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Daniel Dennett
FREEDOM EVOLVES
The free will paradox is at the very heart of the most
basic questions about human nature. Its ramifications are
crucial not only to philosophy but also to religion and
jurisprudence. Either our choices are determined by what
has gone on before (our heredity and environment) or they
are not; but if they are not determined then the only
alternative aooears to be that they are random, and that
hardly seems like a freedom worth having. So perhaps the
freedom to choose is an illusion; yet, if so, it is a
powerful one, for most of us feel free to choose our
actions. Some people think it is materialism that is the
villain in the piece, and so they seek a solution to the
paradox in dualism -- in the view that there is a separate
mind that somehow influences the functioning of the
physical brain -- yet this does not seem to work either,
for even the choices of this non-physical mind would
presumably still be determined by its psychological
antecedents.
Writers on the free will paradox always leave me, at least,
with a sense of dissatisfaction. Those who favour the view
that free will is real generally come to this conclusion
with something of the air of a conjuror producing a rabbit
out of a hat, while their opponents, who insist that free
will is a illusion and that determinism rules, often commit
the logical absurdity of exhorting legislators to recognize
the true state of affairs and cease to punish criminals for
actions they could not help, thus ignoring the obvious fact
that if determinism is true the legislators' choices in the
matter are as determined as everyone else's.
Daniel Dennett is a naturalistic philosopher of renown who
has tackled the free will issue more than once before. In
this new book he gives us his latest thoughts on the
matter. Has he solved the conundrum? Well, as usual, yes
and no. But whether or not you fully agree with his view,
you will certainly want to read his book if, like me, you
are fascinated by the problem. Dennet is an excellent
writer, always clear and often amusing. As in much of his
work, he is writing for a general audience, not for
professional philosophers, but at the same time he does not
shirk from confronting the real difficulties that exist.
There is a convenient summary at the end of each chapter,
together with a short preview of the next chapter. This
makes the steps of the argument easier to follow.
As the title implies, Dennett's view of free will is shaped
by the central role he assigns to Darwinism; this will not
come as any surprise to readers of his earlier book
Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Some of the arguments in the
present book are also to be found in his Consciousness
Explained, though they are updated and clarified here. The
most essential part of his discussion probably comes in his
second chapter, where he claims that determinism does not
imply inevitability. He uses the analogy of Conway's
computer game of Life to illustrate this. He coins the word
'evitability' to mean the opposite of 'inevitability' and
says that "'evitability' can be achieved in a deterministic
world, and hence the common association between determinism
and inevitability is a mistake." Unless you accept this
apparently paradoxical idea you will not agree with the
rest of his discussion, but Dennett claims that if the
question is considered in the light of Darwinian evolution
the paradox disappears. The remainder of the book is
largely concerned with showing how this works and what the
implications are for morality and society.
Chapter 8 contains a really excellent discussion of the
famous research by Benjamin Libet on the brain events
accompanying choosing. In these experiments Libet showed
that, when people were asked to move their wrist whenever
they felt like it, the onset of the preceding electrical
events in their brains occurred before the subjects were
consciously aware of having made the decision to move. Some
commentators have taken this to mean that the feeling of
"choice" is really an epiphenomenon, an unreal feeling that
occurs after the brain has already made the crucial
decision, though Libet does not himself like this
conclusion. But Dennett unpicks the matter to show that all
such ideas are really a consequence of adherence to what he
calls the notion of the Cartesian Theatre. That is, they
presuppose that there is some central coordinating agency,
some "place" where conscious decision-making takes place.
Dennet takes this to be an illusion, and the same applies
to the assumption that there is some "time t" at which a
decision occurs. I should say that this section by itself
makes the book well worth reading, whether or not you are
fully convinced by Dennet's account of free will.
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Book review by Anthony Campbell. Copyright © Anthony
Campbell (2003).
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%T Freedom Evolves
%A Daniel Dennett
%I Allen Lane
%C London
%D 2003
%G ISBN 0-71399-339-1
%P ix + 347 pp
%K philosophy
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