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Reflections on Sam Harris' “Free Will” View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia (Università degli Studi di Bari) RIVISTA INTERNAZIONALE DI FILOSOFIA E PSICOLOGIA ISSN 2039-4667; E-ISSN 2239-2629 DOI: 10.4453/rifp.2017.0018 Vol. 8 (2017), n. 3, pp. 214-230 STUDI Reflections on Sam Harris’ “Free Will” Daniel C. Dennett(α) Ricevuto: 11 aprile 2016; accettato: 10 gennaio 2017 █ Abstract In his book Free Will Sam Harris tries to persuade us to abandon the morally pernicious idea of free will. The following contribution articulates and defends a more sophisticated model of free will that is not only consistent with neuroscience and introspection but also grounds a variety of responsibility that justifies both praise and blame, reward and punishment. This begins with the long lasting parting of opinion between compatibilists (who argue that free will can live comfortably with determinism) and in- compatibilists (who deny this). While Harris dismisses compatibilism as a form of theology, this article aims at showing that Harris has underestimated and misinterpreted compatibilism and at defending a more sophisticated version of compatibilism that is impervious to Harris’ criticism. KEYWORDS: Sam Harris; Free Will; Compatibilism; Incompatibilism; Neuroscience █ Riassunto Riflessioni su “Free Will” di Sam Harris – Nel suo volume Free Will Sam Harris cerca di persua- derci ad abbandonare l’idea, a suo avviso moralmente perniciosa, del libero arbitrio. Il contributo seguente articola e difende un modello di libero arbitrio che non solo è coerente con le neuroscienze e con l’introspezione, ma che dà anche fondamento a varie forme di responsabilità, giustificando encomio, biasi- mo, premi e punizioni. Ilpunto di partenza è la lunga disputa, di vecchia data, fra compatibilisti (secondo i quali il libero arbitrio può convivere pacificamente con il determinismo) e incompatibilisti (che negano que- sta posizione). Mentre Harris respinge il compatibilismo considerandolo una forma di teologia, questo arti- colo intende mostrare come Harris abbia sottostimato e male interpretato il compatibilismo e come invece sia possibile enucleare una forma di compatibilismo più sofisticata, insensibile alle sue critiche. PAROLE CHIAVE: Sam Harris; Libero arbitrio; Compatibilismo; Incompatibilismo; Neuroscienza SAM HARRIS’S FREE WILL1 is a remarkable been brainwashed into believing that you little book, engagingly written and jargon – have – or rather, are – an (immortal, imma- free, appealing to reason, not authority, and terial) soul who makes all your decisions in- written with passion and moral seriousness. dependently of the causes impinging on your This is not an ivory tower technical inquiry; material body and especially your brain, then it is in effect a political tract, designed to per- this is the book for you. Or, if you have dis- suade us all to abandon what he considers to missed dualism but think that what you are is be a morally pernicious idea: the idea of free a conscious (but material) ego, a witness that will. If you are one of the many who have inhabits a nook in your brain and chooses, (α)Center for Cognitive Studies, Tuft University, 115 Miner Hall - Madford (MA) 02115 USA E-mail: [email protected] () Creative Commons - Attribuzione - 4.0 Internazionale Reflections on Sam Harris’ “Free Will” 215 independently of external causation, all your free will is not just confused but also a major voluntary acts, again, this book is for you. It obstacle to social reform. His brief essay is, is a fine “antidote,” as Paul Bloom says, to however, the most sustained attempt to de- this incoherent and socially malignant illu- velop this theme, which can also be found in sion. The incoherence of the illusion has remarks and essays by such heavyweight sci- been demonstrated time and again in rather entists as the neuroscientists Wolf Singer and technical work by philosophers (in spite of Chris Frith, the psychologists Steven Pinker still finding supporters in the profession), but and Paul Bloom, the physicists Stephen Harris does a fine job of making this appar- Hawking and Albert Einstein, and the evolu- ently unpalatable fact accessible to lay peo- tionary biologists Jerry Coyne and (when he’s ple. Its malignance is due to its fostering the not thinking carefully) Richard Dawkins. idea of Absolute Responsibility, with its at- The book is, thus, valuable as a compact tendant implications of what we might call and compelling expression of an opinion Guilt-in-the-eyes-of-God for the unfortunate widely shared by eminent scientists these days. sinners amongst us and, for the fortunate, the It is also valuable, as I will show, as a veritable arrogant and self-deluded idea of Ultimate museum of mistakes, none of them new and Authorship of the good we do. We take too all of them seductive – alluring enough to lull much blame, and too much credit, Harris ar- the