to read, only to find that the book describes everything that he does--including entering the library, pulling the book off the shelf, reading the book, etc....  For some reason, I think the guy's name in the story was Hobart.  Rather than sorting through the 193,000 hits returned by Google, could any of you point me to the (preferably original) reference for the story? 

New Teaching Philosophy Blog

Michael Cholbi has started a new blog on teaching philosophy entitled In Socrates' Wake.  Given Michael's own work, as well as his contributions to the newly greenified PEA Soup, I think that this will be a great blog once it gets going.  And perhaps Gardeners can help get it going. 

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.

Brain scan can read your intentions

Article here.

Fischer Heads South

On 26 April, GFP's very own John Fischer will depart the beauty and serenity of Riverside and head south to the dingy Tijuana suburb of San Diego to give a talk entitled "Source Incompatibilism."  Word on the street is that he's going to publically acknowledge his newfound support for SI and his repudiation of semi-compatibilism.  OK, so I just made that up—but one can hope.  (It's not too late to convert, John!)  Any Gardeners in the area wanting to come join the festivities are welcome.  The talk is scheduled for 12:30 on USD's campus.

More on van Inwagen on Philosophical Success

In the wake of the recent and robust discussion van Inwagen's paper on philosophical failure here, some of you may be interested in a number of papers being presented at the Baylor philosophy of religion conference this coming weekend dedicated to van Inwagen's work.  Among the other worthwile papers, there are at least three papers on this particular aspect of van Inwagen's corpus.

"We cannot escape the presupposition of free will"

At least, so says John Searle in a recent interview.  And science just makes it more mysterious.

But at least he doesn't think it's bad that we Gardeners disagree with each other:  "I don't worry too much about the fact that philosophers disagree."

(HT to Matthew Mullins)

Book Review of Note

Angela Smith's review of Nomy Arpaly's new Merit, Meaning, and Human Bondage: An Essay on Free Will in NDPR can be found here.

Online Drafts and Blind-review

Over at Certain Doubts,there is a discussion on how online drafts of papers do, or could, undermine the blind-review process and perhaps harm one's chance of getting published.  The thread can be found here.  It seems to me that many of the folks involved in the free will and moral responsibility literatures post such drafts.  So I'm wondering what Gardeners think about this question.  I think it would be better to comment at CD to keep all the comments together, but I'm not going to close comments here.

UCR and FSU

According to the preview of the new Gourmet Report here, the two best departments for studying philosophy of action are UC Riverside and Florida State.  Congrats to those in these departments for this recognition.

Breaking News: Free Will more Important than Skepticism in M/E

Brian Leiter has recently posted a preview of some of the new Philosophical Gourmet report.  One interesting part of this data is the overall rankings he gives across 'metaphysics and epistemology' as a whole.

Brian Weatherson takes issue with this way of ranking departments here and here.  One of his worries about the stats Leiter posts is this:

[T]here is a striking bias here in favour of people who work across categories. If someone writes a great book on the metaphysics of free will, and how this relates to the problem of evil, that will improve their department’s ranking (perhaps considerably) on three of the seven rankings that go into this stat. But if someone writes a great book on scepticism, that only impacts the epistemology ranking, or one-seventh of the stat. But it is absurd that work on the metaphysics of free will should be three times [emphasis in original] as important to metaphysics and epistemology as work on scepticism.

If I could be certain that people would note that I was being facetious, I'd say that this isn't absurd at all, and that this is exactly what once should expect.  But I won't (since I obviously don't mean it).

Does Improbability render an Alternative Irrelevant?

In a recent article ("Frankfurt-Style Cases and Improbable Alternative Possibilities," Philosophical Studies 130 (2006): 399-406), Gerald Harrison argues that a Frankfurt-case need not eliminate all alternative possibilities in order to show PAP to be false.  This, by itself, isn't too surprising--many others have made the same general point (among my favorites here are Fischer-scenarios).  According to Harrison,

an agent may have the opportunity to do othwerise in an indeterministic world yet lack the ability to do otherwise in the sense relevant to PAP (401).

