Free Will & Morality

In the Spring of 2010 I was awarded a Mellon Fellowship to create a year-long interdisciplinary workshop examining people's beliefs about free will will and how these beliefs affect moral judgment.

In this workshop, students and faculty from psychology, religious studies, cognitive science, philosophy, and neuroscience will examine three fundamental questions: What is free will? How is free will connected to mental state inferences and moral judgments? And, what are the implications for human behavior and morality if free will is an illusion?

What is free will?

There has been a longstanding debate in both philosophy and psychology on whether or not free will is an illusion. Some philosophers argue that, given our deterministic universe, free will is impossible, while others contend that free will and determinism can coexist. Similarly, some psychologists have dismissed ordinary people’s conception of free will because it emphasizes conscious choice whereas most human actions, so the scientists claim, are enacted without conscious awareness. The task of this workshop will be to evaluate the arguments and research underlying these claims and, using our participants’ and speakers’ multiple perspectives, to clarify the concept of free will, its metaphysical assumptions, and its role in social and moral judgments.

How is free will connected to mental states and morality?

When making sense of human behavior, people appeal to intentionality and mental states. Inferences of intentionality and mental states are also crucial for deciding if a person’s action deserves blame or praise. Recent research suggests that people’s concept of free will is tightly connected to mental state concepts. Specifically, when defining free will people consistently cite three criteria: making a choice, fulfilling desires, and being free from constraint. However, it is currently unclear how information about an agent’s free will is incorporated into assignments of blame and punishment.  Is there a unique contribution of the “freedom” of actions that guides moral judgments?  Moreover, a recent debate has turned the question around to ask whether the morality of actions might influence people’s inferences of intentionality and mental states.  Might ascriptions of free will similarly be influence by moral judgment, rather than the other way around?

What if free will is an illusion?

Concerns have arisen about the moral and legal implications of scholars’ frequent denial of the existence of free will. Some researchers have speculated that the illusion of free will requires an overhaul of everyday morality. For example, some neuroscientists have proposed that as more is known about the neural causes of behavior, the legal system will be forced to shift from being primarily punitive to adopting a consequentialist approach to punishment. Our goal in the workshop is to critically discuss these claims and pave the way for an intensified study of how skepticism about free will might alter both everyday moral judgment and the legal system as a whole.