Libertarian Free Will, Naturalism, and Science

نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی پژوهشی

نویسنده

Professor, Philosophy and Religious Studies, Ursinus college, USA

چکیده

If we have libertarian free will, then it is plausible to believe that the occurrences of certain physical events have irreducible and ineliminable mental explanations. According to a strong version of (metaphysical) naturalism, everything in the physical world is in principle explicable in nonmental terms. Therefore, the truth of naturalism implies that libertarian choices cannot explain the occurrences of any physical events. In this paper, I example a methodological argument for the truth of naturalism and conclude that the argument fails. I then consider additional concerns raised against the reality of libertarian freedom. First, I examine the claim that if a physical event E is not causally determined to occur by another physical event, then there is no way to account for the difference between E’s occurring randomly and E’s being causally determined to occur by a mental event. Second, I consider the assertion that the affirmation of libertarianism is a mind-of-the-gaps version of the God-of-the-gaps objection to a divine explanation of a physical event. Third, I take up the question of whether the inability of libertarians (or anyone else) to pinpoint precisely where the initial physical effects of libertarian choices occur is a good reason for rejecting libertarianism. Fourth, I examine the claim that belief in the existence of the soul or immaterial mind is the result of an explanatory hypothesis to account for how libertarian free choices can causally produce physical effects. Fifth, I look at the traditional objection to substance dualism from the impossibility of causal interaction between a soul and its body.

کلیدواژه‌ها

عنوان مقاله [English]

Libertarian Free Will, Naturalism, and Science

نویسنده [English]

  • Stewart Goetz
Professor, Philosophy and Religious Studies, Ursinus college, USA
چکیده [English]

If we have libertarian free will, then it is plausible to believe that the occurrences of certain physical events have irreducible and ineliminable mental explanations. According to a strong version of (metaphysical) naturalism, everything in the physical world is in principle explicable in nonmental terms. Therefore, the truth of naturalism implies that libertarian choices cannot explain the occurrences of any physical events. In this paper, I example a methodological argument for the truth of naturalism and conclude that the argument fails. I then consider additional concerns raised against the reality of libertarian freedom. First, I examine the claim that if a physical event E is not causally determined to occur by another physical event, then there is no way to account for the difference between E’s occurring randomly and E’s being causally determined to occur by a mental event. Second, I consider the assertion that the affirmation of libertarianism is a mind-of-the-gaps version of the God-of-the-gaps objection to a divine explanation of a physical event. Third, I take up the question of whether the inability of libertarians (or anyone else) to pinpoint precisely where the initial physical effects of libertarian choices occur is a good reason for rejecting libertarianism. Fourth, I examine the claim that belief in the existence of the soul or immaterial mind is the result of an explanatory hypothesis to account for how libertarian free choices can causally produce physical effects. Fifth, I look at the traditional objection to substance dualism from the impossibility of causal interaction between a soul and its body.

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • Professor
  • Philosophy and Religious Studies
  • Ursinus college
  • USA

مراجع

Armstrong, D. (1978). Naturalism, Materialism, and First Philosophy. Philosophia, 8(2-3), 261-76. doi: 10.1007/bf02379243
Bering, J. (2006). The Folk Psychology of Souls. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29(5), 453-62. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X06009101
Bremmer, J. N. (1983). The Early Greek Concept of the Soul. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Descartes, R. (1958). Descartes’ Philosophical Writings. (Kemp Smith, N., Trans.). New York: The Modern Library.
Descartes, R. (1984). The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol.II. (Cottingham, J.; Stoothoff, R. & Murdoch, D., Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
Feynman, R. (1998). The Meaning of It All. Reading, MA: Perseus Books.
Goetz, S. (1988). A Noncausal Theory of Agency. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 49(2), 303-16. doi: 10.2307/2107978
Goetz, S. (2008). Freedom, Teleology, and Evil. London: Continuum.
Humphrey, N. (2011). Soul Dust. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kane, R. (1996). The Significance of Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kim, J. G. (1996). Philosophy of Mind. Boulder CO: Westview Press.
Lacey, A. (2005). Materialism. In: Honderich, T. (Ed.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, (2nd ed., pp.564-566). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mele, A. R. (2014). Reply to Nadelhoffer and Vargas. In: Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (Ed.), Moral Psychology: Free Will and Moral Responsibility, vol.4. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
O’Connor, T. (2013). Do We Have Souls?. Available at:
https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/2013/01/08/have-souls/.
Papineau, D. (1993). Philosophical Naturalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Papineau, D. (2002). Thinking about Consciousness. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Penfield, W. (1975). The Mystery of the Mind. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Subramanian, S. (2020). A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J. B. S. Haldane. London: Atlantic Books.
Taylor, R. (1992). Metaphysics, (4th ed). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
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پژوهش‌های فلسفی -کلامی
دوره 23، شماره 3 - شماره پیاپی 89
(ویژه نامه اراده آزاد)
مهر 1400
صفحه 157-172

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