Abstract
Ted Honderich offers “Attitudinism” as an alternative to the traditional categories of compatibilism and incompatibilism regarding free will and determinism. In earlier work, I argued that Attitudinism should, despite Honderich’s claims, be understood as a species of compatibilism. In the present chapter, I suggest a way of resisting my earlier argument. I begin by giving an overview of Attitudinism and summarize my earlier criticism. I then explore Honderich’s claim that we have multiple ideas of the nature of free will and connect Attitudinism with some recent work in the philosophy of social science regarding the nature and use of concepts.
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Notes
- 1.
Insofar as libertarianism is typically understood to be “the conjunction of incompatibilism [the thesis that free will is incompatible with the truth of determinism] and the thesis that we have free will” (van Inwagen 1983, 13f; see also Kane 2002, 17; Pereboom 2006, xiv) . I confess that I’m perplexed by those views that go by the name ‘libertarian compatibilism’ (see Vihvelin 2000 and Arvan 2013) as on the standard use of the terms involved, the name appears to involve a contradiction. For a brief discussion, see Timpe (2017, 213).
- 2.
In his “How to Think about the Problem of Free Will ,” Peter van Inwagen suggests that everyone ought to define determinism as follows: “Determinism is the thesis that the past and the laws of nature together determine, at every moment, a unique future” (van Inwagen 2008, 330).
- 3.
For a discussion of the relationship between these two ways of understanding the nature of free will, see Timpe (2017).
- 4.
Timpe (2013, 44).
- 5.
Furthermore, both compatibilism and incompatibilism are typically taken to be necessarily true if true at all; thus, it is either the case that compatibilism is necessarily true and incompatibilism is necessarily false or that incompatibilism is necessarily true and compatibilism is necessary false. However, this further point need not concern us here.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
For a similar discussion, see also Honderich (2011, 448ff), where he suggests that there is empirical data supporting the view that we have two conceptions of free will. A similar view can be found in Vargas (2013). In Timpe (2013), I argued that Honderich’s view is, like Vargas’ view, a form of ‘revisionism.’ At the heart of revisionist accounts is the belief that we need to revise our view of free will .
- 9.
Experimental philosophy could presumably give us evidence in favor of this claim. In fact, I think that much of the existing experimental work on free will supports this reading, though I will not canvas the relevant literature here.
- 10.
This list is not intended to be exhaustive.
References
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Timpe, K. (2018). Attitudinism, the Compatibility Question, and Ballung Concepts. In: Caruso, G. (eds) Ted Honderich on Consciousness, Determinism, and Humanity. Philosophers in Depth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66754-6_10
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