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Experimental Philosophy and Free Will
Author(s) -
Sommers Tamler
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
philosophy compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.973
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1747-9991
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00273.x
Subject(s) - free will , determinism , compatibilism , epistemology , section (typography) , experimental philosophy , moral responsibility , relevance (law) , incompatibilism , engineering ethics , sociology , philosophy , philosophical methodology , computer science , political science , law , engineering , operating system
This paper develops a sympathetic critique of recent experimental work on free will and moral responsibility. Section 1 offers a brief defense of the relevance of experimental philosophy to the free will debate. Section 2 reviews a series of articles in the experimental literature that probe intuitions about the “compatibility question”—whether we can be free and morally responsible if determinism is true. Section 3 argues that these studies have produced valuable insights on the factors that influence our judgments on the compatibility question, but that their general approach suffers from significant practical and philosophical difficulties. Section 4 reviews experimental work addressing other aspects of the free will/moral responsibility debate, and section 5 concludes with a discussion of avenues for further research.