Abstract
Given the available evidence, I argue that we face considerable uncertainty about free will. In particular, I argue that the available philosophical evidence does not support being highly confident in our theories about the nature of free will, though this does not necessarily mean that we should suspend judgment about either incompatibilism or compatibilism. For those who accept incompatibilism, however, I argue that there is enough uncertainty about libertarian free will that they should suspend judgment about whether we are ever free, if not reject free will entirely. While I do not claim that compatibilists should be similarly agnostic about the existence of free will, I argue that most compatibilist theories are subject to considerable uncertainty as well, so that most compatibilists should be agnostic about how often we act freely. I conclude with a brief discussion of how we might address these issues going forward.
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Notes
While Mele (1995), Byrd (2010), and Kearns (2015) defend positions labeled as agnostic, these agnostic views differ substantially from the position defended here. Mele is only agnostic about compatibilism. Byrd (2010) argues that we do not know whether we are morally responsible for our behavior. Kearns argues that we do not know that we are free, but he contends, nevertheless, that it is very plausible that we are (246).
In making this case, I assume that it is possible to suspend belief in free will, contrary to Strawson (1962). The fact that over 16% of philosophers claim to not believe in free will lends some plausibility to this assumption. For responses to P.F. Strawson, see Russell (1992) and Strawson (1986): Chapter 5.
See, for instance, van Inwagen (2010), in which he acknowledges that, despite his disagreement with David Lewis over compatibilism, there is no evidence supporting the belief that, by comparison, Lewis was lacking in his understanding of the relevant issues or in philosophical ability. Some of the participants in the philosophical debates over free will may not share a similar humility regarding their opponents, but such an attitude does not appear to be common. While I assume that such modesty is appropriate, it is worth noting that if I am wrong on this point, the concerns about the quality of the available philosophical evidence discussed below may nevertheless warrant considerable theory-uncertainty.
Peers are often defined as having access to the same evidence, but as Goldman (2010: 210–212) points out, it may be difficult, if not impossible, for two disputants to have the same familiarity with all the relevant information. While I do not require that peers have access to the same evidence, I do not think that the weaker standard for epistemic peerhood employed here will be of consequence to my overall argument. For more on relaxing the evidential requirements for peerhood, see Christensen (2007: 211–212).
To determine whether two philosophers are roughly equally capable, we cannot simply examine their previous judgments to see how reliable they have been. Following Elga (2007: 492–494) and Grundmann (2013), we might worry that this would imply that neither party to a philosophical dispute should see the other as an epistemic peer. See, however, Fumerton (2010), Kornblith (2010: 47–51) and Simpson (2013: 572–576) for compelling replies.
The distinction between conciliatory versus steadfast approaches is common in the literature on disagreement, but it is drawn in different ways. I will count a view as being more or less conciliatory to the degree that it encourages us to lower our confidence in the face of disagreement with epistemic peers.
Admittedly, this is only a very rough sketch of how we should respond to peer disagreement, but it should be sufficient for our purposes. For more detailed discussions of similar approaches, see Kelly (2010, 2013), Lackey (2010), and Thune (2010). To be clear, acknowledging a reason to think that my original judgment might have been mistaken does not mean that I should not have made it. On this point, see Lackey (2010: 316–317).
It is worth noting that while some philosophers express certainty on some issues, such as van Inwagen does on the existence of free will, others may assert and defend views without being confident they are right, perhaps in reaction to persistent peer disagreement. Reflecting on the appropriate reaction to such disagreement, for example, Fumerton (2010: 106) claims that it might be appropriate to assert and defend a philosophical position without even believing it.
Cappelen (2012) denies that there is a broad reliance on intuitions in philosophy. See, however, Chalmers (2014) and Bengson (2014). To be clear, I am not suggesting that philosophers rely solely or primarily on intuition. For a discussion of some of the ways in which philosophers use intuitions, see Bengson (2014: 571–574). There is, as one might expect, considerable controversy about the nature of intuitions. See, for example, Chudnoff (2013: 1–13). If our intuitions are supposed to provide some support for our philosophical theories, then I assume such support does not imply some particularly controversial claim about their nature. If I am wrong about this, then it may turn out that there is an additional reason to be suspicious of appeals to philosophical intuitions.
