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Four Views on Free Will
Focusing on the concepts and interactions of free will, moral responsibility, and determinism, this text represents the most up-to-date account of the four major positions in the free will debate.
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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August 10, 2021
Started the book a staunch hard incompatibilist. Came out of it a conflicted strong revisionist?
True to the book, I will review the four separate authors and their ideas.
Robert H. Kane - Libertarianism and Self Forming Actions (SFA)
Kane is a consummate philosopher, steelmanning his opponents views in a clear and concise way. It is a shame then that I don’t find his arguments convincing. His idea of self-forming actions, or SFAs is probably the most reasonable way to argue for actual libertarian free will but to me it still falls flat. His argument hinges so much on the “will” working through a net of indeterminism which might or might not be true. Thus, his belief seems to me to be a hedging of bets, hoping that future science will make his claims true. He acknowledges this himself and argues it as the best course of action. However, even if it ends up being true that the brain works indeterminately I just don’t see how SFAs get around the problem of source incompatibilism. Also, as mentioned by other philosophers here the possibility of different choices aren’t inherently freedom-giving if they don’t offer meaningful choices. There seems to me to be much too many assumptions at play here.
John Martin Fischer - Semicompatibilism and Guidance Control
Compatibilism was the belief that most confounded me before reading this book. Fischer’s arguments made them more understandable. What I have understood is that the idea of compatibilism is so alien to my intuition that holding their ideas clearly in my head is difficult. It is like holding a slippery pebble with greased hands, it slips away at a moment’s notice.
My biggest gripe with compatibilism is its reliance on commonsense intuitions. This strikes me (ironic, I know) as just a bad heuristic to get to the truth of the matter. I don’t see why we need to base our ideas of free will off of the common sense idea of what “active” means. Furthermore, although Frankfurt examples are a good source for pinpointing an area of our intuition that seems to comply with free will in a deterministic world, I don’t see how that is a knockdown argument for anything other than our own confused intuitions.
Now, there are points Fischer makes that made me appreciate the compatibilist line of thought. First, I hadn’t really considered that the reductionist take, that we are simply atoms in motion, is simplistic. That free will can be an emergent property from a set of material that lack it. I’m frankly a little embarrassed by not seeing that one sooner.
Secondly, his explanation of what constitutes "guidance control" was familiar and helpful in making clearer a distinction between myself and compatibilists of his ilk. The need for reason-conducive processes and the need for ownership of those processes. Based on that argument, I would agree that moral responsibility would be rescued but I don't believe that we are owners of our own reason.
His contention that hard incompatibilists believe that you need total control in order to have free will seems faulty to me. The argument isn’t that we lack the total control to have free will, the argument is that we don’t have any control at all. Imagine a person’s will as a house. The hard incompatibilist does not point out areas of that house that lack freedom and deem the whole building faulty, he points at the foundation of the house and says that there is nothing there.The whole house is built on nothing. I imagine a compatibilist would argue that we aren’t sure about the foundation of the house but that the way it works right now implies that we have all we need. And to be fair, the house is still standing. I’m not sure if this metaphor serves any purpose but I wanted to make it.
In the end, the biggest take-away from this chapter was that semi-compatibilism is a coherent way to look at the world, but one that seems, to me, a bit too emotionally invested in the idea of moral responsibility and thus twisting conclusions in the direction of them rather than, what seems to me, in the more logical direction of incompatibilism.
Derk Pereboom - Hard Incompatibilism and the Four-Case Argument
It is perhaps a blessing in disguise that the one author who is the hardest to understand is the one that holds the position I most agree with. Portions of his chapters were nigh incomprehensible to me to begin with.; the form of analytic philosophy that seems untethered from actual reality. Thankfully by the end I saw, if not the whole body, the skeleton of the point he was trying to make.
The Four-Case Argument is Pereboom’s big idea or logical flourish. It intends to show a series of four similar cases with varying degrees of manipulation applied to the target making a choice. It starts with a clear instance of no free will and ends with a case that would be clearly a case of compatibilist free will. My intuition is so rooted in incompatibilism that the argument has no argumentative power as I already agree that all four cases lack free will. As such, it’s hard for me to see how well the argument tracks. To me, it seems self-evident that the conclusion is a lack of free will based on our total lack of control if we look temporally. Everything can be traced back to a point in which we had no control. In the end, we have no control over the kind of person we are and if our choices emerge from a mind we had no say in making, how can we be held morally responsible in a moral desert kind of way? I acknowledge that this might be a reductionist way of seeing that reading this book should’ve purged me of but I still believe it to be the best argument.
The part of Pereboom which reads the easiest is when he expounds on the virtues of a hard incompatibilist society; what we might gain from strongly revising our ideas about moral responsibility. Most of his ideas here seem good to me and I believe that looking at moral responsibility as a “call to moral self improvement” is a much better way of thinking about praise and blame.
