Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Free Will and Responsibility - by Thomas Nadelhoffer & James R Beebe & Andrew Monroe & Justin Sytsma

Book Synopsis

Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Free Will and Responsibility brings together leading researchers from psychology and philosophy to present new findings and ideas about human agency and moral responsibility.

Their contributions reflect the growth of research in these areas over the past decade and highlight both the ways that philosophy can be relevant to empirical research and how empirical work can be relevant to philosophical investigations. Mixing new empirical work with the meta-philosophical and philosophical upshot of the latest research being done, chapters cover motivated cognition and free will beliefs, folk intuitions about manipulation and agency, mental control in assessments of responsibility, the importance of skilled decision making to free will judgments and the relationship between free will and substance dualism.

Blending cutting-edge research from philosophy with methods from psychology, this collection is a compelling example of the value of interdisciplinary approaches, contributing to our understanding of the complex networks of attitudes, beliefs, and judgments that inform how we think about agency and responsibility.

Review Quotes

"What are the conditions under which a person's will is free and they are responsible for what they do? As the essays in this volume demonstrate, this question cannot be answered exclusively from the armchair or exclusively with the empirical methods of science. Nadelhoffer and Munroe have assembled a set of exciting, transdisciplinary essays that seamlessly synthesize philosophical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives. Though experimental philosophy is a relatively young field, the sense that it has come of age and is delivering important new insights about human agency is evident throughout these pages." --Chandra Sripada, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Psychiatry, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, USA

"Expert philosophers have been doing careful thought experiments for centuries, but recently they started collecting data on how ordinary people think about the same issues. This wonderful book will bring anyone up to speed on how ordinary citizens understand the concept of free will and related issues of moral responsibility and decision making. It has contributions by a diverse set of writers, including some of the most highly respected people in the field and some up-and-coming young hot shots. Each chapter presents an overview of an impressive research program, illuminating some vital and fascinating aspect of free will. The chapters are beautifully written and are thus a pleasure to read, whether you are a veteran expert in the field or just an average citizen curious about the topic. The topic is one of the grandest questions in Western thought and central to how to understand human nature, including the mental processes that underlie actions and choices. Anyone who reads this will come away enlightened and inspired." --Roy F. Baumeister, author of The Self Explained: Why and How We Become Who We Are (2022), USA

About the Author

Thomas Nadelhoffer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of Charleston, USA.

Andrew Monroe is a Director of Research at Veris Insights in Washington D.C., USA.