Thomas Nadelhoffer

Surveying Freedom: Folk Intuitions about free will and moral responsibility

Philosophers working in the nascent field of ‘experimental philosophy’ have begun using methods borrowed from psychology to collect data about folk intuitions concerning debates ranging from action theory to ethics to epistemology. In this paper we present the results of our attempts to apply this approach to the free will debate, in which philosophers on opposing sides claim that their view best accounts for and accords with folk intuitions. After discussing the motivation for such research, we describe our methodology of surveying peoples prephilosophical judgments about the freedom and responsibility of agents in deterministic scenarios. In two studies, we found that a majority of participants judged that such agents act of their own free will and are morally responsible for their actions. We then discuss the philosophical implications of our results as well as various difficulties inherent in such research.

THE PAST AND FUTURE OF EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY

Experimental philosophy is the name for a recent movement whose participants use the methods of experimental psychology to probe the way people think about philosophical issues and then examine how the results of such studies bear on traditional philosophical debates. Given both the breadth of the research being carried out by experimental philosophers and the controversial nature of some of their central methodological assumptions, it is of no surprise that their work has recently come under attack. In this paper we respond to some criticisms of experimental philosophy that have recently been put forward by Antti Kauppinen. Unlike the critics of experimental philosophy, we do not think the fledgling movement either will or should fall before it has even had a chance to rise up to explain what it is, what it seeks to do (and not to do), and exactly how it plans to do it. Filling in some of the salient details is the main goal of the present paper.

Bad acts, blameworthy agents, and intentional actions: Some problems for juror impartiality

In this paper, I first review some of the recent empirical work on the biasing effect that moral considerations have on folk ascriptions of intentional action. Then, I use Mark Alickes affective model of blame attribution to explain this biasing effect. Finally, I discuss the relevance of this research—both philosophical and psychological—to the problem of the partiality of jury deliberation. After all, if the immorality of an action does affect folk ascriptions of intentionality, and all serious criminal offenses—e.g., murder and rape—are immoral in addition to being illegal, then a jurors ability to determine the relevant mens rea (i.e., guilty mind) of a defendant in an unbiased way may be seriously undermined.

Skill, luck, control, and intentional action

On the surface, it seems intuitively plausible that if an agent luckily manages to perform a desired action (e.g., rolling a six with a fair die or winning the lottery), the performance of which is not the result of any relevant skill on her part, we should not say that she performed the action intentionally. This intuition suggests that our concept of intentional action is sensitive to considerations of skill, luck, and causal control. Indeed, some philosophers have claimed that in order for an action to be performed intentionally it must be performed with a relevant amount of skill or control—i.e., an intentional action cannot simply be the result of luck. On this view, skill and control are necessary conditions of our everyday concept of intentional action. In this essay, I discuss empirical evidence that challenges this claim. After briefly setting the stage, I examine Al Mele and Paul Mosers thorough analysis of intentional action—paying particular attention to some of the interesting scenarios they offer in support of their position. Next, I discuss the results of some simple psychological experiments that show that peoples judgments concerning whether actions are intentional can often be affected by the moral features of these actions—features that may trump considerations of skill, luck, and control. Finally, I conclude that if this is correct, philosophers who claim that skill and control are necessary conditions of the folk concept of intentional action appear to be mistaken. One can test attempted philosophical analyses of intentional action partly by ascertaining whether what these analyses entail about particular actions is in line with what the majority of non-specialists would say about these actions … if there is a widely shared concept of intentional action, such judgments provide evidence about what the concept is, and a philosophical analysis of intentional action that is wholly unconstrained by that concept runs the risk of having nothing more than a philosophical fiction as its subject matter. (Mele, 2001, p. 27)

The free will inventory: Measuring beliefs about agency and responsibility

In this paper, we present the results of the construction and validation of a new psychometric tool for measuring beliefs about free will and related concepts: The Free Will Inventory (FWI). In its final form, FWI is a 29-item instrument with two parts. Part 1 consists of three 5-item subscales designed to measure strength of belief in free will, determinism, and dualism. Part 2 consists of a series of fourteen statements designed to further explore the complex network of peoples associated beliefs and attitudes about free will, determinism, choice, the soul, predictability, responsibility, and punishment. Having presented the construction and validation of FWI, we discuss several ways that it could be used in future research, highlight some as yet unanswered questions that are ripe for interdisciplinary investigation, and encourage researchers to join us in our efforts to answer these questions.