It is typically assumed in these discussions that we are only directly responsible for our actions when we act freely.
See Frankfurt (1969).
See van Inwagen (1983: 93–105, 182–188), respectively.
Sommers (2015) argues that the majority of the studies of free will and moral responsibility discussed in the experimental philosophy literature are poorly designed and that the significance of the results is often overstated. I do not take up this issue here, as my goal is merely to illustrate that the available empirical evidence does not support a high level of confidence in intuitions about free will.
See Shanteau (1992: 258).
Feltz and Cokely (2012) argues that this and other similar studies show that experts on free will should not be highly confident in their philosophical views without further empirical investigation into possible sources of bias in their intuitions.
Weinberg et al. (2012) showed similar results concerning how ordinary epistemic intuitions are affected by the order in which thought experiments are presented.
See, for example, Grundmann (2010) and Williamson (2011). Both also claim that philosophers are entitled to be confident in the reliability of their intuitions unless there is empirical evidence suggesting otherwise. If so, then I would suggest that the evidence is sufficient at this point to undermine such initial confidence when it comes to our intuitions about free will.
Alexander and Weinberg (2014) makes a similar point concerning epistemic intuitions. Rini (2015) argues that it is still an open empirical question whether expert philosophers make much better use of their intuitions. If it is, then I assume that expert philosophers on free will should not be confident that they are doing so when the available evidence suggests otherwise. It is also worth noting that, given persistent peer disagreements, the appeal to expert intuition has led a large number of philosophers to false views.
For a helpful discussion of studies on this issue, see section 5.2 of Buckwalter (2016). Dunaway et al. (2013) argues instead that philosophers are often good at predicting folk intuitions, but also acknowledges that there is a need for empirical verification of philosophers’ armchair assessments of what the folk are likely to say, as the reliability of these assessments is an open empirical question.
I am assuming that belief in free will cannot be justified a priori. For a discussion and defense of this assumption, see De Caro (2007).
Sehon (2013) examines two particular accounts of free will, the event-causal libertarianism developed by Robert Kane and the compatibilist approach defended by John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, and concludes that we do not know enough about deliberation to confirm that either approach accurately describes deliberation. While I am sympathetic with this conclusion, I am unconvinced by his critique of Fischer’s and Ravizza’s account, as I suspect that it relies on a reading of their talk of “mechanism” that Fischer might reject (2012: 186–187). Additionally, though Sehon thinks that similar concerns likely apply to a number of alternative accounts, he does not endorse agnosticism about the existence or extent of free will.
I take it that if our choices are not determined, then some neural events will not be determined. I also assume that we must turn to science to establish whether there is such neural indeterminacy. We may feel free, but this does not provide compelling evidence of neural indeterminacy. While I will not attempt to defend either assumption here, any attempt to appeal to the phenomenology of deliberation to settle matters that are treated as open scientific questions would appear to require extreme confidence about what the phenomenological data suggest and the reliability of such introspection. Positions on either of these issues are quite controversial. For example, Mele (2014: 78–81) rejects the claim that the phenomenology of deliberation suggests that there is indeterminacy in our deliberation. Likewise, the reliability of introspection is a matter of dispute. See, for example, Schwitzgebel (2008) and Pereboom (2011). Thus, I expect that this combination of views should give rise to enough theory-uncertainty to leave its defenders too hesitant to make confident pronouncements about issues that are considered open questions in science.
There is still considerable disagreement among physicists about how to interpret quantum mechanics, as evidenced by a poll of participants at a conference on the foundations of quantum mechanics. See Schlosshauer et al. (2013).
See Russell (1997: 547–548). It is worth noting that Russell focuses on claims that cannot be disproven, such as the claim that there is a teapot somewhere between Earth and Mars that is too small to be observed by us.