critical faculties of this host of brilliant gues. We, and the rest of the world, would be thinkers who do not make a profession of a lot better off if we took ourselves – our thinking about free will. And, to be sure, these selves – less seriously. We don’t have the mistakes have also been made, sometimes for kind of free will that would ground such Ab- centuries, by philosophers themselves. But I solute Responsibility for either the harm or think we have made some progress in philoso- the good we cause in our lives. phy of late, and Harris and others need to do All this is laudable and right, and vividly their homework if they want to engage with presented, and Harris does a particularly the best thought on the topic. good job getting readers to introspect on I am not being disingenuous when I say this their own decision‐making and notice that it museum of mistakes is valuable; I am grateful just does not conform to the fantasies of this to Harris for saying, so boldly and clearly, what all too traditional understanding of how we less outgoing scientists are thinking but keeping think and act. But some of us have long rec- to themselves. I have always suspected that ognized these points and gone on to adopt many who hold this hard determinist view are more reasonable, more empirically sound, making these mistakes, but we mustn’t put models of decision and thought, and we words in people’s mouths, and now Harris has think we can articulate and defend a more done us a great service by articulating the sophisticated model of free will that is not points explicitly, and the chorus of approval only consistent with neuroscience and intro- he has received from scientists goes a long way spection but also grounds a (modified, toned- to confirming that they have been making down, non-Absolute) variety of responsibility these mistakes all along. Wolfgang Pauli’s fa- that justifies both praise and blame, reward mous dismissal of another physicist’s work as and punishment. We don’t think this variety “not even wrong” reminds us of the value of of free will is an illusion at all, but rather a crystallizing an ambient cloud of hunches into robust feature of our psychology and a relia- something that can be shown to be wrong. ble part of the foundations of morality, law Correcting widespread misunderstanding is and society. Harris, we think, is throwing out usually the work of many hands, and Harris the baby with the bathwater. has made a significant contribution. He is not alone among scientists in com- The first parting of opinion on free will is ing to the conclusion that the ancient idea of between compatibilists and incompatibilists. 216 Dennett The latter say (with “common sense” and a This concern for varieties of indetermin- tradition going back more than two millen- ism is misplaced, argue the compatibilists: nia) that free will is incompatible with deter- free will is a phenomenon that requires nei- minism, the scientific thesis that there are ther determinism nor indeterminism; the so- causes for everything that happens. Incom- lution to the problem of free will lies in real- patibilists hold that unless there are “random izing this, not banking on the quantum phys- swerves”2 that disrupt the iron chains of icists to come through with the right physics physical causation, none of our decisions or – or a miracle. Compatibilism may seem in- choices can be truly free. Being caused means credible on its face, or desperately contrived, not being free – what could be more obvious? some kind of a trick with words, but not to The compatibilists deny this; they have ar- philosophers. Compatibilism is the reigning gued, for centuries if not millennia, that once view among philosophers (just over 59%, ac- you understand what free will really is (and cording to the 2009 Philpapers survey) with must be, to sustain our sense of moral respon- libertarians coming second with 13% and sibility), you will see that free will can live hard determinists only 12%. It is striking, comfortably with determinism – if determin- then, that all the scientists just cited have ism is what science eventually settles on. landed on the position rejected by almost Incompatibilists thus tend to pin their nine out of ten philosophers, but not so sur- hopes on indeterminism, and hence were much prising when one considers that these scien- cheered by the emergence of quantum inde- tists hardly ever consider the compatibilist terminism in 20th century physics. Perhaps the view or the reasons in its favor. brain can avail itself of undetermined quantum Harris has considered compatibilism, at swerves at the sub-atomic level, and thus es- least cursorily, and his opinion of it is breath- cape the shackles of physical law! Or perhaps takingly dismissive: After acknowledging there is some other way our choices could be that it is the prevailing view among philoso- truly undetermined.
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