Free Will, Good and Evil

Question 1

what is free will?

Answer 1

The ability to freely choose our actions. We have autonomy over ourselves

Question 2

why is free will important?

Answer 2

a concept universal to belief systems that underpin society e.g. criminal justice, religion

Question 3

what is an internal agency?

Answer 3

A product of beliefs, desires and intentions

Question 4

what is an open future?

Answer 4

The past is fixed, but our choices are between many possible, available futures

Question 5

what is ultimate responsibility?

Answer 5

Actions were not coerced by an external force, could be influenced but not determined

Question 6

what’s the problem with free will?

Answer 6

• we freely choose our own behaviour (freedom of will)
• every event has a cause (determinism)
• freedom of will and causal determinism are incompatible with each other (incompatibilism)

Question 7

what are the 3 main positions of these propositions?

Answer 7

• Rejecting the first is to say there are no causal laws – this is libertarian free will
• Rejecting the second is to say we don’t have free will – this is hard determinism
• Rejecting the third is to argue that free will and determinism aren’t mutually exclusive – this is called compatibilism.

Question 8

what is impossibilism?

Answer 8

argues that free will cannot exist independent of the deterministic position.

Question 9

what is Libertarian free will?

Answer 9

belief we have ultimate free will over our thoughts, actions and behaviours

Question 10

what is agent-causal libertarianism?

Answer 10

• Agents have capacity to make decisions without causal determination.
• When we make a decision or action, we begin a new causal chain. We are an uncaused cause. (contra causal free will)

Question 11

what is event caused libertarianism?

Answer 11

• Actions are caused, but not causally determined, by prior events (e.g. desires, beliefs, conflicts)
• believe there is indeterminism in part of the process of initiating these actions.

Question 12

Indeterminacy and free will

Answer 12

• There’s evidence to support the idea there might be indeterminacy that could give rise to libertarian free will.
• Certain events are genuinely random and uncaused

Question 13

what does Sam Harris argue about free will?

Answer 13

a maturing neuroscience removes the possibility of free will, like eliminative materialism

Question 14

what does hard determinism argue?

Answer 14

• there are physical laws that explain causality in the physical world
• We cannot change the past
• We cannot have free will
• We might make choices, but the choices, like everything else, are determined

Question 15

what is Laplace’s demon?

Answer 15

imagine a demon that knew the position and state of motion for every atom in the universe, and it knew all of the laws of physics, it could predict the entire future of the universe.

Question 16

what is a criticism of determinism?

Answer 16

if our deliberations have no effect on what we do, it’s as pointless to think about what we’ll do in the future as it is to think about what I would like to have for dinner yesterday

Question 17

what is chaos theory?

Answer 17

Certain physical systems are impossible to predict.
if a butterfly flaps its wings does it cause a hurricane in Japan

Question 18

what does Harry Frankfurt argue?

Answer 18

• there is a distinction between first order (impulses) and second order (meta-desires
• Our free will is based on our ability to act on these second order desires

Question 19

what is compatibilism? (soft-determinism)

Answer 19

• also known as soft determinism
• A free action is one done voluntarily. It’s still caused, but by internal states like desires and beliefs.
• Determined actions are ones that are coerced.
• In the absence of coercion, we can make conscious, rational, informed decision e.g. if your held at gunpoint, you dint have free will, you are coerced

Question 20

what does Peter Strawson believe?

Answer 20

• Anti-libertarian free will
• feelings like gratitude or resentment don’t make sense – if people cannot control their actions, why would we reward them or hold them accountable?
• A lot of our emotions are reactive – based on suppositions of other people’s behaviours and the intentions behind them
• we behave in a way that presupposes free will

Question 21

support of compatibilism?

Answer 21

apply free will in public life, it is consistent with compatibilism:
- Imagine someone on trial for robbery
- Their actions aren’t being analysed for contra-causal free will, but whether they were voluntary, uncoerced
- Sentencing often taken mitigating factors into consideration
- Eddy Nahmias: Many people see free will and responsibility as compatible with determinism – it’s only if their desires and reasonings are bypassed that they see determinism as incompatible.

Question 21

criticisms of compatibilism?

Answer 21

• changes definition of free will rather than an absolute, free will is contextual.
• Some might argue that although compatibilists claim we have free will, but reject free will as conceived by most people.

Question 22

Libet’s 1980s experiments on compatibalist free will

Answer 22

• He hooked participants up to EEG
• Asked them to flex their finger or wrist when they want to and take note of the time they made that decision.
• He used EEG to measure readiness potential in the supplementary motor cortex.
• found that there was a 300ms gap with the potential preceding the decision.

