Freedom Evolves

Humans are physical beings with evolved brains and evolved minds. Humans are also moral agents with consciousness and will. How should we try to reconcile these very different visions of our humanness? Since human freedom is real, 'so it can be studied objectively from a no-nonsense, scientific point of view.' And in Freedom Evolves, Dennett attempts to produce just such a no-nonsense, scientific account of human freedom, to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable. The conventional arguments against both free will, on the one hand, and scientific materialism, on the other, rests on the belief that in a deterministic universe there is simply no room for freedom. Not so, says Dennett. Such a view confuses determinism and inevitability. Suppose I'm playing baseball and the pitcher chucks the ball directly at my face. I turn my head to avoid it. There was, therefore, nothing inevitable about the ball hitting my face. But, a sceptic might say, I turned my head not of my own free will but was caused to do so by factors beyond my control. That is to misunderstand the nature of causation, Dennett retorts. What really caused me to turn my head was not a set of deterministic links cascading back to the beginnings of the universe - though that certainly exists - but my desire at that moment not to get hit by the baseball. At a different moment I might decide to take a hit in the face, if by doing so I help my team win the game. Dennett argues that freedom is not an illusion but an objective phenomenon, distinct from all other biological conditions and found only in one species - us. A profound and important book. (Kirkus UK)