Free
Why Science Hasn't Disproved Free Will
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
Does free will exist? The question has fueled heated debates spanning from philosophy to psychology and religion. The answer has major implications, and the stakes are high. To put it in the simple terms that have come to dominate these debates, if we are free to make our own decisions, we are accountable for what we do, and if we aren't free, we're off the hook.
There are neuroscientists who claim that our decisions are made unconsciously and are therefore outside of our control and social psychologists who argue that myriad imperceptible factors influence even our minor decisions to the extent that there is no room for free will. According to philosopher Alfred R. Mele, what they point to as hard and fast evidence that free will cannot exist actually leaves much room for doubt. If we look more closely at the major experiments that free will deniers cite, we can see large gaps where the light of possibility shines through.
In Free: Why Science Hasn't Disproved Free Will, Mele lays out his opponents' experiments simply and clearly, and proceeds to debunk their supposed findings, one by one, explaining how the experiments don't provide the solid evidence for which they have been touted. There is powerful evidence that conscious decisions play an important role in our lives, and knowledge about situational influences can allow people to respond to those influences rationally rather than with blind obedience.
Mele also explores the meaning and ramifications of free will. What, exactly, does it mean to have free will -- is it a state of our soul, or an undefinable openness to alternative decisions? Is it something natural and practical that is closely tied to moral responsibility? Since evidence suggests that denying the existence of free will actually encourages bad behavior, we have a duty to give it a fair chance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a shift from his previous works on the topic, Mele (A Dialogue on Free Will and Science) employs plain English in order to achieve his aim of reaching a wider audience. To this end, Mele puts us through the paces of the science that allegedly disproves free will and then succinctly points out the logical fallacies and tacit conceits assumed by the work of noted neuroscientists such as Benjamin Libet and Elsa Youngsteadt, as well as social scientists such as Daniel Wegner and Philip Zimbardo. Although Mele's criticism of the neuroscience is thoroughly convincing, on tougher cases such as Zimbardo's infamous Stanford prison experiment, bystander studies, or the Kitty Genovese case, he appeals to optimism rather than evidence. To claim, as this book does, that with the knowledge of these experiments individuals will now act differently seems contrived and unscientific. This, in turn, points to the book's ostensible failure to reference other thinkers on the free will side of the debate. Instead, Mele is mostly self-referential, recommending his own works as further reading. Nevertheless, the book does provide resources for readers to stay abreast of the most relevant scientific research; a noteworthy achievement for a subject often shrouded in jargon and obscurity.