Question 23

Haynes (2008) Libet’s replication

Answer 23

replicated the finding using fMRI data, finding an even bigger gap
- found he could predict the decision to act up to around 10 seconds before they made the decision to do so, with accuracy above chance (prediction at 10s around 60%).

Question 24

what could other reasons be for Libet's findings?

Answer 24

- Functional brain areas for deciding and noting the time are different – this could explain some of the difference - External validity – Libet decisions are effectively random, do they generalize to purposive, big ones? - Eddy Nahmias – it only shows something is going on before the decision is made – it doesn’t verify the brain is making a decision prior to the conscious decision

Question 25

what does Galen Strawson argue?

Answer 25

- The idea we have ultimate responsibility for our actions is incoherent five stage argument? 1. You do what you do in any situation because of the way you are (e.g. heredity) that you are not responsible for 2. To be truly responsible for what you do, you somehow have to change to become responsible for the way you are 3. These efforts to change will be determined by the same factors as point 1 4. Further changes will be similarly determined by those factors too. 5. Therefore, you cannot be truly morally responsible for what you do.

Question 26

what did Hobbes think about humans?

Answer 26

thought all human motivation is selfish, and tied to survival. - Our basic emotions are fear (negative) and desire for power (positive) - Aggression is a basic and central part of human experience - “The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (life without government) - His treatise on this was called Leviathan

Question 27

what is social contrast theory?

Answer 27

People make social contrast with the state - obedience for a peaceful life

Question 28

Jean-Jacques Rousseau beliefs

Answer 28

- man is born good - people are naturally peaceful and decent

Question 29

what are big 5 personality traits?

Answer 29

Extraversion, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, Consciousness

Question 29

behaviourism on good and evil

Answer 29

- strong emphasis on environment - watson = can make anyone into anything based on the environment -Skinner = Walden Two – utopian novel using behaviourist principles - Not good or bad people, good or bad environments – morality is a function of external factors.

Question 30

authoritarian personality

Answer 30

- distinct personality trait susceptible to certain actions - Psychodynamic – affected by parenting - Measured using California F scale (F = fascist) – scale problems e.g. response bias - Related constructs – right wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation

Question 31

Eysenck – Psychoticism (1970-1990s)

Answer 31

- Impulsivity, psychosis, antisocial behaviour, inappropriate emotional expression - Linked with increased criminality.

Question 32

what did Wilson and colleagues do in term of ethology?

Answer 32

compared two competing accounts of murder among chimpanzees - The adaptive strategy argument is that killing is an evolved tactic, which improves the killer’s adaptive fitness by increasing access to resources (territory, food, mates). Can be interpreted in a Hobbesian viewpoint - The human impact account postulates that killings are a result, similar to Rousseau’s belief that people are made evil due to civilization.

Question 33

Does selfishness make us happy? Elizabeth Dun

Answer 33

looked at the relationship between money and happiness - Having more resources (money) is only moderately correlated with happiness - The association between spending more on other people is associated with happiness, but spending on yourself had no relationship with happiness - however personal spending included gifts, and bills and cost of living - They further conducted an experiment, in which students were given a small amount of money, and told to spend it on themselves or someone else Those who spend their windfall on other people reported being happier.

Question 34

what did Frans de Waal’s observations show?

Answer 34

- shown that chimpanzees spontaneously comfort each other - Similarly, animal research has shown how animals will refrain from an action (pulling a lever to get food), if it is paired with another animal being hurt (i.e. electric shock). - Other research has identified how animals react negatively to perceived unfairness to other animals as well.

Question 35

The role of the situation

Answer 35

- Research from social psychology (cf Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment) emphasizes the importance of the situation over the dispositions of the people involved - No good or bad people, only good or bad environments

Question 35

evaluating the evidence of the situations

Answer 35

But as an experiment, the SPE was hideously conducted - The more we know about the study, the worse it gets as a means of evidence for making claims about behavior. - Zimbardo was the warden as well as the study leader - Did not replicate (Haslam & Reicher, 2006) - Some claims – like the tactics ‘made up’ by the guards – have been challenged by consultants to the study

Question 36

Steven Pinker The Better Angels of Our Nature

Answer 36

- Violence, war and conflict are all falling, and have been for nearly 15 years - Some of this might be due to improvements in policing (a Hobbesian perspective) - But other aspects aren’t – proliferation of democracy, trade and commerce; expansion of empathy; egalitarianism in positions of power - Definitely challenges the view civilization is making us more immoral, but isn’t entirely congruent with a Social Contract Theory approach either.