FOLK RETRIBUTIVISM AND THE COMMUNICATION CONFOUND

Retributivist accounts of punishment maintain that it is right to punish wrongdoers, even if the punishment has no future benefits. Research in experimental economics indicates that people are willing to pay to punish defectors. A complementary line of work in social psychology suggests that people think that it is right to punish wrongdoers. This work suggests that people are retributivists about punishment. However, all of the extant work contains an important potential confound. The target of the punishment is expected to be aware of the punitive act. Thus, its possible that people punish because they want to communicate something to the wrongdoer, e.g. disapproval, the presence of a norm, etc. In three studies, we examine whether people will punish even when the punishee will be ignorant. We find that people are no less likely to punish when the punishee will be ignorant. This finding emerges both in a survey study and in a monetized behavioural decision study.

Experimental Philosophy of Action

When it comes to determining how responsible an agent is for her actions, it matters a great deal whether she acted intentionally rather than unintentionally. As Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once remarked, “even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked” (Holmes 1963, 7). Given the central role that ascriptions of intentional action play in our everyday moral and legal practices, it is no surprise that the concept of intentionality1 has historically received a lot of attention in the philosophical literature. Moreover, until quite recently, philosophers have been content to rely on their own a priori intuitions about particular cases in trying to trace the contours of the concept of intentional action. However, exclusive reliance on this traditional approach to action theory has been called into question as of late by researchers working in the nascent field of experimental philosophy.2

The psychological significance of humility

Abstract Humility is a virtue with a rich and varied past. Its benefits and pitfalls – indeed, its status as a virtue – have been debated by philosophers and theologians. Recently, psychologists have entered into the dialectic, with a small but growing body of empirical research at their disposal. We will discuss this research on humility, including our own recent contributions. Our goal is to shed light on the following three important questions: First, what is humility? Second, why we should care about being humble? Finally, are there constructive steps we can take to induce people to adopt more humble at titudes towards themselves and others? In the process of answering these questions, we will consider the major empirical accounts of humility in the literature, highlight their primary difficulties, and then introduce a new account that cuts through the confusion, getting to the core of what we take humility to be.

Be it ever so humble: Proposing a dual-dimension account and measurement of humility

Abstract What does it mean to be humble? We argue that humility is an epistemically and ethically aligned state of awareness – the experience of ourselves as a small part of a larger universe and as one among a host of other morally relevant beings. So conceived, humility can be operationalized and measured along the dual dimensions of low self-focus and high other-focus and is distinct from other related constructs (e.g., modesty and open-mindedness). We discuss our newly developed scale (Study 1 and 2), and provide preliminary validation using self-report (Study 3) and behavioral measures (Study 4), showing that humility is related to people’s general ethical orientation (e.g., empathy, universalism/benevolence, and civic responsibility), their well-being (e.g., sense of autonomy, life-purpose, and secure attachment), mature religious beliefs/practices, and reactions to disagreement – specifically, people high in humility sat closer and less angled away from their conversation partner with whom they disagreed. Together, this provides support for our new Dual-Dimension Humility Scale.

Some Varieties of Humility Worth Wanting

In this paper we first set the stage with a brief overview of the tangled history of humility in theology and philosophy—beginning with its treatment in the Bible and ending with the more recent work that has been done in contemporary philosophy (§§1–2). Our two-fold goal at this early stage of the paper is to explore some of the different accounts of humility that have traditionally been developed and highlight some of the key debates in the current literature. Next, we present the findings from several studies we recently conducted in an effort to explore people’s intuitions and beliefs about humility as well as their experiences with being humble (or failing to be humble) (§3). Finally, we discuss the relevance of our findings to the ongoing philosophical debates about humility—suggesting that while some varieties of humility are problematic, other varieties of humility are certainly worth wanting (§4).