Expanding Our Concept of 'Free Will' : A case for the Development of Eliminativist Revisionism

• Main Author: Svensk, Diana
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Umeå universitet, Institutionen för idé- och samhällsstudier 2021
• Subjects: free will; free will revisionism; revsionism; eliminativist revisionism; Shaun Nichols; Manuel Vargas; Philosophy; Filosofi
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-184766

This paper puts forth the thesis that free will skeptics should be motivated to develop revisionisteliminativist accounts of free will. As a starting point for this argument, it discusses and expands upon Shaun Nichols (2007) modeling of our reactive attitudes in narrow and widepsychological profiles. Utilizing this descriptive and prescriptive thesis, the paper then puts forthtwo main claims: 1. that revisionism is likely to produce our best descriptive accounts of free willbeliefs, and 2. that it is plausible that eliminativist revisionist is likely to produce our best prescriptive account of free will, as it is can capture some of the value in our “narrowpsychological profile” in ways its conventional counterpart is unable to. It is then argued that these two claims, in combination with the normative influence of free will beliefs, should provide sufficient motivations to develop eliminativist revisionist accounts of free will.