Nahmias (2007) provides a summary of the results from social psychology. There are additional studies, however, that appear to indicate that we are sometimes able to exercise significant conscious control over our behavior, as Mele (2009: 131–144, 2014: 45–46) point out. Thus, while many psychologists appear to believe that we are rarely aware of the causes of our behavior, I agree with Nahmias (2014: 19) that the science seems far from settled at this point. For a helpful discussion of the psychological debate on this issue, see Kihlstrom (2008). Here, I will grant that we are at least sometimes aware of why we do what we do, for instance when we exert conscious control over our decisions, and I will only argue that it is uncertain just how often we have such insight.
See, for example, Saul (2013).
For example, Fischer and Ravizza (1998) offers a prominent compatibilist account of moral responsibility according to which agents can only be morally responsible for their actions if they take responsibility for them. To do so, agents must recognize that it is appropriate for others to blame them for their behavior (211), where this recognition is “based, in the appropriate way, on the evidence” (213). When we are unaware of the causes of our behavior, it is difficult to see how we could recognize, based on the evidence in the appropriate way, that it is appropriate for others to blame us.
Churchland and Suhler (2014a) argues that we have significant nonconscious control over our actions, while resisting using the term “free will.” Nevertheless, while arguing that conscious deliberation is not necessary for moral responsibility, Churchland and Suhler (2014b: 346) concedes that this is not the traditional view. Likewise, Arpaly (2003) argues that we can be morally responsible for our actions even when we are unaware of their causes, so long as these actions reveal important features of our moral psychology. Arpaly concludes that moral responsibility does not require agent-autonomy, which she describes as “a type of self-control” consisting of “the agent’s ability to decide which of [her motivational states] to follow” (118). Sher (2006) also suggests that we can be morally responsible for our behavior even when we are unaware of what is causing it. Sher claims that, in such situations, our behavior would not be under our voluntary control. See, also, Smith (2008), which defends a similar approach according to which moral responsibility does not require voluntary control. While Arpaly, Sher, and Smith are not addressing the requirements for free will, those who view free will as a necessary condition for moral responsibility might nevertheless appeal to a similar account of moral responsibility to argue that we can act freely even when we are unaware of why we are doing so. It is worth noting, though, that Arpaly concedes that many cases of moral responsibility are difficult to decide given our limited knowledge of the relevant psychological and neurological facts (153–159).
For instance, even if we set aside the requirement that morally responsible agents take responsibility for their behavior, Fischer and Ravizza (1998: 69–82) also argues that we can only be responsible for our behavior when it is produced by a mechanism that would both exhibit an appropriate pattern of recognizing reasons to act, including moral reasons, in some suitable range of possible scenarios and lead us at least sometimes to act on those reasons. Even if such a mechanism can operate without our awareness, it is still an open question how often our behavior is produced in this way. For example, if some of our behavior stems from our automatic emotional reactions, as Haidt suggests, or from our implicit biases, we should not assume that these processes involve such a mechanism without further empirical study.
Levy (2014) argues that we are not morally responsible for our decisions when we are unaware of their causes. Likewise, Smith (2015) suggests that we are often blameless for such decisions since they do not reveal the relevant features of our moral psychology. If so, then similar considerations might suggest that such decisions are not free. I believe it is best to treat this as an open question, though, until we have a better understanding of the role of consciousness in deliberation and the processes at work when we are unaware of the causes that bring about our decisions.
Weinberg et al. (2010) suggests that philosophical expertise may continue to prove unreliable because, compared with experts in other disciplines whose intuitions appear more trustworthy, philosophers often cannot appeal to any clear indicators of mistaken belief and they rely much more heavily on intuitions as the main source of data. See, though, Buckwalter (2016), which argues that expert intuition in philosophy may suffer from many of the same sources of error as expert intuitions in other disciplines and that a better understanding of why expertise sometimes fails us might offer philosophers a way to avoid these mistakes.
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Byrd, J. What Should we Believe About Free Will?. Erkenn 86, 505–522 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-019-00116-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-019-00116-3