Failure to Comprehend Determinism or Failure to Measure Comprehension? Methodological Issues in Experimental Philosophy of Free Will
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: In the past 20 years, experimental philosophers have been investigating folk intuitions about the compatibility of determinism with free will and moral responsibility using vignettes depicting agents in deterministic universes. However, recent research suggests that participants massively fail to understand these vignettes. Moreover, it has also been proposed that these comprehension errors might even be systematic and thus unavoidable, threatening the project of probing folk intuitions about free will and determinism through vignettes. Through five studies, we suggest that past studies have overestimated participants' failure to understand vignettes depicting deterministic universes, mainly by relying on unreliable samples and by using non-validated measures. We also show that using new vignettes that take more time to better describe what determinism is substantially reduces comprehension errors and their impact on participants' intuitions. We conclude that, at least in the current state of the art, skepticism about the possibility to probe folk intuitions about the compatibility of determinism with free will and moral responsibility through the use of vignettes is premature. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10670-024-00844-1.
Source: Erkenntnis
Authors: Florian Cova, Tristan Martinez
Institution: University of Geneva
Language: English
Topic: Free Will and Agency
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,990
OpenAlex ID: W4401764191