But what I do find puzzling is Harrison's argument for this claim.  He thinks that an alternative can be irrelevant even if it contains a free action/decision.  The kind of case Harrison uses is a Hunt-inspired blockage case.  But in order to avoid the objections to full blockage cases, Harrison gives a case in which all alternative possibilities but one are blocked.  The remaining alterntative is possible, just highly improbable. 

So here's my version of his kind of case.  We're at the next  APA, and I see Dan Speak at the smoker.  In general, I like Dan.  Who woudn't?  But in this case, Dan has recently snubbed me and my moral character is such that I am strongly inclined to kick people that have snubbed me.  Given this, I am strongly inclinded to kick Dan in the shins.  But my moral character isn't such that I must kick Dan in the shins--there is an accessible possible world in which I freely refrain from kicking him.  It's just very, very improbable that I won't.  All other possible worlds are blocked.  As it happens, what is probable becomes actual and I kick Dan.

According to Harrison, not only am I morally responsible for kicking Dan in the shins, but I also lack the ability--in the sense relevant to PAP--to not kick Dan despite my access to such a world.  I lack the ability to not kick Dan simply because my doing so is highly improbable. 

It is not enought that the agent have access to some alternative in which they [sic.] act freely, there must in addition be a sufficiently high probability of actually accessing the alternative in question (405).

I wonder why the mere improbability of an alternative that includes a free action/decision would mean that that alternative was irrelevant to my moral responsibility.  Furthermore, if it is, just how improbable would it need to be to be irrelevant?  Any thoughts?

Wanted: Philosopher to serve as Expert Witness in Court

Earlier this week, I gave a talk on "responsibility" to the Forensic Psychiatirc Clinic at the San Diego Superior Court to six or so psychiatrists.  Ansar Haroun, who runs the clinic, saw a previous post of mine at the Experimental Blog on causal vs. moral responsibility and thought these issues were interestingly related to some of the issues that his clinic deals with on a regular basis.  It was a fascinating day in so many ways.

During my short talk to the clinic, I mentioned a number of issues that philosophers are working on these days:  the Knobe effect (by the way, I hope that someday I'm cool enough to have my name attached to something in this way!), the effect of affect on people's intutions regarding moral responsibility, skepticism about moral responsibility, etc....

The psychiatrists were very interesting in these issues, particularly as these things could--and probably do--impact the legal system.  Haroun suggested that philosophers (or, at least those who are sympathetic to MR skepticism) could supplement their often meager salaries by serving as paid expert witnesses for defense lawyers:  "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you will hear expert testimony that my client shouldn't be blamed for the crime because none of us should be blamed for anything!"  Maybe I'm the only one missing out on this revenue source--perhaps because I'm not a skeptic or because I don't look 'expert' enough.  Are any of the rest of you raking in the bucks as 'guns for hire'?

Post-INPC

Once again, the folks at WSU and UI pulled off a fabulous conference.  Not only was the content of the sessions great, but they make the conference come off in a very seamless way.  I'm amazed by how they do it.

I was also really pleased to finally meet some of you that I only knew through the GFP and the Experimental blog.  I look forward to continuing to interact with you and your work in the future.

P. F. Strawson

Peter Strawson died 13 February 2006.  An obituary can be found here:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-2040505,00.html

UPDATE (from Neal): Brian Weatherson is keeping track of obituaries for Strawson here.  There's no doubt about the importance Strawson's work has had for the literature on free will and moral responsibility.  Gratitude is surely an appropriate reactive attitude.

Blogs and the Hiring Process

The online version of the Chronicle of Higher Education contains a pair of article written by Ivan Tribble entitled "Bloggers Need Not Apply" and "They Shoot Messengers Don't They?" on the impact blogging can have on the hiring process (a subscription is required for the CHE online, though I would think the articles could also be found in the print version). The core of Tribble's articles is "a sharp warning to bloggers on the academic job market, based on how I saw blogs detract from some candidates in a recent search at my college." 

