Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy

by Robert O. Doyle

A college-level sourcebook and textbook on the problem of free will and determinism. Contains a history of the free will problem, a taxonomy of current free will positions, the standard argument against free will, the physics, biology, and neuroscience of free will, the most plausible and practical libertarian solution of the problem, and reviews of the work of the leading determinist, Ted Honderich, the leading libertarian, Robert Kane, the leading compatibilist, Daniel Dennett, and the agnostic, Alfred Mele. 480 pages, 40 figures, 15 sidebars, glossary, bibliography, index.

Genres: Philosophy

482 pages, Paperback

First published June 13, 2011

About the author

Robert O. Doyle, also known as Bob Doyle, is an astrophysicist and non-academic philosopher particularly focused on the problem of "free will".

Reviews

[Alan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, written by a scientist and philosopher with a longtime association with Harvard University, supports the conception of free will, though he would have preferred that another term had been used historically for that principle. Among many other things, Doyle makes the following arguments/observations.

Free will is the product of evolution, starting with such lower forms of life as bacteria (which have what he calls "behavioral free will") and ending with a more developed free will in humans. For heuristic purposes, he teaches a two-stage temporal model of human free will: the first stage is an indeterministic random generator of alternative possibilities (freedom), and the second stage is the deliberate choice by the human brain from among the possibilities (will). In reality, however, "the random generation stage is going on constantly, driven by internal proprioceptions and external environmental perceptions." (381) The interaction between the indeterministic stage and what he calls the stage of "adequate determination" or "adequate determinism" enables free will.

Although Doyle uses the term "adequate determinism" to describe his second stage, he rejects predeterminism, which he defines as "the idea that a strict causal determinism is true, with a causal chain of events back to the origin of the universe, and one possible future." (417) The indeterministic random generation stage, which may be rooted in quantum mechanics, interrupts any presumed inevitable sequence of cause and effect and thereby invalidates any theory of predeterminism.

Although I have not mastered all the details of Doyle's approach in one reading of this book, I am sufficiently impressed with his overall arguments to assign a five-star rating to it.

(edited 5/13/2019)

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you could re-play the Big Bang many times, would the same universe and the same solar system and the same Earth take shape each time? If so, are there parallels in human experience? Would re-playing the the same chain of events always determininstically lead to the same outcomes?

Or, drawing from the indetermism of quantum physics, if randomness in the motion of quantum particles underlie the physical world, does randomness also underlie human events, still leaving no room for free will to alter the chain of events?

I appreciated this book for the guided tour of the millenia-old philosophical debate about free will and human behavior. Doyle guides the reader through the many schools of thought on this topic. The book is primarily intended for serious students of philosophy, but is accessible, though challenging, for a more casual philosopher.

Doyle presents a two-stage model of human behavior, with the random, "quantum noise" in our brains providing the first stage of decision making, and an intelligent, conscious choice forming the second stage of decision making.

I'm interested in thinking more about how this model could apply to social science, psychology, and public policy. Right now I'm particularly intersted in how public policy and public education can (or cannot) affect people's behavior, and therefore interested in potential applications of the free will debate.

Good book -- worth exploring!

[Karate1kid · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains a good review of various views in the debate on free will, how they could be classified and where they fall short. But its main strength is the proposed two stage model. Finally there is a suggestion not only to get rid of the depressing deterministic view, but also a sensible and realistic way to characterize indeterminacy and its possible effects in the world.

That said, this book does not read like a book in philosophy since the careful arguments and attention to details you'll find in philosophy books are missing. It feels more like the careful and thorough attempt of an educated person to make sense of the philosophical debate, and construct a belief system consistent with his experiences and knowledge of science.

BTW the author is the theoretical astrophysicist Robert O. Doyle and has nothing to do with the law of attraction nonsense.

http://www.informationphilosopher.com...

[Hom Sack · Rating 4 out of 5]

One week is not enough time to do justice to this book. There is just too much information to absorb. However, that should be enough time to develop a vocabulary for a mindful discussion on the topic with other laymen. My initial reaction was why is this subject such a big deal for all these philosophers in one way or another try to shoehorn their beliefs and positions into the framework. It seem all this is just linguistic and syntactic gobblegook. In the end, whatever the position, I don't think it makes a whole lot of difference for most people. Nevertheless, the book is a worthwhile read.

[Joseph Schrock · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fairly comprehensive discussion of human free will. However, Doyle tries to explain genuine freedom in physicalist terms, and that does not work. His model of free will actually fails on that account.