scholarly journals Folk Intuitions and the Conditional Ability to Do Otherwise

Author(s):  
Thomas Nadelhoffer ◽  
Siyuan Yin ◽  
Rose Graves

In a series of three pre-registered studies, we explored (a) the difference between people’s intuitions about indeterministic scenarios and their intuitions about deterministic scenarios, (b) the difference between people’s intuitions about indeterministic scenarios and their intuitions about neurodeterministic scenarios (that is, scenarios where the determinism is described at the neurological level), (c) the difference between people’s intuitions about neutral scenarios (e.g., walking a dog in the park) and their intuitions about negatively valenced scenarios (e.g., murdering a stranger), and (d) the difference between people’s intuitions about free will and responsibility in response to first-person scenarios and third-person scenarios. We predicted that once we focused participants’ attention on the two different abilities to do otherwise available to agents in indeterministic and deterministic scenarios, their intuitions would support natural incompatibilism—the view that laypersons judge that free will and moral responsibility are incompatible with determinism. This prediction was borne out by our findings.

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Audrey Desjardins ◽  
Oscar Tomico ◽  
Andrés Lucero ◽  
Marta E. Cecchinato ◽  
Carman Neustaedter

In this introduction to the special issue on First-Person Methods in (Human-Computer Interaction) HCI, we present a brief overview of first-person methods, their origin, and their use in Human-Computer Interaction. We also detail the difference between first-person methods, second-person, and third-person methods, as a way to guide the reader when engaging the special issue articles. We articulate our motivation for putting together this special issue: we wanted a collection of works that would allow HCI researchers to develop further, define, and outline practices, techniques and implications of first-person methods. We trace links between the articles in this special issue and conclude with questions and directions for future work in this methodological space: working with boundaries, risk, and accountability.


Author(s):  
Diana E. Gasparyan ◽  

In this article, it is shown that in some theories defending the non-reductive nature of the firstperson perspective it is possible to find a very inconsistent attitude. Such theories are associated by the author to a so-called moderate naturalism. The article demonstrates the difference between moderate and radical naturalism. Radical naturalism completely abandons the idea of subjectivity as unobservable from a third-person perspective. On the contrary, moderate naturalism defends the irreducibility of subjectivity, but believes subjectivity to be a part of the nature. As a case of moderate naturalism, the article considers the approaches of Lynne Baker and Thomas Metzinger. Exemplifying these approaches to the first-person perspective, it is shown that in the case of certain work strategies focused on the first-person perspective, it is possible that a so-called description error may appear, by which a description error of subjectivity — when it is placed in the world as a part of nature, existing according to its laws — is understood. The logic of this error points to one of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s statements about the incorrect placement of the eye in the perspective of the eye view itself. If the first-person perspective is introduced as a point of view (or a point of observation), then its subsequent shift to the observation result area leads to description error. If there is no observation, as well as no viewpoint, we lose the very idea of first-person perspective and actually take the position of radical naturalism.


Author(s):  
Thomas Boraud

This chapter focuses on the issue of free will. Free will is defined as the ability to choose independently from any exogenous determinations. The seminal experiment on this subject was proposed by Benjamin Libet in the early eighties. His aim was to highlight that free will is only an illusion. This chapter describes the debate around the experiences initiated by Libet and the exact nature of the phenomenon observed. It then highlights the difference between intentionality and agency. Agency is related to who is at the origin of the action. Intentionality is related to the consciousness of acting and is therefore directly related to moral responsibility. Finally, the chapter argues that neuroscience may help but will be insufficient alone to conclude the possibility or impossibility of free will.


2007 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 214-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
EDDY NAHMIAS ◽  
D. JUSTIN COATES ◽  
TREVOR KVARAN

2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 677-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Velmans

Wegner's analysis of the illusion of conscious will is close to my own account of how conscious experiences relate to brain processes. But our analyses differ somewhat on how conscious will is not an illusion. Wegner argues that once conscious will arises it enters causally into subsequent mental processing. I argue that while his causal story is accurate, it remains a first-person story. Conscious free will is not an illusion in the sense that this first-person story is compatible with and complementary to a third-person account of voluntary processing in the mind/brain.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Cova

Manipulation arguments that start from the intuition that manipulated agents are neither free nor morally responsible then conclude to that free will and moral responsibility are incompatible with determinism. The Zygote argument is a special case of Manipulation argument in which the manipulation intervenes at the very conception of the agent. In this paper, I argue that the Zygote argument fails because (i) very few people share the basic intuitions the argument rests on, and (ii) even those who share this intuition do so for reasons that are unrelated to determinism. Rather, I argue that intuitions about the Zygote argument (and Manipulation arguments in general) are driven by people's intuitions about the deep self, as shown by the fact that intuitions about manipulated agents depend on the moral value of the agent's behavior.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 561-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eddy Nahmias ◽  
Stephen Morris ◽  
Thomas Nadelhoffer ◽  
Jason Turner

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 189-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renatus Ziegler ◽  
Ulrich Weger

Abstract. In psychology, thinking is typically studied in terms of a range of behavioral or physiological parameters, focusing, for instance, on the mental contents or the neuronal correlates of the thinking process proper. In the current article, by contrast, we seek to complement this approach with an exploration into the experiential or inner dimensions of thinking. These are subtle and elusive and hence easily escape a mode of inquiry that focuses on externally measurable outcomes. We illustrate how a sufficiently trained introspective approach can become a radar for facets of thinking that have found hardly any recognition in the literature so far. We consider this an important complement to third-person research because these introspective observations not only allow for new insights into the nature of thinking proper but also cast other psychological phenomena in a new light, for instance, attention and the self. We outline and discuss our findings and also present a roadmap for the reader interested in studying these phenomena in detail.


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