While these two articles are aimed mainly at private blogs rather than discipline oriented blogs such as the Garden, I'm wondering what fellow Gardeners' thoughts are on how blogs of whatever stripe might have on the hiring process (after all, tis the season!).  I would think that discipline oriented blogs can have a positive impact in that they can provide networks, contacts and exposure for one's work.  But maybe these can lead to negatives as well; e.g., 'we don't want to hire him--he's a libertarian after all!'.  While I intend the example to be cheeky, perhaps such things do happen; I don't know, as I've never been on a hiring committee.  Any thoughts that you're willing to share on a public blog?

Empirial evidence that Free Will Illusionism is False/Unmotivated?

Some of you may not be aware of some interesting free will and moral responsibility discussions on other blogs.  Thomas Nadelhoffer and Adam Feltz from FSU have recently done another interesting experiment, this one exploring the way in which Smilansky's Illusionism is (i) more dependent on empirical claims that other views about free will and (ii) the empirical data doesn't support Illusionism.  A fascinating post describing the experiment, as well as a good discussion of the experiment, can be found at the Experimental Philosophy blog here.

FW/MR Journals

I’ve been doing a bunch of bibliographic work lately, and it seems that a select number of journals publish a significant percentage of the free will/moral responsibility literature.  There are a couple of possible explanations for this fact.  But it also got me thinking about what journals might be the best to aim for when attempting to get work published in this area.  Here are some of the journals that have had articles on free will/moral responsibility in them recently (I’ve no doubt left some out—those that only solicit articles, I’ve left out on purpose):

American Philosophical Quarterly, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Ethics, Faith and Philosophy, Journal of Ethics, Journal of Philosophical Research, Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Social Philosophy, Mind, Nous, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Review, Philosophical Studies, Philosophical Topics, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Southern Journal of Philosophy

Some of these are obviously better than others.  But I’m curious how others see the breakdown, particularly since as a young scholar I don’t have a particularly strong grasp on these issues.  If you had to rank these publications according to the desirability of getting a FW/MR article published in them, how would you do it?  I’m not interested in cardinal ordering, but say groups in the following categories:  (I) Most Desirable, (II) Highly Desirable, (III)Pretty Desirable, and (IV) Hey, it’s a publication.  Also, feel free to add any journals, particularly to (I) and (II) that you think I may have overlooked.

NOTE:  I’m a little wary of asking people to voice their opinions on this issue publicly, particularly since GFP, as far as I can tell, doesn’t allow anonymous postings (though perhaps Neal or someone else can set the record straight).  Some might have good reason for not wanting their opinions on this subject to be made public.  However, I’m reminded of a much more controversial discussion of journals on The Leiter Reports (found here) where individuals actually named particular journals that they thought were 'irresponsible' and that junior faculty may think twice about submitting to if the tenure clock is ticking (I found this a very interesting thread).  And that discussion dind't allow anonymous postings, so perhaps there is some precident.  If anyone has suggestions on how we might have this discussion without people having to worry about negative ramifications of participating, I would be greatly appreciative.

Alternative Possibilities as 'Sufficient' for Free Will?

I'm puzzled by a claim in Robert Kane's new book, A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will.  In chapter 11, where Kane is talking about the importance of ultimate responsibility (UR) for free will, he attempts to show the connection between UR and the alternative possibilities condition for free will (AP).  Here is the passage I have in mind:

"To understand the connection between AP and UR (alternative possibilities and ultiamte responsibility) we have to return to a claim made earlier in this chapter--that having alternative possibilities is not sufficient for free will, even if the alternative possibilities are undetermined.  Some incompatibilists have thought that all one needs for free will is alternative possibilities plus indeterminism: in other words, it is sufficient for free will that we be able to do otherwise in a way that is not determined by our past" (124).

