Here is a link to my review of Bruce Waller's new book--Restorative Free Will: Back to the Biological Base--over at NDPR.
I thought I would share it here so others can comment if they like, either on the review itself or the book. Hopefully Bruce will have time to jump in and respond! I would like to say that Bruce is a good friend and the book is really worth reading (run out and get a copy today!). We generally agree about most things, especially when it comes to moral responsibility and the notion of just deserts, but we have had an ongoing friendly disagreement about free will preservationism vs. eliminativism for a while. The review, I think, frames our disagreement nicely. We usually get around to arguing about it after a few drinks, and only after first discussing the pernicious nature of the moral responsibility system. I look forward to our next encounter...but for now, at least we have Flickers!
Great review, Gregg. I feel bad I haven't read Bruce's book yet, but I need to. It sounds like I will really like his naturalistic theory of free will, and unlike him (and you) I'll think that we can get a genuine form of desert (MR) from it, because the naturalistic capacities to explore and consider options include (in humans) exploring and considering options that have morally relevant content and being able (in a compatibilist sense) to adjust behavior in light of those considerations. If you've got the capacities and opportunity to exercise them, but fail to, you deserve blame and some appropriate form of punishment (which does not include gratuitous infliction of pain).
Posted by: Eddy Nahmias | 01/21/2016 at 09:42 AM
Nice review Gregg, thanks. Friendly but trenchant :-)
If, as you suggest, free will should be defined "in terms of the control in action required for basic desert moral responsibility," then free will exists just in case such control exists. Compatibilists about basic desert moral responsibility believe we have such control, so according to them we have free will on your suggested definition. But of course we skeptics want to know why compatibilist control entails desert. If it doesn’t, and if we don’t have any other sort of desert-entailing control, e.g., libertarian, then we don’t have free will in your suggested sense – it would be eliminated on this definition on the grounds that we lack the requisite desert-entailing control.
You also argue for free will eliminativism on the grounds that for both descriptive and causal-historical reasons it fails to refer. But I think the research shows that there's at least some compatibilist connotations of the term out there among the folk; e.g., "I signed the contract of my own free will" simply means I wasn't coerced into signing it, not necessarily that I could have done otherwise in the exact situation in which I signed it.
If we concede that “free will” *does* refer – for instance, to compatibilist control – the substantive question bearing on our responsibility practices is again whether such control entails desert. What isn’t permissible is simply to say that because we have free will we’re necessarily morally responsible – the quick conclusion folks might draw from listening to some compatibilists. Bruce of course takes considerable pains to block this conclusion.
Posted by: Tom Clark | 01/23/2016 at 06:31 PM
Gregg, Thanks for a very generous review; I mainly wrote the book so that you and I would have something to argue about. I was hoping that by looking deeper into the biological value of the key elements of free will, I could convince the libertarians that they were right about the importance of open alternatives, and convince the compatibilists that they were right about the importance of control, and that when the two were joined together the result would be a complete natural account of animal free will, and that all of us could live in harmony. But then I realized that no philosopher is ever satisfied with being only half right, so the book probably offends everyone on both sides -- as well as all my allies in the battle against moral responsibility. Am delighted to know that Gregg, at least, is still willing to have a drink with me.
Posted by: Bruce Waller | 01/23/2016 at 07:26 PM
Sorry that these comments were not posted sooner! I just realized that they were sitting there waiting for approval--normally I receive an email, but that didn't happen this time.
Bruce, I will always be willing to have a drink with you ;)
Posted by: Gregg Caruso | 01/24/2016 at 02:32 PM
Eddy, your eagerness to embrace Bruce's account of free will is precisely why I think Bruce should be a skeptic about free will along with moral responsibility ;)
See Bruce...I told you keeping the notion of restorative free will alive would allow some to think it's enough to ground basic desert and moral responsibility ;)
Posted by: Gregg Caruso | 01/24/2016 at 02:40 PM
Bruce,
I look forward to reading this book! And, as a semicompatibilist, I sympathize with the difficulties of pleasing people: the compatiblists hate the "semi" part, and the incompatibilists hate the "compatibilist" part. This reminds me of Peter Strawson's warnings about the futility of seeking reconciliation in this territory.
Congratulations on this new book!
Posted by: John Fischer | 01/25/2016 at 07:44 PM
Gregg, I think Eddy has his own reasons for embracing both free will and moral responsibility -- I would love to take the credit for his excellent work on free will, but I refuse to be blamed for his conclusions concerning moral responsibility. Besides, Tom Clark is always available to keep clear the important distinction between free will and MR, and John Fischer also has a stake in that enterprise. I am VERY eager to read Eddy's forthcoming book on REDISCOVERING FREE WILL (is there a publication date?), and I'm confident I will learn a great deal about free will from his use of neuropsychology and psychological and XPhil studies, and his work integrating those studies into the basic question of free will -- though I suspect that we will continue to take different paths on the question of MR. John, I think the book contains more discussion of your views than of any other subject; as usual, your remarkably clear work is a great stimulus even when (perhaps especially when) I can't quite agree; but I think your account of the control aspect of free will (including the importance of narratives) is a marvelous account of one of the most important aspects of free will, and -- from my perspective -- that account throws into bold relief a broader picture of free will. Also, it was your use of song lyrics in philosophical argument that inspired me to follow your lead -- it's true that you use lines from Frank Sinatra and Sid Vicious, while my lines are taken from gospel songs -- but I trust no one will draw any invidious conclusions concerning our respective characters based on our favorite music.
Posted by: Bruce Waller | 01/25/2016 at 11:02 PM