Flickers of Freedom

Behavioral Ethics Lab at U Penn

Congratulations to Professor Cristina Bicchieri and colleagues on the recently launched Behavioral Ethics Lab (BeLab) at The University of Pennsylvania.  Here is a description of the exciting project:

BeLab is part of the Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program and reflects its multidisciplinary spirit. We study moral behavior in all its complexity, so that our research crosses the boundaries of several disciplines. Our group includes psychologists, behavioral economists, game theorists, biologists, and moral and political philosophers. At BeLab we do laboratory experiments,  but we also go to the field, and we theorize about what we find empirically, using analytical models as well as simulations. 

I look forward to seeing the findings from their lab!

Theism and Incompatibilism: Why?

Hi All,

Look, my time as guest blogger is winding down, and this time of year many of us are caught up with final exams, dissertation defenses, and all that stuff.  Lots of deadlines, and little time for blogging.  So I thought I'd wrap up with a series of lighter observations and invitations for discusssion. 

Here is one: When we all get together over a few cold beers at various APA sessions and what not, it often comes up in conversation that there is a striking sociological fact about our field: most incompatibilists currently working in our area tend to be theists.  It's not also often remarked that most compatibilists tend not to be theists, but I take this to be implied.  I myself, a compatibilist, am not a theist; I'm an atheist.  Now of course, there are not hard categories here.  But I am curious as to why this is.  Is it mere sociology?  Or do the arguments for compatibilism generally tend to favor a denial of theism while the arguments for incompatibilism generally tend to favor theism? 

Thoughts? 

Compatibilism and the Contours of Free Agency

I defend a reasons-responsive theory of free will.  As a compatibilist, I am committed to showing that an adequate account of such freedom can be advanced without at any point requiring the falsity of determinism.  Roughly, reasons-responsive theories account for free will in terms of an agent’s responsiveness to an adequate spectrum of reasons.  In my estimation, reasons-responsive theories have several advantages over what are known as mesh theories, theories that are also often offered in the service of defending compatibilism.   Again, speaking only roughly, mesh theories account for free will in terms of a harmoniously functioning mesh of psychic subsystems collectively generating action.   

As I see it, one striking advantage of reasons-responsive theories over mesh theories, such as Harry Frankfurt’s, is that the former are not plagued by a difficulty that seems endemic to the latter.  The problem is just that mesh theorists characterize acting freely in terms of action flowing from a harmonious mesh.  On Frankfurt’s view, for instance, it is when one’s will (one’s effective first-order desire) is aligned with what, at a higher-order of desires, one, by way of identification, wants one’s will to be.  The mesh here is a meshing of higher-order desires working in harmony with lower-order desires.  The problem, however, for views with a mesh structure is that they seem handicapped in their ability to distinguish between acting unfreely because of acting from an unharmonious mesh as opposed to freely acting from an unharmonious mesh.  To use a case of Frankfurt’s as an example, recall the unwilling addict, who does not act freely and is not responsible, and now consider instead a weak-willed non-addict, who freely takes the drug and is responsible for doing so despite instead judging it best that she not take the drug, and despite identifying with her desire not to do so.  Frankfurt, it seems, cannot readily explain the difference between these agents.  The problem is not unique to Frankfurt’s mesh theory, so far as I can tell.  Other mesh theorists like Gary Watson and Michael Bratman also face a similar problem.  (For my money, Bratman has the most promising mesh theory, but that is the subject for another post.) 

The reason that I describe the above problem for mesh theorists as a striking advantage for reasons-responsive theorists is because, where mesh theorists have a hard time accounting for these sorts of problems, for reasons-responsive theorists, this is a cake walk: The weak-willed non addict is responsive to a richer spectrum of reasons for not taking the drug, and takes it from causal sources that are suitably sensitive to that richer spectrum of reasons.  The unwilling adduct is not responsive to as rich a spectrum of reasons and takes the drug from causal sources that are not suitably sensitive to that spectrum. 