Manuel Vargas - Revisionism
This is the best written part of the book. Vargas lays out his argument in a way that is easy to follow. His chapter on why we shouldn't just accept hard incompatibilism is the closest I've gotten to seeing the compatibilist way of approaching the subject. Wonderful argumentation here. By the end of it, I was dangerously close to accepting his framing of the problem and his ultimate solution of revising our concept of free will. Although he says it does not, I believe in the end it hinges on a utilitarian or consequentialist argument that a responsibility system is the system that best fosters good outcomes. This might just be my reductionist thinking that reduces his moral claims down to, what I believe, is its’ consequentialist foundation.
The discussions at the end helped put things into focus. Specifically, Vargas convinced me that seeing moral responsibility on a spectrum might be a more rational way to look at it. That we can have more or less of it. That makes sense to me but I am not sure I believe it just yet. I am still beholden to the view of hard incompatibilism, but simply making me see a different way of conceptualizing moral responsibility is a big concession for me personally. His disregard of intuition is his biggest strength in my opinion. I also found his difference between weak and moderate revisionism compelling; that we need to revise what people think, not revise what they think they think. (I.E: Convince people that free will does not need alternative possibilities, not to convince them that they already believe that.)
True to the book, I will review the four separate authors and their ideas.
Robert H. Kane - Libertarianism and Self Forming Actions (SFA)
Kane is a consummate philosopher, steelmanning his opponents views in a clear and concise way. It is a shame then that I don’t find his arguments convincing. His idea of self-forming actions, or SFAs is probably the most reasonable way to argue for actual libertarian free will but to me it still falls flat. His argument hinges so much on the “will” working through a net of indeterminism which might or might not be true. Thus, his belief seems to me to be a hedging of bets, hoping that future science will make his claims true. He acknowledges this himself and argues it as the best course of action. However, even if it ends up being true that the brain works indeterminately I just don’t see how SFAs get around the problem of source incompatibilism. Also, as mentioned by other philosophers here the possibility of different choices aren’t inherently freedom-giving if they don’t offer meaningful choices. There seems to me to be much too many assumptions at play here.
John Martin Fischer - Semicompatibilism and Guidance Control
Compatibilism was the belief that most confounded me before reading this book. Fischer’s arguments made them more understandable. What I have understood is that the idea of compatibilism is so alien to my intuition that holding their ideas clearly in my head is difficult. It is like holding a slippery pebble with greased hands, it slips away at a moment’s notice.
My biggest gripe with compatibilism is its reliance on commonsense intuitions. This strikes me (ironic, I know) as just a bad heuristic to get to the truth of the matter. I don’t see why we need to base our ideas of free will off of the common sense idea of what “active” means. Furthermore, although Frankfurt examples are a good source for pinpointing an area of our intuition that seems to comply with free will in a deterministic world, I don’t see how that is a knockdown argument for anything other than our own confused intuitions.
Now, there are points Fischer makes that made me appreciate the compatibilist line of thought. First, I hadn’t really considered that the reductionist take, that we are simply atoms in motion, is simplistic. That free will can be an emergent property from a set of material that lack it. I’m frankly a little embarrassed by not seeing that one sooner.
Secondly, his explanation of what constitutes "guidance control" was familiar and helpful in making clearer a distinction between myself and compatibilists of his ilk. The need for reason-conducive processes and the need for ownership of those processes. Based on that argument, I would agree that moral responsibility would be rescued but I don't believe that we are owners of our own reason.
His contention that hard incompatibilists believe that you need total control in order to have free will seems faulty to me. The argument isn’t that we lack the total control to have free will, the argument is that we don’t have any control at all. Imagine a person’s will as a house. The hard incompatibilist does not point out areas of that house that lack freedom and deem the whole building faulty, he points at the foundation of the house and says that there is nothing there.The whole house is built on nothing. I imagine a compatibilist would argue that we aren’t sure about the foundation of the house but that the way it works right now implies that we have all we need. And to be fair, the house is still standing. I’m not sure if this metaphor serves any purpose but I wanted to make it.
In the end, the biggest take-away from this chapter was that semi-compatibilism is a coherent way to look at the world, but one that seems, to me, a bit too emotionally invested in the idea of moral responsibility and thus twisting conclusions in the direction of them rather than, what seems to me, in the more logical direction of incompatibilism.
Derk Pereboom - Hard Incompatibilism and the Four-Case Argument
It is perhaps a blessing in disguise that the one author who is the hardest to understand is the one that holds the position I most agree with. Portions of his chapters were nigh incomprehensible to me to begin with.; the form of analytic philosophy that seems untethered from actual reality. Thankfully by the end I saw, if not the whole body, the skeleton of the point he was trying to make.
