What Does it Mean When Scientists Say “Free Will is an Illusion”?

1. What Does it Mean When Scientists Say “Free Will is an Illusion”? Eddy Nahmias Department of Philosophy Neuroscience Institute Georgia State University Templeton Foundation Science of Free Will Retreat New York, July 2, 2009 GSU Neuroscience Institute GSU Philosophy Department

2. Ways Science Can Inform Debates about Free Will • How do people understand free will and responsible agency? • Experimental Philosophy on folk intuitions • What capacities do humans have for rational deliberation, decision-making, and self-control? What psychological and neurobiological processes explain these capacities (or explain them away)? • Some scientists suggest that free will is an illusion • When discoveries from sciences (2) conflict with people’s beliefs about free will (1), how will that impact our self-conception, behavior, and moral and legal practices? • Doubting free will can make people behave worse

3. The Claims of “Free Willusionism” • Joshua Greene & Jonathan Cohen (2004): “Free will, as we ordinarily understand it, is an illusion.” • Mark Hallet (2007): “There does not appear to be a component process for producing voluntary movement that might be called ‘free will’ in the ordinary sense of the word.” • Daniel Wegner (2002): “It seems we are agents. It seems we cause what we do…. It is sobering and ultimately accurate to call all this an illusion.” • John Bargh (2008): “this strong feeling [of free will] is an illusion, just as much as we experience the sun moving through the sky, when in fact it is we who are doing the moving.” • Others include Benjamin Libet, Francis Crick, Sue Pockett, John Dylan-Haynes, Richard Dawkins …

4. Willusionism Goes Mainstream • Media reports spread the news (sometimes exaggerate it) • ScienceNews (2008): “‘Free will’ is not the defining feature of humanness, modern neuroscience implies, but is rather an illusion that endures only because biochemical complexity conceals the mechanisms of decision making.” • Jeffrey Rosen (NYTimes 2007): “And since all behavior is caused by our brains, wouldn’t this mean all behavior could potentially be excused?” • Tom Wolfe (1996): “The bottom line of neuroscience is that … your idea that you have a soul or even a self, much less free will, is just an illusion… The conclusion people out beyond the laboratory walls are drawing is: The fix is in! We're all hardwired! That, and: Don't blame me! I'm wired wrong!” • Willusionist claims have negative consequences not because of the ways they may be true but because of the ways they may be interpreted to be true.

5. The “Bad Results” of Doubting Free Will • Vohs & Schooler (2008) • NoFW group read Francis Crick proclaim, e.g., “Who you are is nothing but a pack of neurons” and “Although we appear to have free will, in fact, our choices have already been predetermined for us and we cannot change that.” • Control group read Crick talk about science • NoFW group cheatedmore than controls • Baumeister, Masicampo & DeWall (2009) • NoFW group read 15 sentences such as, “Science has demonstrated that free will is an illusion” and “All behavior is determined by brain activity, which in turn is determined by a combination of environmental and genetic factors.” • FW group read sentences affirming free will, Neutral group read neutral sentences • NoFW group were less helpful and more aggressive than control groups and also engaged in less counterfactual thinking.

6. Two Conceptions of Free Will • SuPs = Super-natural Powers of free will (associated with libertarian conception of agent causation) • Read Montague (2008): “Free will is the idea that we make choices and have thoughts independent of anything remotely resembling a physical process…. Consequently, the idea of free will is not even in principle within reach of scientific description.” (2008) • NaPs = Natural Powers of free will (associated with compatibilist conception of free will as rational deliberation and self-control) • Roy Baumeister (2009): “Our work has sought to establish an understanding of free will that is scientifically viable and amenable to study … If free will is not rational choice, self-control, planning, and initiative, we find ourselves unable to surmise what it might then be.” • SuPs not required for NaPs • NaPs are “more necessary” for free will

7. One Interpretation of Willusionism • Free will requires SuPs. • Science is showing humans lack SuPs. • So, science is showing free will is an illusion. Libet (1999): Free will requires that “conscious decisions can proceed to some degree independently of natural determinism … [i.e.] natural laws that govern the activities of nerve cells in the brain.” • Premise 1 assumes compatibilism is a non-starter. • Greene & Cohen (2004): “intuitive free will … requires the rejection of determinism and an implicit commitment to some kind of magical mental causation.” • Premise 2 assumes libertarianism is false. • Is 2 based on the idea that science is proving determinism or mechanism?

8. A Second Interpretation of Willusionism • Free will requires NaPs. • Science is showing that humans lack NaPs. • So, science is showing that free will is an illusion. • Premise 2 is highly contentious … and where the action is • NaPs without SuPs (naturalizing consciousness and rationality) • Responding to Libet and Wegner • Degrees of freedom: Universal rationalization is unlikely even if we know less than we think about why we do what we do • Evidence for causal role in action of implementation intentions, rational thinking, and self-control (Baumeister, Gollwitzer, etc.)

9. An Explanation for the “Bad Results” • Suppose people believe that free will involves both SuPs and NaPs (or especially NaPs or just NaPs), and • Suppose scientists and media inform people that free will is an illusion, and • Suppose neither they nor ordinary people are clear about what is meant by “free will” or which powers are in question, then … • … People may start to doubt their NaPs. • and doubting your NaPs = thinking your rational deliberations about what’s best to do and your efforts to do what’s best are useless (fatalism and epiphenomenalism) • and that would lead you to be less helpful, less nice, and less honest.