Not long ago, John Martin Fischer posted on our Flickers site and developed this criticism for mesh theories.  Now it might well be that mesh theorists can overcome this criticism, and showing why I think they cannot requires far more space than I have available here.  But what I am interested in at present is, so to speak, the flip side of this criticism.  Mesh theorists might put to reasons-responsive theorists the criticism that there is a lacuna in their reasons-responsive accounts, a serious short-coming that ought to force them to take on at least some of the features of a mesh theory so as to avoid the charge that they simply fail to capture an important dimension of free and responsible agency.  The lacuna in their account, the mesh theorists might argue, is precisely that reasons-responsive theories do nothing to capture the internal features of our agency, and that this is not merely one further element that ought to be explained among others in a theory of freedom, but concerns the most fundamental features of our nature as (free) persons. 

To develop this criticism of reasons-responsive theories, consider again Frankfurt’s famous 1971 paper “Freedom and the Will and the Concept of a Person.”  On his view, only a person is able to adopt attitudes about her own motivational states as they bear upon her agency in the world.  Being so structured, only a person, Frankfurt essayed, is in a position to face a certain problem about her own will in that it might not be as she herself wants it to be.  Now Frankfurt executed this view in a particular way (by, among other things, reference to an ability to form volitions).  And I have ignored these details here.  I am more interested in the general structural features of mesh theories that seem to me to get at something quite deep about our agency as free persons.  We could instead theorize, as Watson does, in terms of the relation between one’s motivational and her evaluative systems and the way that a person might adopt certain evaluative attitudes towards the “forces” moving her to action.  Alternatively, ala Bratman, we might do this by way of higher-order planning policies that structure for us our commitments and guide our preferences but yet can be foiled by haywire forces that gum up he works and lead to defects of agency. 

In general, I believe that these mesh theories capture something right, something deep and important about our free agency as persons and candidates for moral responsibility.  And from what I can tell, we reasons-responsive theorists have just not built into our theories features of agency that pay adequate attention to the internal psychic structures that give rise to these problems.  Mesh theorists might quip back, then, at the likes of Fischer, Haji, me and numerous other reasons-responsive theorists (I would include in our camp Dana Nelkin, David Brink, Carolina Sartorio, Michael Smith, Kadri Vihvelin, Susan Wolf, and numerous others), that with no more than the resources of responsiveness to reasons, we cannot showcase the special place of the unique internal structure of a person’s will (as Frankfurt would put it), since all we have are sets of reasons to which an agent must be responsive.  Of course, reasons-responsive theorists could simply contend that the spectrum of reasons to which a free agent must be responsive must include reasons she has presented by her own internal psychology.  (This is how I have always imagined that I could solve this problem.)  But in fairness to the mesh theorists, this just seems inadequate.  My relation to my own internal states and the problems of agency posed by my complex nature as a person is not like my relation to the reasons afforded to me by the world as I find it.  I have some ideas here, but I’ll not show my hand, at least not now.  I’m curious as to what all of you think.

Oh, one more thing: I’d like to plug this as a problem for anyone who wants to advance a positive account of free will, which includes libertarianism.  Why?  You libertarians out there should also be interested in the nature of freedom, aside from the compatibility issue.  It is open to you, as Carl Ginet has proposed in assessing Fischer and Ravizza’s view, to embrace the best compatibilist proposal of freedom and then just tack on a requirement of indeterminism (suitably located, of course).

Sorry for the long post.  It took a bit of effort to lay this one out.  Hope you find it interesting! 

Intuitions and Audiences in Debates over Manipulation Arguments

Derk Pereboom and I agree that the audience whose intuitions should matter in our PPR debate over his version of the manipulation argument--his Four Case argument--is the audience of open-minded and undecided inquirers.  These inquirers are undecided about whether determinism undermines freedom and responsibility, and they are open to persuasion by further clarifying considerations.  Upon first being confronted with the thesis of determinism, and reflecting upon the nature and conditions of moral responsibility, they are willing to acknowledge that determinism might well pose a threat.  But they are neither natural compatibilists nor natural incompatibilists--that is, they are not prepared to respond to the apparent puzzle by committing to either of the opposing standard positions.  Note, furthermore, that Pereboom and I are imagining our audience to be pre-theoretically unpolluted; they've not been influenced by details of and reflection on the philosophical debate.  In this way, their intuitions about cases provide probative evidence speaking for or against compatibilism or incompatibilism.