The Four-Case Argument is Pereboom’s big idea or logical flourish. It intends to show a series of four similar cases with varying degrees of manipulation applied to the target making a choice. It starts with a clear instance of no free will and ends with a case that would be clearly a case of compatibilist free will. My intuition is so rooted in incompatibilism that the argument has no argumentative power as I already agree that all four cases lack free will. As such, it’s hard for me to see how well the argument tracks. To me, it seems self-evident that the conclusion is a lack of free will based on our total lack of control if we look temporally. Everything can be traced back to a point in which we had no control. In the end, we have no control over the kind of person we are and if our choices emerge from a mind we had no say in making, how can we be held morally responsible in a moral desert kind of way? I acknowledge that this might be a reductionist way of seeing that reading this book should’ve purged me of but I still believe it to be the best argument.
The part of Pereboom which reads the easiest is when he expounds on the virtues of a hard incompatibilist society; what we might gain from strongly revising our ideas about moral responsibility. Most of his ideas here seem good to me and I believe that looking at moral responsibility as a “call to moral self improvement” is a much better way of thinking about praise and blame.
Manuel Vargas - Revisionism
This is the best written part of the book. Vargas lays out his argument in a way that is easy to follow. His chapter on why we shouldn't just accept hard incompatibilism is the closest I've gotten to seeing the compatibilist way of approaching the subject. Wonderful argumentation here. By the end of it, I was dangerously close to accepting his framing of the problem and his ultimate solution of revising our concept of free will. Although he says it does not, I believe in the end it hinges on a utilitarian or consequentialist argument that a responsibility system is the system that best fosters good outcomes. This might just be my reductionist thinking that reduces his moral claims down to, what I believe, is its’ consequentialist foundation.
The discussions at the end helped put things into focus. Specifically, Vargas convinced me that seeing moral responsibility on a spectrum might be a more rational way to look at it. That we can have more or less of it. That makes sense to me but I am not sure I believe it just yet. I am still beholden to the view of hard incompatibilism, but simply making me see a different way of conceptualizing moral responsibility is a big concession for me personally. His disregard of intuition is his biggest strength in my opinion. I also found his difference between weak and moderate revisionism compelling; that we need to revise what people think, not revise what they think they think. (I.E: Convince people that free will does not need alternative possibilities, not to convince them that they already believe that.)
January 27, 2009
Good introduction to the main players involved in this debate. Libertarianism, semi-compatibilism, hard indeterminism, and revisionism are presented by top representatives of the respective positions. Each author is allowed to respond to the other papers. Kane is clear and lucid as usual. He presents libertarianism. He argues that only an indeterminitely formed will provides ultimate responsibility. The will only needs to be formed this way once, though. After that he allows for determined actions. Fischer presents his unique spin on compatibilism, arguing for semi-compatibilism (i.e., moral responsibility is compatible with determinism despite whether we have genuine access to alternative possibilities; he finds the consequence argument convincing). He sketches his theory of guidance-control and invokes Frankfurt counter-examples to deny the principle of alternative possibility. Pereboom is a hard incompatibilist. He believes freedom is incompatible with determinism and that libertarian freedom doesn't work either. He invokes luck objections to both positions. Vargas is a revisionist. He thinks we can hold to freedom and moral responsibility, but both concepts need some revision. He finds libertarianism problematic on numerous levels, and also thinks that common sense accounts of moral responsibility and freedom are incompatible with determinism. But he revises the concepts rather than holding to hard incompatibilism.
August 29, 2024
This book was definitely a bit over my head. Nonetheless, it still gave me a better understanding of the major positions, concepts surrounding the free will debate, and what I'm inclined to believe on this issue. Through reading this, I discovered that Robert Kane is not the only philosopher who publishes works with glaring errors. Most if not all of the contributors to this book made such mistakes frequently enough that one wonders whether it was even proofread (errors such as writing "be" instead of "by" and leaving in an "is" that obviously should have been deleted). Aside from this minor critique and the denseness of this work, I thought the book was good. I would recommend it (with a warning that it's dense) to anyone looking to get an idea of several different free will perspectives defended by their proponents.
October 19, 2022
The kind of philosophy book you can read throughout a semester of college because it's in the library and you'd rather read it than do your actual homework. Having each of the authors respond to each other is a nice touch. Pereboom's Hard Incompatibilism Theory is my personal favorite. The inclusion of Frankfurt's second order desiring on page 94 ( Plum desiring to murder White and willing himself to desire to do so) is a greta argument, and works well to refute the Compatibility theory. Just one example, but in the aggregate, this book provides a lot of interesting epistemology on the nature of free will. Highly recommend.
Is it wordy? Sure, but in the scope of a book of analytic philosophy, that's to be expected, and not the end of the world.
Is it wordy? Sure, but in the scope of a book of analytic philosophy, that's to be expected, and not the end of the world.
February 17, 2023
(2.5) Definitely my least favorite area of philosophy lol. Vargas is a real one though
December 26, 2017
Really nice compilation of four authors' - Kane, Fischer, Pereboom, and Vargas - papers on their respective views on the free will/moral responsibility debate. All authors wrote clearly and defended their own positions (and critiqued the others') with persuasive argumentation. Although it is quite a difficult subject, the authors all managed to make it very easily understandable.
