Freedom: Free Will and Moral Responsibility
PHIL 262-04 | ID 11212 | TR 2:00-3:50 | Room: Craig-Lee 202 | Fall 2011
Course Syllabus
Instructor: Dr. Aaron Smuts | asmuts@ric.edu | office hours: 219 Alger Hall, 12:00-12:30 TR
Description
Could pre-cogs predict your holiday plans next year? Could a super-intelligent demon with knowledge of the position and projection of every atom in the universe determine what you will have for breakfast next Tuesday?
Just what is free will? Can we make sense of the notion? We will begin the semester by looking at the significance of determinism for free will and moral responsibility. Is determinism true? And if so, is free will compatible with determinism?
Some think that determinism is false and point to putative sources of indeterminacy as the locus of free will. But it is just as difficult to see how indeterminate events could help make anyone responsible for their actions. Wouldn't they be an impediment to our control?
In the next part of the course, we will explore the implications of hard determinism. Would praise and blame make sense if we lack freedom? Without freedom, it seems that we would have to radically reform our views of virtue, vice, love, and friendship. If no one is responsible for their actions, what justifies punishment? If we don't have free will, should we, as some philosophers suggest, actively promote the illusion that we do?
We will critically examine some psychological research that appears to undermine the prospects for free will. We’ll be talking about Ouija boards, diving rods, split brains, hypnosis, subliminal suggestion, drug addicts, psychopaths, and love potions.
Texts
There are six required texts for this course:
Robert Kane. A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will (Oxford UP, 2005). ISBN-10: 019514970X. [CI]
Gary Watson, ed. Free Will (Oxford Readings in Philosophy) (Oxford UP, 2003). ISBN-10: 019925494X. [GWFW]
Derk Pereboom, ed. Free Will. Hackett, 2009. ISBN-10: 1603841296. [DPFW]
Robert Kane, ed. Free Will (Blackwell Readings in Philosophy). Blackwell, 2009. ISBN-10: 0631221026. [RKFW]
Sophocles, Theban Plays. Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff (trans). Hackett, 2003. ISBN-10: 0872205851. [TP]
Joseph Bedier (Author), Hilaire Belloc (Trans). The Romance of Tristan and Iseult. Vintage, 1994. ISBN-10: 0679750169. [RTI]
I will post numerous additional readings on Blackboard. [BB]
Coursework
There will be two different forms of coursework: (best 20 out of 27) daily quizzes and three take-home examinations. I will give a short quiz at the beginning of each class that will require a one or two sentence answer. The quizzes are closed-book, but open-note. The bulk of your grade comes from the take-home exams. All assignments must be completed to pass the course.
Quizzes (10%) + first exam (25%) + late-term exam (30%) + final exam (35%).
Attendance Policy
If you miss 6 or more classes, you will receive a 0 for your quiz grade. If you miss 12 or more classes, you will receive an F for the course. (There are no excused or unexcused absences. But please talk to me if something major comes up that will dramatically effect your attendance.)
Academic Honesty
Plagiarism—claiming someone else’s ideas or written work as your own—will not be tolerated. The tests are not collaborative. All sources must be cited. Outside research is not forbidden, but none of the assignments ask for sources outside the assigned readings. Anyone caught cheating will be given a failing grade in the course. I will also request that you be expelled from the college.
Class Schedule
(There will be a quiz every class on the required reading for that day.)