Now, I'll agree that often the almost exclusive focus on AP over UR may have given the impression that AP was more important than UR.  And surely Kane (and others) are to be thanked for showing that something along the lines of UR needs our attention.  But I'm puzzled that anyone would claim that satisfying AP is sufficient for free will.  Does anyone know who Kane might be talking about here?

Another Philosophy of Religion Conference

However, this one has a better location! (No offense to Columbia, but you can't really top San Diego in February)

The University of San Diego will be hosting the 2006 Pacific Region Society of Christian Philosophers conference 16-18 February, 2006.  Peter van Inwagen, Lynne Baker and Paul Churchland will give the plenary addresses.  The official Call for Papers can be found here:  http://home.sandiego.edu/~baber/SCP2006/call.html.  Though an SCP conference, please note that "papers on any topic of philosophical interest will be considered."  We are also looking for commentators and sessions chairs.  Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

"Freedom and Determinism" Review

A review of Freedom and Determinism (ed. Campbell, O'Rourke and Shier) by the GFP's very own Eddy Nahmias has appeared in the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews and can be found here:  http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=2841

Compatibilism and Modality

In a recent article (“Free Will and the Problem of Evil,” Religious Studies 40 (2004): 437-456), James Cain makes what seems to me to be a rather bold claim regarding free will and the truth of causal determinism.  Cain first distinguishes between three kinds of compatibility: metaphysical, conceptual and epistemic.  He caches these out in terms of statements.  Statements S1 and S2 are metaphysically compatible if and only if there is a possible world where both S1 and S2 are true.  Statements S1 and S2 are conceptually compatible if and only if it is conceptually possible that both S1 and S2 are true; that is, the negation of the conjunction of S1 and S2 is not an analytic truth.  Finally, statements S1 and S2 are epistemically compatible for a person p at time t only if nothing in p’s epistemic body of evidence at t rules out its being the case that both S1 and S2 are true (for more on these, see pages 438f).

Now, for the claim.  “The standard arguments for compatibilism, at most, support a conceptual or epistemic compatibilism” (443) and that the “typical arguments for compatibilism generally do not provide support for metaphysical compatibilism” (444).  By ‘typical arguments’, Cain has in mind three general strategies for arguing for compatibilism:  paradigm case arguments, conceptual analysis arguments, and arguments employing Frankfurt cases (he specifically mentions Fischer and Ravizza’s arguments in this regard).  It is this third sort of argument for compatibilism that I’m most concerned with.

Now, admittedly semi-compatibilism, versus traditional full-blown compatibilism, makes things a little dicey here (In footnote 24, Cain writes that “I do not claim that Fischer and Ravizza argue for metaphysical compatibilism”).  So let’s just stick with compatibilism. 

Cain thinks that FSCs give “little reason” (448) that there is a possible world where an action is both determined and free.  To make things a little easier, he assumes that there is some correlation between brain states and volitions/choices, as Stump and others do (though he doesn’t think this assumption is crucial for his more general point).  According to a typical understanding of an FSC, the agent in question actually makes some choice even though she couldn’t have done otherwise; that is, had the agent not made the choice ‘on her own’ as it were, the implanted device (or whatever) would have brought about that very same choice via directly stimulating the brain.  This is where Cain takes issue with FSCs.  He writes:  “The answer to the question of whether a Frankfurt device would cause there to be a choice if it caused the atoms in the brain to move just as they might move if a choice was made is as follows: it depends on what sort of causal powers (if any) are essentially active in choosing, and on whether the device brings it about that those powers are properly exercised” (449).  He considers three possibilities:  (1)  choosing does not essentially involve the exercise of any particular causal powers, (2) choosing essentially involves the exercise of certain causal powers, and those causal powers can be exercised by the manipulation device, and (3) the causal powers involved in choosing may be such that they “issued in any one of two or more mutually exclusive alternatives, and which of those alternatives comes about is not fully determined by factors outside the exercise of that power” (449).  Now, if either (1) or (2) were true, then FSCs will have shown free will and causal determinism to be metaphysically compatible.  However, “under the assumptions of case 3, the story told by the Frankfurt example may not be metaphysically possible” (450).  And until it can be shown that FSCs aren't examples of (3), "there is no reason to accept Frankfurt examples as providing a way to show that one's making a given choice is metaphysically compatible with its being impossible for one not to make that choice" (450).

