Review of "Rationality + Consciousness = Free Will"

Abstract

In Rationality + Consciousness = Free Will, Hodgson purports to solve the enduring free will problem; which is best understood in terms of competing views of free will and moral responsibility. Compatibilists contend that free will and moral responsibility are consistent with universal causal determinism, the theory that the actual past, coupled with the laws of nature, determine a single possible future. In contrast, incompatibilists contend that free will and moral responsibility require indeterminism, the theory that given the actual past and laws of nature, there are multiple possible futures. Furthermore, most incompatibilists believe that it wouldn’t make sense to hold people morally accountable for their choices if they are arbitrarily determined by chance. The challenge for the incompatibilist is to show how agents could act for reasons, without either being determined to act because of those reasons, or choosing between them arbitrarily. At first glance, Hodgson’s account promises to do just this; but upon closer inspection Hodgson’s view is actually a compatibilist view, although a fairly bizarre one.