The final fifth (or so) of the book was dedicated to each author responding to the others' papers, which helped to solidify both where each author stands, and the main points of difference between and motivations behind the positions. Overall, a very useful book on the debate regarding whether people are (ever) morally responsible.
The final fifth (or so) of the book was dedicated to each author responding to the others' papers, which helped to solidify both where each author stands, and the main points of difference between and motivations behind the positions. Overall, a very useful book on the debate regarding whether people are (ever) morally responsible.
July 19, 2012
More of a straight-up text book than I'd expected. As such, the writing existed somewhere between mostly comprehensible and godawful. It's impressive how many words non-writing thinkers can use to make their positions as obscure and hard to grasp as possible. They make the mistake of thinking the only way to be clear is to write more. So. Assuming one can wade through this without falling asleep--I nodded off now and then and skipped various chunks--it provides a good overview of the main philosophical positions on free will.
September 1, 2021
A bit too word-salady to my taste at times but overall a pretty nice introduction to the topic. Even if you disagree with a given contributor, it's worthwhile to read through their thoughts and contentions as it may allow you to develop your particular view.
Somehow, although I'm certainly not a libertarian (in the context of free will) myself, Kane's chapters seemed the most substantial and I enjoyed reading his takes the most.
Somehow, although I'm certainly not a libertarian (in the context of free will) myself, Kane's chapters seemed the most substantial and I enjoyed reading his takes the most.
November 10, 2012
Modern Scientific Claims Are Not Compatible With Free Will
The question of whether or not the claims of modern science are compatible with Free Will rests upon the nature of the claims of modern science. In this paper, I frame the prevailing problem of free of science to Free Will in terms of materialistic reductionism, much in the same way that Barr frames the problem. Scientific understanding, to this point, cannot adequately explain our common sense notion of Free Will. In addition, there are several lines of philosophical thought accounting for the case where modern science is deterministic, and the case where modern science is indeterministic. In this paper, I will focus on the most recent arguments of the incompatibility of Free Will to both an indeterministic and deterministic understanding of modern science.
Materialism, the idea that nothing exists except matter, combined with full-blown reductionism, that all laws can be reduced down to one set of laws, suggests that, given all the laws of nature and all the relevant fields for these laws, one could predict any future event. If the laws of nature control the actions of humans, it follows naturally that what humans understand as free choice is not really a free choice, but brains merely following the laws of nature without any human influence (Barr 176). In other words, a full-blown materialistic reductionist would say that any human action is simply the result of the laws of nature blindly processing events. Closely related to this problem of materialism is the problem of consciousness.
Consciousness cannot currently be explained by science (Barr 183), because there is little objective data that can prove consciousness as a physical phenomenon. The idea of Free Will, an idea that is most easily explained as a conscious phenomenon, thus cannot currently be explained scientifically. Because of this limitation of modern science, the idea of Free Will has to be explained through common sense and philosophical argumentation rather than proved empirically. Science’s limited understanding of the workings of the brain closely relates to the problem of the scientific inexplicability of consciousness. Barr brings up this point by mentioning two neuroscientists who have done work that suggests quantum mechanical indeterminacy plays a vital role in brain functions (183). However, he qualifies these claims, saying, “as there is no detailed theory of how the will influences the brain, brain researchers have little to guide them in their search” (183). Barr is claiming the inadequacies of modern scientific methods in describing and supporting an indeterministic understanding of brain functions.
In addition to the lack of current scientific evidence supporting Free Will, Barr also opposes (to some degree) the compatibility of Free Will and science fundamentally. He claims the blind law based nature of science cannot explain such a conscious phenomenon as Free Will. “Physics is quantitative. If human behavior is reduced to quantities, two things only can be found. To the extent that the behavior is predictable, it falls under some deterministic rule. To the extent that it is unpredictable, it appears to mathematical analysis as merely random” (184-185). In other words, the problem of science is that if the world is completely deterministic, any scientific evidence explains any action as a result of some combination of other actions, thus completely ignoring the effect of consciousness or Free Will. After all, there seems to be no way to quantify consciousness or Free Will. Further, Barr claims, even if the world is indeterministic, actions resulting from indeterminism are actually only governed by luck, or chance, rather than the influence of Free Will. Further, Barr states: “If quantum physics could explain Free Will, it would mean that Free Will was essentially nothing but a physical phenomenon” (179). Essentially, Barr claims that our notion of Free Will can never be explained by science, because if it is, it no longer becomes Free Will, but merely the product of a set of laws.
Of course, it could also be said, as Barr claims: “there is nothing in the laws of nature or the character of physics as they exist today which is logically incompatible with Free Will” (184). The problem with this argument is the nature of science. Once again, a full-blown materialistic reductionist would claim that any physical phenomenon could be explained scientifically, at least eventually, with some law or set of laws. Even with an indeterministic understanding of the laws of nature, a materialistic reductionist would explain any action as a result of previous actions, at least to some degree of probability. With this scientific law of cause and effect, Free Will cannot currently be fully explained by science, because of the lack of scientific understanding and quantification of consciousness stated earlier.