10. Folk Intuitions about Free Will (“Experimental Philosophy”) • People think free will requires NaPs (less committed to SuPs than often supposed) • Most do not think determinism, properly understood, is incompatible with free will • Most do think “bypassing” threatens free will. • Bypassing = agents’ desires, beliefs, efforts are irrelevant to action (i.e., lack of NaPs) • Neither determinism nor naturalism (i.e., lack of SuPs) actually entails bypassing.

11. Do People Think Free Will is Super-natural? • A surprisingly low proportion of participants • agreed with the statement “Humans have free will only because they have non-physical souls” (15-25%) • agreed with the statement “Our power of free will is something that is not a part of our brain” (about 18%) • disagreed with the statement “It is because our minds are the products of our brains that we have free will” (13% when following description of our brains as complex and unique; 25% when following description of brain as mechanistic, governed by physical laws, and soon to be fully understood by scientists). • A plurality accepted the ‘naturalistic’ alternatives, though many answered ‘I don’t know’ or neutral.

12. Neuro vs. Psych (Real world scenarios) Subjects read one of two scenarios, only differences are red vs. yellow text Most respected neuroscientists [psychologists] are convinced that eventually we will figure out exactly how all of our decisions and actions are entirely caused. For instance, they think that whenever we are trying to decide what to do, the decision we end up making is completely caused by the specific chemical reactions and neural processes [thoughts, desires, and plans] occurring in our brains [minds]. The neuroscientists [psychologists] are also convinced that these chemical reactions and neural processes [thoughts, desires, and plans] are completely caused by our current situation and the earlier events in our lives, and that these earlier events were also completely caused by even earlier events, eventually going all the way back to events that occurred before we were born. So, if these neuroscientists [psychologists] are right, then once specific earlier events have occurred in a person’s life, these events will definitely cause specific later events to occur. For instance, once specific chemical reactions and neural processes [thoughts, desires, and plans] occur in the person’s brain [mind], they will definitely cause the person to make the specific decision he or she makes.

14. Explaining Away Apparent Incompatibilist Intuitions • Bypassing = agents’ decisions, beliefs, and desires have no effect on what they do, and agents do not control their actions (and agents could not do otherwise even if past had been different) • In response to various deterministic scenarios, high bypassing judgments predict low attributions of free will and moral responsibility, and low bypassing judgments predict high attributions of FW and MR.

15. Conclusions • People think (rightly) that losing our NaPs would be much worse than losing our SuPs. • Willusionist claims are often ambiguous • Where justified, basically harmless • Where (currently) unjustified, potentially harmful • Clarifying what sciences show about human decision-making may involve revision of ordinary beliefs about free will but not elimination of free will (i.e., NaPs without SuPs) • Sciences can inform us about free will—how NaPs work, their limits, how to exercise them wisely, how to develop them.

16. Questions for Future Research • Are there better interpretations of the “bad results”? (e.g., cognitive load of thinking about the no-free-will primes diminishes willpower?) • What are the long-term consequences of losing belief in free will? And how do they depend on one’s understanding of free will? • What explains why people have various beliefs about free will, responsible agency, and threats to them? • How might people’s views about free will be revised? • What do sciences properly show about our capacities for rational deliberation, self-control, etc. (our NaPs) and their limitations? • What can these sciences tell us about how to overcome limitations to these capacities and about how to develop them?

19. Deterministic Scenario (“NMNT Concrete”): • Imagine there is a universe (Universe C) that is re-created over and over again, starting from the exact same initial conditions and with all the same laws of nature. In this universe the same initial conditions and the same laws of nature cause the exact same events for the entire history of the universe, so that every single time the universe is re-created, everything must happen the exact same way. For instance, in this universe a person named Jill decides to steal a necklace at a particular time and then steals it, and every time the universe is re-created, Jill decides to steal the necklace at that time and then steals it. • MR/FW questions: • Jill is fully morally responsible for stealing the necklace. • It is possible for Jill to have free will. • Jill deserves to be blamed for stealing the necklace. • “Apparent Incompatibilists” disagree with 1-3. • “Prima Facie Compatibilists” agree with 1-3.

20. Bypassing Composite • Decisions: In Universe [A/C], a person’s decisions have no effect on what they end up being caused to do. [Bill’s/Jill’s decision to kill/steal … has no effect on what he/she ends up being caused to do.] • Wants: In Universe [A/C], what a person wants has no effect on what they end up being caused to do. [What Bill/Jill wants has no effect on what he/she ends up being caused to do.] • Believes: In Universe [A/C], what a person believes has no effect on what they end up being caused to do. [What Bill/Jill believes has no effect on what he/she ends up being caused to do.] • No Control: In Universe [A/C], a person has no control over what they do. [Bill/Jill has no control over what he/she does.] Participants with average composite scores < 3.5, indicating disagreement with these statements = No bypassers (properly interpret implications of determinism) Participants with average composite scores > 3.5, indicating agreement with these statements = Bypassers (misinterpret implications of determinism)