Given this way of framing the debate, Pereboom takes cases like his Case 1 (Plum manipulated moment to moment to satisfy putative compatibilist sufficient conditions whereby he kills Ms. White) and his Case 2 (Plum manipulated at birth from a temporal distance to kill Ms. White) to be clarifying considerations.   When presented to an audience of undecided inquirers, these cases make vivid hidden causes, as Spinoza would wish to emphasize, and thereby make clear what is going on in the normal deterministic cases as well.  Pereboom contends that, given this audience, and in response to reflection upon these cases, they will and ought to move in the direction of assigning greater credence to incompatibilism.  So, to cut to the chase, he wins and I lose. (This is only one of his points against me, but it is the one I want to focus upon.)

One way I have tied to resist Pereboom is by attending to cases that are closer to ordinary life cases, cases like Pereboom's Case 3 (Plum exposed to an indoctrinating environment during his upbringing).  And I have dawn especially on cases like those Nomy Arpaly discusses, cases where something dramatic happens to a person, but in a way that leaves relevant features of her agency unimpaired, and causes changes so dramatic that a person then acts very differently than she otherwise would.  Examples she offers are cases of religious conversion and the overwhelming life-altering love some parents report when their children are born.  These cases, Arpaly and I think, do not confirm an incompatibilist diagnosis, and I say, in resistance to Pereboom, should count as clarifying considerations speaking on behalf of compatibilism, or at least against incompatibilism and so for retention of an agnostic stance. 

Now, here is what I am especially interested in discussing.  I believe that we have good philosophical reason to favor somewhat, or weigh more heavily, the intuitions elicited from closer-to-life cases as in comparison with those that are further away.  The ones further away are less reliable guides to testing our conceptual competence and to informing the role of the pertinent concepts in our properly functioning application of them.  So, suppose cases like Pereboom's Case 1 and Case 2 count as clarifying considerations moving an undecided audience to up its credence in the direction of incompatibilism *more strongly* than cases like my preferred Arpaly-cases move this same audience to lower its credence away from a judgment of incompatibilism.  Should this count as a win for the incompatibilist?  I do not think so, since as philosophers we should look more skeptically at the evidence elicited from the more bizarre cases when weighed against those that are closer to real life cases. If I am correct, then I do not think Pereboom can claim victory in his debate with me. 

Here are four comments on this last paragraph: First, I've got no good argument for this thing I believe about the relative value of intuitions about these cases.  It's a philosophical hunch.  Any ideas?  Second, note that if I am correct, this adds an interesting layer to the work done by x-phi folks.  They'll need to evaluate in different ways the results of studies involving vignettes that are closer to real life cases as in comparison with those that are more bizarre.  Third, all of this just assumes that we have a shared notion of what intuitions are and how they help us in philosophical theorizing.  But I suspect we have no shared consensus at all on what the hell they are (been reading an excellent book on this by Herman Cappelen).  Fourth, Pereboom and I favor the intuitions of the theoretically unpolluted, but is this just reckless?  Consider Mele, who instead advises that we consider the judgments about cases not of the uninitiated, but of theorists who are agnostic but who have thought long and hard about this issue. 

 

LAST CALL: APRIL 15 deadline for submissions to FW Conference* in SF

Final call for abstracts 

Reference, Conceptual Change, and Free Will

August 9-11, 2013

University of San Francisco

Organizer: Manuel Vargas

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Keynote Speaker:

Shaun Nichols (Arizona) "Free Will and Error"

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Deadline for abstracts: April 15, 2013.

Decisions announced by May 15, 2013. 