The qualitative idea of consciousness, along with the current limits of science, explains why philosophers play the dominant role in the argument for the existence of Free Will. However, while attempting to claim the existence of Free Will, philosophers often argue positions that violate claims of modern science to various degrees.
The main philosophical positions that deal with the existence of Free Will in both a deterministic and indeterministic system of nature (Compatibilism and Libertarianism, respectively) both seem to misinterpret scientific understanding to some degree or another. For example, it can be argued that Compatibilists reject materialism. After all, the basis for the philosophical argumentation of Free Will relies on the metaphysics of ‘agent-causation.’ For example the Revisionist, Vargas, argues, “it [the common philosophical argumentation of Free Will] requires a metaphysics of agency that we have no independent reason to believe in” (128). In other words, he is requiring an external proof for agency besides agency itself. Scientific empirical proof would fit this independent reason, but modern scientific claims do not confirm the metaphysics that philosophical argumentation uses. Kane, a Libertarian, points out the metaphysical claims in Libertarianism. He even mentions the criticism that some Libertarian reasoning seems to employ “panicky metaphysics” (“Libertarianism” 25) to explain Free Will. While Kane works hard to exclude any metaphysics from his discussion of Free Will, he does concede, “it may be that some extra factors of the kinds just mentioned (or some others) are necessary to make sense of Libertarian Free Will” (25). Further, Kane agrees that modern scientific claims are incompatible with Free Will: “Libertarianism can be made consistent with science, but it must be a science unlike anything we currently know” (“Free Agency” 50). It is important to note here that Kane does not state that Libertarianism cannot agree with science. Rather, he states, as Barr claims, that current scientific evidence cannot empirically prove his version of Free Will. Ultimately, however, any invocation of metaphysics that is not subordinate to the current understanding of physical laws, such as the metaphysics of agency used in philosophical discussions, suggests a rejection of the claims of modern science in supporting Free Will.
Further, Kane still uses some examples to explain Free Will that are not compatible with modern science. For example, Kane gives a situation where a man is deciding to go to either Hawaii or Colorado (“Libertarianism” 23). However, he points out that a Libertarian must be able to accept that the man “must be able to choose either path (Hawaii or Colorado), given the same past up to the moment when he chooses” (24). Now, a scientific understanding of cause and effect rejects this understanding unless it invokes the chance involved in the statistical probability of quantum mechanics as the cause for his different choice. Of course, chance as the cause for a decision does not imply Free Will at all. After all, without a concept of value, the straight reasoning between two vacation spots becomes simply an equation that one must go through to determine the best possible vacation spot. As Berofsky points out: “… physical determinism… without the causal relevance of our desires, values, or agency is universally acknowledged to be incompatible with Free Will” (5). While Berofsky is referring to determinism here, the concept of values in arguing Free Will in Libertarianism still exists and therefore rejects scientific claims, as science has no way to quantify such qualities as morals, values, or desires, at least, without putting them into context of some physically determined phenomenon. As Barr’s assertion from earlier holds, science can only interpret the selected event as a matter of chance, not as a matter of free choice. Now, Kane seems to explain this phenomenon of the problem of chance by invoking neuroscience and quantum mechanics, claiming that “there is tension and uncertainty in our minds about what to do [in a self-forming decision] that, I suggest, is reflected in appropriate regions of our brains by movement away from thermodynamic equilibrium” (“Free Agency” 47). This would seem to be a scientific explanation of Kane’s philosophy. However, as previously mentioned, Barr is not convinced that neurologists have enough empirical evidence to definitively claim any position on the working of the brain. So, despite the evidence that can be interpreted as suggesting Free Will, such claims are unsubstantiated enough that it would breach the boundaries of modern science to empirically claim their proof.
In addition to violations of modern science, further proof of the incompatibility of Free Will and modern science evidences itself in the Compatibilist’s notion of Free Will. Compatibilists must face the consequence argument (Fischer 53), an argument Kane takes to refute Compatibilism (“Libertarianism” 55). Berofsky points out the historical denial of the compatibility of science to Free Will, saying: “Decisions that are made solely as a result of purely physical or neurological features of our brain do not count as free decisions” (5). Essentially, this is the same fundamental problem Barr seems to have with the compatibility of Free Will and science. However, while Berofsky does continue in his article to point out flaws in the expanded consequence argument, he does so on the premise of non-reductionism (3). A rejection of reductionism, while not a fundamental rejection of modern scientific claims themselves, is contrary to the claims of many modern scientists. Thus, a Compatibilist’s understanding of Free Will does not seem to be adequate in a common understanding of Free Will.
Materialistic reductionism limits science in interpreting the Free Will of a person because of the unquantifiability of the conscious notion of Free Will. Further, modern science lacks any sort of definitive proof of the Libertarian notion of neural network theory. While Compatibilists and Libertarians both try to frame their arguments on scientific understanding, both arguments must go unsubstantiated in their scientific claims of how the laws of nature explain Free Will.
