On purpose

Before we delve into your ideas about free will, I think it would be helpful to clear up a few common misconceptions people often have about what philosophers are referring to when it comes to free will. Would you mind explaining what ‘free will’ means from a philosophical standpoint?

That’s a great question since many people, including many prominent scientists who write about free will, build into their understanding of the notion the very result they want. That is, they define free will in such a way that it directly follows that we either have it or we don’t. I’ve long argued that the variety of free will that is of central philosophical and practical importance is the sort required for moral responsibility in a particular but pervasive sense.This sense of moral responsibility is typically set apart by the notion of basic desert and is defined in terms of the control in action needed for an agent to be truly deserving of blame and praise, punishment and reward. Understood this way, free will is a kind of power or ability an agent must possess in order to justify certain kinds of basically deserved judgments, attitudes, or treatments – such as resentment, indignation, moral anger, and retributive punishment – in response to decisions or actions that the agent performed or failed to perform. These reactions would be justified on purely backward-looking grounds, that is what makes them basic, and would not appeal to consequentialist or forward-looking considerations, such as future protection, future reconciliation, or future moral formation.

I contend that there are several distinct advantages to defining free will in this way. First, it provides a neutral definition that virtually all parties can agree to. Unlike some other definitions, it does not beg the question or exclude from the outset various conceptions of free will that are available for disputing parties to adopt. Second, by defining free will in terms of basic desert moral responsibility, this definition captures the practical importance of the debate. Third, this definition fits with our everyday understanding of these conceptions. There is, for instance, growing evidence that ordinary people not only view free will and moral responsibility as intimately tied together, but that it is precisely the desire to blame, punish, and uphold moral responsibility that motivates belief in free will. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, rejecting this understanding of free will makes it difficult to understand the nature of the substantive disputes that are driving the free will debate.

You and Daniel Dennett are at odds when it comes to whether or not we have free will, although in your debate with him you also note that you may not be as far apart as some may believe. You state that we don’t have free will. What makes you so sure this is the case – that your position is correct?

Dan and I have a forthcoming book where we debate, at length, our respective views on free will, moral responsibility, and punishment. In it, Dan defends a account of free will, which maintains that free will and moral responsibility are compatible with – the thesis that facts about the remote