“Just Deserts made me think philosophy should never be done alone, but with a partner of equal strength and opposing views, that the best of it should be made available to the public, and that it should leave readers with an appreciation of the depth and difficulty of the questions but no easy answers. It is a stirring discussion of a difficult issue, that distils the best of what has been said for both sides. I can think of no discussion of free will and desert that gets to the heart of the issues so effectively. It reminds you just how important and difficult and vitally alive philosophical debate can be.”
Jenann T. Ismael, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, and author of How Physics Makes Us Free
“This is a spirited and enlightening debate between an influential defender of compatibilism about freedom, responsibility, and determinism (Dennett) and an astute defender of a hard incompatibilist or free will skeptical position (Caruso). The book breaks new ground on many issues; and it has made clearer to me than anything else I have ever read on the subject how central is the issue of “just deserts” to age-old debates about free will, moral responsibility, and determinism.”
Robert Kane, University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Law, University of Texas at Austin
Daniel C. Dennett is Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Science and the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University. His books include Content and Consciousness (1969), Brainstorms (1978), Elbow Room (1984), The Intentional Stance (1987), Consciousness Explained (1991), Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995), Kinds of Minds (1996), Freedom Evolves (2003), Breaking the Spell (2006), and From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds (2017). He is a leading defender of compatibilism, the view that determinism can be reconciled with free will, and is perhaps best known in cognitive science for his concept of intentional systems and his multiple drafts model of human consciousness.
Gregg D. Caruso is Professor of Philosophy at SUNY, Corning, and Honorary Professor of Philosophy at Macquarie University. He is also the Co-Director of the Justice Without Retribution Network at the University of Aberdeen School of Law. His books include Free Will and Consciousness (2012), Rejecting Retributivism: Free Will, Punishment, and Criminal Justice (2021), Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility (ed. 2013), Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals, and Purpose in the Age of Neuroscience (co-ed. with Owen Flanagan, 2018), and Free Will Skepticism in Law and Society: Challenging Retributive Justice (co-ed. with Elizabeth Shaw and Derk Pereboom, 2019). He is a leading proponent of free will skepticism, which maintains that who we are and what we do is ultimately the result of factors beyond our control, and because of this we are never morally responsible for our actions in the basic desert sense – i.e. the sense that would make us truly deserving of blame and praise, punishment and reward.
Just Deserts
Debating Free Will
Daniel C. Dennett and Gregg D. Caruso
polity
Copyright © Daniel C. Dennett and Gregg D. Caruso 2021
The right of Daniel C. Dennett and Gregg D. Caruso to be identified as Authors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2021 by Polity Press
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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4577-3
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dennett, D. C. (Daniel Clement) author. | Caruso, Gregg D., author.
Title: Just deserts : debating free will / Daniel C. Dennett and Gregg D. Caruso.
Description: Medford : Polity Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “An eye-opening debate on the philosophy and psychology of free will and what they tell us about our societies”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020029874 (print) | LCCN 2020029875 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509545759 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509545766 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509545773 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Free will and determinism. | Free will and determinism--Psychological aspects. | Civilization, Modern--21st century.
Classification: LCC BJ1461 .D4276 2021 (print) | LCC BJ1461 (ebook) | DDC 123/.5--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020029874 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020029875
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Foreword
Derk Pereboom
This exchange between Daniel Dennett and Gregg Caruso on free will, moral responsibility, and punishment is intense and engaging, and will captivate any reader who is interested in the cutting edge of the contemporary free will debate. It has much to offer newcomers and seasoned veterans alike. This exchange serves as an excellent introduction and at the same time provides details about the contested positions not available elsewhere.
Caruso is an incompatibilist about free will and determinism. If determinism is true, then there are factors beyond our control, events in the distant past and natural laws, that causally determine all of our actions, and incompatibilists maintain that this would rule out free will. Incompatibilists divide into those who hold that determinism is false and that we have free will – the libertarians – and those who hold that determinism is true and we lack free will – free will skeptics. Dennett affirms compatibilism about free will and determinism, and he contends that we do have free will. Caruso argues that we would lack free will if our world is deterministic, but also if it were indeterministic, say in the way some interpretations of quantum physics propose. Caruso and Dennett are thus situated on opposite sides of a traditional divide – Dennett is a compatibilist and affirms free will, Caruso is an incompatibilist and a free will skeptic.
There is also a conceptual issue about how “free will” should be defined, which divides Dennett and Caruso. Dennett is well known for recommending that we should use “free will” so that it refers to a kind of free will