The question of whether or not the claims of modern science are compatible with Free Will rests upon the nature of the claims of modern science. In this paper, I frame the prevailing problem of free of science to Free Will in terms of materialistic reductionism, much in the same way that Barr frames the problem. Scientific understanding, to this point, cannot adequately explain our common sense notion of Free Will. In addition, there are several lines of philosophical thought accounting for the case where modern science is deterministic, and the case where modern science is indeterministic. In this paper, I will focus on the most recent arguments of the incompatibility of Free Will to both an indeterministic and deterministic understanding of modern science.
Materialism, the idea that nothing exists except matter, combined with full-blown reductionism, that all laws can be reduced down to one set of laws, suggests that, given all the laws of nature and all the relevant fields for these laws, one could predict any future event. If the laws of nature control the actions of humans, it follows naturally that what humans understand as free choice is not really a free choice, but brains merely following the laws of nature without any human influence (Barr 176). In other words, a full-blown materialistic reductionist would say that any human action is simply the result of the laws of nature blindly processing events. Closely related to this problem of materialism is the problem of consciousness.
Consciousness cannot currently be explained by science (Barr 183), because there is little objective data that can prove consciousness as a physical phenomenon. The idea of Free Will, an idea that is most easily explained as a conscious phenomenon, thus cannot currently be explained scientifically. Because of this limitation of modern science, the idea of Free Will has to be explained through common sense and philosophical argumentation rather than proved empirically. Science’s limited understanding of the workings of the brain closely relates to the problem of the scientific inexplicability of consciousness. Barr brings up this point by mentioning two neuroscientists who have done work that suggests quantum mechanical indeterminacy plays a vital role in brain functions (183). However, he qualifies these claims, saying, “as there is no detailed theory of how the will influences the brain, brain researchers have little to guide them in their search” (183). Barr is claiming the inadequacies of modern scientific methods in describing and supporting an indeterministic understanding of brain functions.
In addition to the lack of current scientific evidence supporting Free Will, Barr also opposes (to some degree) the compatibility of Free Will and science fundamentally. He claims the blind law based nature of science cannot explain such a conscious phenomenon as Free Will. “Physics is quantitative. If human behavior is reduced to quantities, two things only can be found. To the extent that the behavior is predictable, it falls under some deterministic rule. To the extent that it is unpredictable, it appears to mathematical analysis as merely random” (184-185). In other words, the problem of science is that if the world is completely deterministic, any scientific evidence explains any action as a result of some combination of other actions, thus completely ignoring the effect of consciousness or Free Will. After all, there seems to be no way to quantify consciousness or Free Will. Further, Barr claims, even if the world is indeterministic, actions resulting from indeterminism are actually only governed by luck, or chance, rather than the influence of Free Will. Further, Barr states: “If quantum physics could explain Free Will, it would mean that Free Will was essentially nothing but a physical phenomenon” (179). Essentially, Barr claims that our notion of Free Will can never be explained by science, because if it is, it no longer becomes Free Will, but merely the product of a set of laws.
Of course, it could also be said, as Barr claims: “there is nothing in the laws of nature or the character of physics as they exist today which is logically incompatible with Free Will” (184). The problem with this argument is the nature of science. Once again, a full-blown materialistic reductionist would claim that any physical phenomenon could be explained scientifically, at least eventually, with some law or set of laws. Even with an indeterministic understanding of the laws of nature, a materialistic reductionist would explain any action as a result of previous actions, at least to some degree of probability. With this scientific law of cause and effect, Free Will cannot currently be fully explained by science, because of the lack of scientific understanding and quantification of consciousness stated earlier.
The qualitative idea of consciousness, along with the current limits of science, explains why philosophers play the dominant role in the argument for the existence of Free Will. However, while attempting to claim the existence of Free Will, philosophers often argue positions that violate claims of modern science to various degrees.
The main philosophical positions that deal with the existence of Free Will in both a deterministic and indeterministic system of nature (Compatibilism and Libertarianism, respectively) both seem to misinterpret scientific understanding to some degree or another. For example, it can be argued that Compatibilists reject materialism. After all, the basis for the philosophical argumentation of Free Will relies on the metaphysics of ‘agent-causation.’ For example the Revisionist, Vargas, argues, “it [the common philosophical argumentation of Free Will] requires a metaphysics of agency that we have no independent reason to believe in” (128). In other words, he is requiring an external proof for agency besides agency itself. Scientific empirical proof would fit this independent reason, but modern scientific claims do not confirm the metaphysics that philosophical argumentation uses. Kane, a Libertarian, points out the metaphysical claims in Libertarianism. He even mentions the criticism that some Libertarian reasoning seems to employ “panicky metaphysics” (“Libertarianism” 25) to explain Free Will. While Kane works hard to exclude any metaphysics from his discussion of Free Will, he does concede, “it may be that some extra factors of the kinds just mentioned (or some others) are necessary to make sense of Libertarian Free Will” (25). Further, Kane agrees that modern scientific claims are incompatible with Free Will: “Libertarianism can be made consistent with science, but it must be a science unlike anything we currently know” (“Free Agency” 50). It is important to note here that Kane does not state that Libertarianism cannot agree with science. Rather, he states, as Barr claims, that current scientific evidence cannot empirically prove his version of Free Will. Ultimately, however, any invocation of metaphysics that is not subordinate to the current understanding of physical laws, such as the metaphysics of agency used in philosophical discussions, suggests a rejection of the claims of modern science in supporting Free Will.