   

The aim of this conference* is to assemble a small group of philosophers to discuss in-progress work on issues connected to reference and/or conceptual change as it pertains to free will and moral responsibility. (A 'conference*' is something very much like a conference, but not necessarily corresponding to all the significant or even the essential features of widespread conceptions of a conference.) The aspiration is to have a small, workshopy event.

    Potential topics could include, for example: whether one's theory of reference makes a difference to how one thinks about free will and moral responsibility; whether the meaning of free will or responsibility has changed; what constraints determine whether we should accept an error theory of free will; whether cross-cultural or other empirical data suggest that free will or moral responsibility are conceptually fragmented or significantly variegated across societies and times; whether philosophical on free will and moral responsibility should largely preserve folk notions and/or the extent to which they can depart from such notions; how we might settle disputes about what is conceptually essential or not for free will, and so on.

    Anticipated length of papers should be either 20 minutes or 45 minutes. Proposals from early career faculty are especially encouraged. However, philosophers of all career stages, including (advanced) graduate students and not-early-career professors are encouraged to submit an abstract or otherwise participate. 

    Abstracts should be sent to <mrvargas@usfca.edu> with the subject line indicating "USF FW Event" and either "20 minute" or "45 minute" (as applicable). Abstracts should be roughly 200-500 words.

    Seating will be limited, so if you are interested in attending but not presenting, please contact the organizer in advance.

Libertarian Free Will: Problems and Prospects

Call for Abstracts

Libertarian Free Will: Problems and Prospects

Second Annual Tennessee Value and Agency (TVA) Conference

November 15-17, 2013 // The University of Tennessee – Knoxville

Keynote Speakers: Robert Kane (University Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Texas) and Michael McKenna (Keith Lehrer Chair of Philosophy, University of Arizona)

Abstracts (of 2-3 double-spaced pages prepared for blind review) due by June 15, 2013 by e-mail to EJ Coffman (ecoffma1@utk.edu)

If libertarianism about freedom and moral responsibility is true, then people sometimes act freely and accountably without being causally determined to do so.  Frequently maligned within the history of philosophy, this view has gained increasingly sympathetic attention among philosophers.  But many stark questions remain, including:

- How plausible is this view? 

- If our actions are not causally determined, how can we have control over them? 

- Why should we want our actions to be breaks in the deterministic causal chain?

Abstracts that engage these and similar issues relevant to the assessment of libertarian approaches to freedom and responsibility will be considered for the 2013 TVA Conference.  Sessions will be approximately one hour long, with 30-35 minutes for the presentation and 20-25 minutes for group discussion.

The TVA conference (http://web.utk.edu/~acureto1/tva/) is an annual event aimed at encouraging philosophical conversation about topics pursued by established research clusters at the University of Tennessee Department of Philosophy. 

The website for the 2013 TVA conference can be found here. 

Sources of Free Will Problems?

    Greetings everyone!  Thanks to Thomas Nadelhoffer for inviting me to host the Flickers of Freedom blog this month.  I know.  It’s April Fools’ Day.  Don’t think it’s not dawned on why Thomas would find it especially fitting for me to start officially hosting today.  Ha ha!  Very funny, Thomas.  Just for that, and in the spirit of the day, let me briefly propose one especially delightful (negative) subjective condition on free will that, if libertarianism is true, I hope is also true.  It’s this: acting freely requires that one does not believe that libertarianism is true.    Take that Peter van Inwagen and Bob Kane!  That goes for you too, Chris Franklin and Patrick Todd!

    Having dispensed with those deep thoughts, I’d like to begin by inviting people to reflect on the source of the free will problem, or as I would prefer to express it, the sources of free will problems.  Let me explain.  On various occasions, I have noted that, in my estimation, I do not think that there is just one free will problem, but several, and I’ve insinuated that different terminological starting points are likely the upshot of approaching the philosophical topic in a different way.  Here I am not interested in, for instance, the expression “free will” (although note how lively that discussion was!).  Here I am interested in different sorts of puzzles that give rise to slightly different problems that go under the umbrella of “The Free Will Problem.”  Of course, we are all familiar with one that links it to moral responsibility and, as some like Derk would have it, basic desert.  But here are two others:

