Surveying Freedom: Folk Intuitions about free will and moral responsibility

TLDR

Philosophers in the emerging field of experimental philosophy now use psychological methods to gather data on folk intuitions across debates in action theory, ethics, and epistemology. The study applies experimental philosophy to the free‑will debate, aiming to determine whether ordinary intuitions support one philosophical position over another. The authors surveyed participants’ prephilosophical judgments about the freedom and responsibility of agents in deterministic scenarios. Across two studies, most participants judged that agents in deterministic scenarios acted of their own free will and were morally responsible for their actions.

Abstract

Philosophers working in the nascent field of ‘experimental philosophy’ have begun using methods borrowed from psychology to collect data about folk intuitions concerning debates ranging from action theory to ethics to epistemology. In this paper we present the results of our attempts to apply this approach to the free will debate, in which philosophers on opposing sides claim that their view best accounts for and accords with folk intuitions. After discussing the motivation for such research, we describe our methodology of surveying people's prephilosophical judgments about the freedom and responsibility of agents in deterministic scenarios. In two studies, we found that a majority of participants judged that such agents act of their own free will and are morally responsible for their actions. We then discuss the philosophical implications of our results as well as various difficulties inherent in such research.