Week 1
C1 (8/29) Introduction
Kane, ch.1 "The Free Will Problem" [CI]
{Optional: Solomon, "On Fate and Fatalism" [BB]}
C2 (9/1) Fate
Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus [TP]
{Optional: Lucian, "Zeus Cross-Examined" [BB]}
Week 2
C3 (9/6) Predestination and Divine Foreknowledge
Kane, ch. 13 "Divine Foreknowledge, and Free Will" [CI]
Augustine, "Divine Foreknowledge, Evil, and the Free" [RKFW]
{Optional: Hasker, "God, Time, Knowledge and Freedom" [RKFW]}
C4 (9/8) Divine Foreknowledge
Pike, "Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action" [BB]
{Optional: Taylor, "Fate" [BB]}
Week 3
C5 (9/13) Causal Determinism and Classic Compatibilism
Kane, Ch. 2 "Compatibilism" [CI]
The Stoics, selections [DPFW]
Laplace, Essay on Probabilities, ch.2 [BB]
C6 (9/15) Classic Compatibilism
Hume, selections from the Treatise and the Enquiry [BB]
Skinner, "Walden Two" (excerpt) [RKFW]
Week 4
C7 (9/20) Contemporary Compatibilism - Frankfurt
Kane, ch. 9 "Higher-order Desires, Real Selves and New Compatibilists" [CI]
Frankfurt, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person" [GWFW]
C8 (9/22) Contemporary Compatibilism - Wolf
Wolf, "Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility" [GWFW]
Week 5
C9 (9/27) Contemporary Compatibilism - Watson
Watson, "Free Agency" [GWFW]
C10 (9/29) Incompatibilism
Kane, ch. 3 "Incompatibilism" [CI]
van Inwagen, "An Argument for Incompatibilism" [GWFW]
Week 6
C11 (10/4) Indeterminism
Kane, ch.4 "Libertarianism, Indeterminism, and Chance" [CI]
Lucretius, "On the Nature of Things" (excerpt) [BB]
van Inwagen, "The Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom" [RKFW]
C12 (10/6) The Liberty of Indifference
Kaye, "Why the Liberty of Indifference is Worth Wanting" [BB]
Week 7
(10/11) NO CLASS – Columbus Day Monday Swap
C13 (10/13) Agent Causation
Kane, ch. 5 "Minds, Selves, and Agent Causes" [CI]
Campbell, "Has the Self 'Free Will'?" (excerpt from On Selfhood and Godhood) [BB]
Reid, selections [BB]
Week 8
C14 (10/18) Agent Causation, cont.
Chisholm, "Human Freedom and the Self" [RKFW]
{Optional: Kane, "Responsibility, Luck, and Chance" [GWFW]}
C15 (10/20) Agent Causation, cont.
Kane, ch. 6 "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" [CI]
O'Connor, "Agent Causation" [GWFW]
{Optional: Clarke, "Agent Causation and Event Causation" [DPFW]}
Week 9
C16 (10/25) Hard Determinism
Kane, ch.7 "Hard Determinists and Other Skeptics" [CI]
Edwards, "Hard and Soft Determinism" [RKFW]
Galen Strawson, "The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility" [GWFW]
{Optional Preview: Pereboom, "Determinism al Dente" [DPFW]}
C17 (10/27) Neuroscience and Free Will
Libet, "Do We Have Free Will?" [BB]
Wegner, "Brain and Body" [BB]
Week 10
C18 (11/1) Psychology of Conscious Choice
Wegner, "The Experience of Will" [BB]
C19 (11/3) Alternate Possibilities
Kane, ch. 8 "Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities" [CI]
Frankfurt, "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility" [GWFW]
Week 11
C20 (11/8) Tracing Accounts
Fischer, "Frankfurt-Style Compatibilism" [GWFW]
Pereboom, "Determinism al Dente" (sections I-II) [DPFW]
C21 (11/10) Ethics and Free Will
Kane, Ch. 10 "Reactive Attitude Theories" [CI]
Peter Strawson, "Freedom and Resentment" [DPFW]
{Optional: Dennett, "I Could Not Have Done Otherwise - So What?" [RKFW]}
Week 12
C22 (11/15) Determinism and Ethics
Pereboom, "Determinism al Dente" (section VII) [DPFW]
{Optional: Pereboom, "The Contours of Hard Incompatibilism" [BB]}
C23 (11/17) Punishment
Pereboom, "Hard Incompatibilism and Criminal Behavior" [BB]
{Optional: Levy, "The Responsibility of the Psychopath Revisited" [BB]}
Week 13 (Thanksgiving Break: No Class)
Week 14
C24 (11/29) Love and Freedom
Bedier, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult (pp. 1-108) [RTI]
{Optional: Schopenhauer, on love [BB]}
C25 (12/1) Love and Freedom
Bedier, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult (pp. 109-203) [RTI]
Pereboom, "Hard Incompatibilism and the Meaning of Life" (pp. 199-204) [BB]
{Optional: Smuts, "Love and Free Will" [BB]}
Week 15
C26 (12/6) Illusionism
Smilansky, "Free Will, Fundamental Dualism, and the Centrality of Illusion" [BB]
{Optional: Vohs, "The Value of Believing in Free Will" [BB]}
C27 (12/8) Free Will and the Meaning of Life
Frankl, "Logotherapy in a Nutshell" [BB]
Pereboom, "Hard Incompatibilism and the Meaning of Life" (pp. 187-199) [BB]
{Optional: Wielenberg, "The Meaning of Life" [BB]}