Surveying Freedom: Folk Intuitions about free will and moral responsibility

Abstract

Philosophers working in the nascent field of 'experimental philosophy' have begun using methods borrowed from psychology to collect data about folk intuitions concerning debates ranging from action theory to ethics to epistemology. In this paper we present the results of our attempts to apply this approach to the free will debate, in which philosophers on opposing sides claim that their view best accounts for and accords with folk intuitions. After discussing the motivation for such research, we describe our methodology of surveying people's prephilosophical judgments about the freedom and responsibility of agents in deterministic scenarios. In two studies, we found that a majority of participants judged that such agents act of their own free will and are morally responsible for their actions. We then discuss the philosophical implications of our results as well as various difficulties inherent in such research.

People believe they have more free will than others

“…19,20). Although logic suggests that there is one answer to the question of whether people have free will, people's lay beliefs appear to be more complex.…”

Free will beliefs predict attitudes toward unethical behavior and criminal punishment

“…Exposure to anti-free will messages can incite selfishness (8) and aggression (9), both of which have bases in morality (5,10). Chiefly related to the present investigation, treatments that weaken the belief in free will, compared with leaving it unchanged, incite more unethical behavior (e.g., in the form of cheating) (11) and reduce support for harsh punishment for criminals (e.g., by recommending shorter prison sentences) (12).…”

“…Although prominent voices in academia challenge the idea of free will (e.g., refs. 2, 3), lay belief in free will is strong and widespread (4,5). Moreover, a growing body of evidence highlights the behavioral, cognitive, and neural consequences of endorsing or rejecting the notion of free will (e.g., refs.…”

Experimental Philosophy and the Philosophical Tradition

“…See Alexander, Mallon, and Weinberg (2010) for a discussion of some of the problems encountered in the attempt to decide between these hypotheses. 9 A pair of papers by Eddy Nahmias and his colleagues (Nahmias et al, 2005(Nahmias et al, , 2006 provides another important example of the positive program. In the literature on free will, a number of philosophers report strongly incompatibilist intuitions -i.e.…”