    1. Begin with a simple observation about deliberation and the phenomenology of our (well-ordered) agency: When we deliberate, we try to decide between options.  Furthermore, when we are going about our daily lives faced with options about whether to order the steak or the tuna, we experience our agency as if it is open to us to order either.  This is so even if we are strongly inclined toward the tuna and no deliberation or reflection is called for.  Faced with the thesis of determinism, it appears on its face that we have a threat to an action-theoretic assumption arising naturally from these simple observations—the assumption that we are able to do otherwise.  Note these worries have NOTHING to do with moral responsibility, at least not in any immediate way.

    2. Consider the internal psychic struggles involved in being the sorts of agents we are.  Put crudely, we sometimes struggle between what we most desire and what we think it best to do.  Here, internal passions and motivations, from simple bodily appetites to refined preferences, compete with assessments about what is in our own long-term best interests understood purely prudentially, as well as what morality counsels.   Of course, we have here resources for problems about weakness of will.  But there are also related problems about recklessness.  Free will, it seems to me, in realtion to these problems, has something to do with our being able to master or control our inner lives and the agency flowing from it.  Determinism, and other worries about naturalism more generally, arise insofar as, one way or another, the causal origins of our agency make it just a crap shoot whether we can indeed control these conflicting inner forces, or if, instead , all weakness of will is, say, really just compulsion, or all recklessness is really just unchecked (uncontrollable) ignorance or stupidity. 

    I suspect there are other sources as well—sources of free will problems.  I myself have always fixed on the problem that arises when we tend to the conditions for moral responsibility.  But I want to be a pluralist about these issues.  What do you think?  And do you think much rides on any of this?

New Free Will Post-doc Position at FSU

The ad below will appear soon in JFP online.  It was good to see a lot of you at the San Francisco APA.  --Al

One year post-doctoral Fellowship, beginning Fall 2013. We are looking for philosophers with an AOS in free will. The Fellow is expected to teach four courses per year in the Philosophy Department. Salary: $40,000. Please send dossier (including letter of application, CV, writing sample, three letters of recommendation, and evidence of teaching effectiveness) to Post-doc Search Committee, Department of Philosophy, 641 University Way, P.O. Box 3061500, Florida State University, Tallahassee FL 32306-1500. Fax 850-644-3832. Applications must be received by May 15, 2013. Women and members of minority groups under-represented in academia are especially encouraged to apply. Florida State University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer, committed to diversity in hiring, and a Public Records Agency. Inquiries to Piers Rawling, Chair, prawling@fsu.edu, or 850-644-1483.

 

Building Better Books

Manuel Vargas's Building Better Beings: A Theory of Moral Responsibility is now available.  Here is the abstract:

Building Better Beings presents a new theory of moral responsibility. Beginning with a discussion of ordinary convictions about responsibility and free will and their implications for a philosophical theory, Manuel Vargas argues that no theory can do justice to all the things we want from a theory of free will and moral responsibility. He goes on to show how we can nevertheless justify our responsibility practices and provide a normatively and naturalistically adequate account of responsible agency, blame, and desert.

Three ideas are central to Vargas' account: the agency cultivation model, circumstantialism about powers, and revisionism about responsibility and free will. On Vargas' account, responsibility norms and practices are justified by their effects. In particular, the agency cultivation model holds that responsibility practices help mold us into creatures that respond to moral considerations. Moreover, the abilities that matter for responsibility and free will are not metaphysically prior features of agents in isolation from social contexts. Instead, they are functions of both agents and their normatively structured contexts. This is the idea of circumstantialism about the powers required for responsibility. Third, Vargas argues that an adequate theory of responsibility will be revisionist, or at odds with important strands of ordinary convictions about free will and moral responsibility. Building Better Beings provides a compelling and state-of-the-art defense of moral responsibility in the face of growing philosophical and scientific skepticism about free will and moral responsibility.

  Congrats to Manuel!

Scientists prove free will exists

April Fools!

However, John Fischer was on NPR's The Story here.