New issue of Nordic Wittgenstein Review

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On free will and free thought

In deliberating what to do, as well as in judging about factual issues, one takes oneself to be free to exercise one’s judgment, based on the merits of the case at hand. Now this is not compatible with believing that the thoughts that come into one’s head, or the movements one performs, are produced by causal chains which, being causal, are not responsive to reason. Introspectively one may of course have the feeling of reaching correct judgments on the basis of reasons, but this then is something one must admit to be an illusion (or delusion) since one has stipulated that these mental occurrences are causally determined. This is similar to dreaming that one has solved a mathematical puzzle or is able to speak Arabic: this does not entail that one actually has solved the puzzle or is able to speak Arabic, but is simply a mirage, an impression produced by neurological causes. (Along this line of argument, the neurologists who argue that thought processes are nothing but causal sequences of events are thereby cancelling their own conclusions, since these are presumed to be derived from empirical observation through the use of reasoning.)