Further, Kane still uses some examples to explain Free Will that are not compatible with modern science. For example, Kane gives a situation where a man is deciding to go to either Hawaii or Colorado (“Libertarianism” 23). However, he points out that a Libertarian must be able to accept that the man “must be able to choose either path (Hawaii or Colorado), given the same past up to the moment when he chooses” (24). Now, a scientific understanding of cause and effect rejects this understanding unless it invokes the chance involved in the statistical probability of quantum mechanics as the cause for his different choice. Of course, chance as the cause for a decision does not imply Free Will at all. After all, without a concept of value, the straight reasoning between two vacation spots becomes simply an equation that one must go through to determine the best possible vacation spot. As Berofsky points out: “… physical determinism… without the causal relevance of our desires, values, or agency is universally acknowledged to be incompatible with Free Will” (5). While Berofsky is referring to determinism here, the concept of values in arguing Free Will in Libertarianism still exists and therefore rejects scientific claims, as science has no way to quantify such qualities as morals, values, or desires, at least, without putting them into context of some physically determined phenomenon. As Barr’s assertion from earlier holds, science can only interpret the selected event as a matter of chance, not as a matter of free choice. Now, Kane seems to explain this phenomenon of the problem of chance by invoking neuroscience and quantum mechanics, claiming that “there is tension and uncertainty in our minds about what to do [in a self-forming decision] that, I suggest, is reflected in appropriate regions of our brains by movement away from thermodynamic equilibrium” (“Free Agency” 47). This would seem to be a scientific explanation of Kane’s philosophy. However, as previously mentioned, Barr is not convinced that neurologists have enough empirical evidence to definitively claim any position on the working of the brain. So, despite the evidence that can be interpreted as suggesting Free Will, such claims are unsubstantiated enough that it would breach the boundaries of modern science to empirically claim their proof.
In addition to violations of modern science, further proof of the incompatibility of Free Will and modern science evidences itself in the Compatibilist’s notion of Free Will. Compatibilists must face the consequence argument (Fischer 53), an argument Kane takes to refute Compatibilism (“Libertarianism” 55). Berofsky points out the historical denial of the compatibility of science to Free Will, saying: “Decisions that are made solely as a result of purely physical or neurological features of our brain do not count as free decisions” (5). Essentially, this is the same fundamental problem Barr seems to have with the compatibility of Free Will and science. However, while Berofsky does continue in his article to point out flaws in the expanded consequence argument, he does so on the premise of non-reductionism (3). A rejection of reductionism, while not a fundamental rejection of modern scientific claims themselves, is contrary to the claims of many modern scientists. Thus, a Compatibilist’s understanding of Free Will does not seem to be adequate in a common understanding of Free Will.
Materialistic reductionism limits science in interpreting the Free Will of a person because of the unquantifiability of the conscious notion of Free Will. Further, modern science lacks any sort of definitive proof of the Libertarian notion of neural network theory. While Compatibilists and Libertarians both try to frame their arguments on scientific understanding, both arguments must go unsubstantiated in their scientific claims of how the laws of nature explain Free Will.
June 3, 2019
This book is an excellent way to see the current state of philosophical arguments about free will. The authors express disparate views, but they do so with genuine appreciation for the arguments and counterarguments of their co-authors and of other philosophers. It is not a page-turner, but (except for Pereboom's chapters) is generally at least fairly easy to follow. Although the authors were chosen to represent most of the free-will field, there were occasional hints about other ideas; I would have liked to see a few pages summarizing prominent views of other philosophers which did not get mentioned otherwise. I could add criticisms of the philosophy itself (in particular, everyone seems to blur metaphysics with ethics), but this book gives a good introduction to what the philosophy is saying.
June 12, 2023
What I found interesting about this book is its balanced approach, presenting not only contrasting views but also responses and counterarguments from other contributors. A kind of multifaceted structure that allowed me as a reader to engage with the nuances of each perspective and develop a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities surrounding free will.
A book that will help you challenge preconceived notions, provoke introspection, and encourage to contemplate the fundamental questions surrounding free will and determinism.
A book that will help you challenge preconceived notions, provoke introspection, and encourage to contemplate the fundamental questions surrounding free will and determinism.
October 19, 2023
I suppose this was a decent primer on the different views of free will in the current academic discourse, but I was surprised at how poor the writing quality was. Not only the explanations/arguments; the book seemed to be missing some basic proofreading as well. I was left feeling rather unimpressed with the quality of philosophical scholarship, but it was nevertheless excellent food for thought (maybe even more so because of the poor quality of the writing; it’s easier to have thoughts of your own when the authors give you something to critique!).