In general, I'm not usually one to support compatibilism.  But I'm struck both by Cain's argument against metaphysical compatibilism, as well as the dialectic at work throughout the article.  Has anyone else read it?  Thoughts?

'Philosophy by Gallup Poll'

In light of a number of recent postings ('Is Incompatibilism Intuitive?' and 'The Intuition Wars, part 446'), I thought I'd reproduce the following discussion between Stephen T. Davis and D. Z. Phillips that I came across this morning.  The context is a discussion about religious language, but I trust you'll see the comparison (Note:  Who is speaking is less than clear.  I'm guessing that C=Phillips, and D=Davis, but I'm not exactly sure):

C:  But what makes you think you can do philosophy in that way?  If I knocked on a door in Claremont and asked the lady of the house what whe meant by 'thinking', whould I take her answer to settle the matter?  One cannot do philosophy by Gallup poll.

D:  Why not?  Wittgensteinians always claim to tell us what we really mean.  Why not ask Christiansn what they do mean?  If the majority says that they mean such-and-such, that settles the matter.  You can do this kind of philosophy by Gallup poll.

C:  No, you can't, because when reference is made to what people mean, the reference is to the role the words play in their lives, not the account they would give if asked.  Notoriously, in giving the account our words can lead us astray.  That is why Wittgensteing said that though a picutre, including a religious picture, is in the foreground, its actual application may be in the background.  The matter can only be resolved, if at all, through discussion of one's interlocutor.  It cannot be settled by Gallup poll.

(D. Z. Phillips, Religion and Friendly Fire, page 7.

If D is correct, then maybe the Garden should try to hire Carl Rove!

Gardeners Take Note

The 2006 INPC (Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference) will be on the theme of "Action and Moral Responsibility."  Committed speakers include Randy Clarke, John Fischer, Al Mele, Michael Moore, Derk Perboom, Paul Russell, Peter van Inwagen, David Widerker.  The call for papers will likely not come out until August, but certainly keep your eyes open for it.

PVI's comments

I'll admit (but only because it's Lent):  I'm lazy.  Rather than tracking down a citation the old-fashioned way, I'll appeal to the collective wisdom of GFP.

Does anybody know the citation, I believe it's from PVI, where the conversation about the majority of analytic philosophers in general being compatibilists is recorded?

Thanks in advance.

Direct and Indirect Arguments

In his “Farewell to the Direct Argument” (Journal of Philosophy 2002), David Widerker argues that ‘direct arguments’ for incompatibilism all implicitly depend on the assumption that determinism rules out the ability to do otherwise, and therefore collapse back into traditional ‘indirect arguments’ for incompatibilism.  According to Widerker, “the hopes of proponents of the direct argument to be able to prove that determinism excludes moral responsibility without the notion of avoidability was unrealistic in the first place.  To see this, it is enough to consider one central assumption of the direct argument, to wit, that no one is morally responsible for the laws of nature.  Why should one accept it if not for the fact that no one could have prevented them from obtaining?” (324).

I’m curios about Widerker’s argument for a number of reasons, not least of which being what it would mean for the debate if it were true.  For one, it would seem to make non-PAP libertarianism (such as that endorsed by Stump and Zagzebski, among others) unstable.  But I’m not aware of any reactions to this argument in the literature.  Are they there?  If not, this would seem to be a crucial point that needs to be addressed, right?