February 21, 2025
This was one of the books I assigned in my course on free will this term, and I think the back-and-forth format works quite well in that context. The essays themselves are rather uneven, and overcomplicated in their attempts to anticipate and stave off objections they know are out there in the academic literature but with don’t get much airplay in this more introductory venue. I think I would have preferred essays that were half the length, and then another round of back-and-forth. Still, I’ll probably assign it again.
February 14, 2022
Loved the different perspectives, rly dense tho the prose makes me want to cry
Want to read
November 7, 2022fivebooks list on free will by paul russell
expensive for a short book! probably used frequently in school
https://fivebooks.com/best-books/free...
expensive for a short book! probably used frequently in school
https://fivebooks.com/best-books/free...
June 16, 2015
What a wonderful format: to give four eminent proponents of a major stream in the free will debate two chapters, one to discuss their position, one to comment the others' positions. Kane, Fischer, and Vargas were quite clear, I had a more difficult time understanding Pereboom's text. And unfortunately, none of the four positions (libertarianism, semicompatibilism, hard incompatibilism, revisionism) eventually convinced me. The good news, of course, is that I am confused at a more educated level.
In the end, I found the Consequence Argument (CA) quite convincing. But that is primarily an argument that causal determinism and Alternative Possibilities (I am trying to follow the book's way of capitalizing certain terms) are incompatible. On the other hand, several of the authors argue that AP are not required for free will anyway, so that argument doesn't really have a lot of cutting power among the different positions anyway.
Arguments for some form of free will and/or moral responsibility, relying on Kane's Ultimate Responsibility (UR) or Fischer's Guidance Control (GC), eventually failed to convince me. Roughly, the arguments seem to be of the form "If we have UR (or GC) in some decisions, then we have free will/moral responsibility. Moreover, it seems evident that we sometimes have UR/GC. Therefore, some of our decisions are taken of free will/involve moral responsibility." But the cases for UR/GC were not that cogently argued, in my opinion. For instance, Kane's refutal (in his comments to the others' chapters) of Frankfurt-style examples sounded pretty convincing. These latter examples are supposed to evoke the intuition that moral responsibility can do without Alternative Possibilities.
This review is pretty messy, but it mirrors my own confusion. Neither the arguments for, nor the arguments against some form of free will/moral responsibility were eventually convincing. The debate might have benefitted from more clearly delineated definitions of the concepts at stake: it is always easier to debate once it is clear what we're talking about. In the end, I didn't get a clear picture of what it means that an agent "can do/choose" something, let alone "can do/choose freely". Chances are that I need to read up on the concept of human agency before I can even try to formulate a clear opinion on the free will issue. Any recommendations are welcome!
In the end, I found the Consequence Argument (CA) quite convincing. But that is primarily an argument that causal determinism and Alternative Possibilities (I am trying to follow the book's way of capitalizing certain terms) are incompatible. On the other hand, several of the authors argue that AP are not required for free will anyway, so that argument doesn't really have a lot of cutting power among the different positions anyway.
Arguments for some form of free will and/or moral responsibility, relying on Kane's Ultimate Responsibility (UR) or Fischer's Guidance Control (GC), eventually failed to convince me. Roughly, the arguments seem to be of the form "If we have UR (or GC) in some decisions, then we have free will/moral responsibility. Moreover, it seems evident that we sometimes have UR/GC. Therefore, some of our decisions are taken of free will/involve moral responsibility." But the cases for UR/GC were not that cogently argued, in my opinion. For instance, Kane's refutal (in his comments to the others' chapters) of Frankfurt-style examples sounded pretty convincing. These latter examples are supposed to evoke the intuition that moral responsibility can do without Alternative Possibilities.
This review is pretty messy, but it mirrors my own confusion. Neither the arguments for, nor the arguments against some form of free will/moral responsibility were eventually convincing. The debate might have benefitted from more clearly delineated definitions of the concepts at stake: it is always easier to debate once it is clear what we're talking about. In the end, I didn't get a clear picture of what it means that an agent "can do/choose" something, let alone "can do/choose freely". Chances are that I need to read up on the concept of human agency before I can even try to formulate a clear opinion on the free will issue. Any recommendations are welcome!
September 7, 2012
Not the best introduction to free-will, I rather recommend Robert Kane's introduction to Free-will which I think was excellent. However there are a few things I learn from this book that I have no learned from Robert Kane's introduction to free-will such as semi-compatibilism and revisionism.
June 11, 2013
If you're interested in freewill, this book is a great start, it outlines the most popular views on the subject, gives a case and is followed by the other authors ripping apart eachother's arguments.
September 18, 2013
Difficult book to read. Lots of philosophical jargon. Kane's part is probably the most accessible.
June 2, 2014
“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.” (abraham "schopenhauer" lincon)
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