(2023) “The Experience of Free Will,” in J. Campbell, K. M. Mickelson & V. A. White (eds.), A Companion to Free Will (Wiley-Blackwell). 417–33.

With Eddy Nahmias

If normal free-agency experiences require libertarian conditions on free agency to be satisfied in order for these experiences to be accurate, and if compatibilists cannot explain away such experiences, then it might be that we are under systematic illusion at almost every moment of our waking lives. The limited empirical evidence on this question cuts both ways. In some experiments, participants report libertarian experiences (Deery, Bedke, and Nichols 2013), while in others they report compatibilist experiences (Nahmias et al. 2004). To the extent that people report libertarian experiences for at least some choices, compatibilists incur an explanatory burden: they must explain libertarian reports about free-agency experiences. They must explain away the appearance of libertarian content in these experiences rather than simply deny that there even is such an appearance. We survey two compatibilist attempts to shoulder this burden, due to Oisin Deery (2015a, 2015b, 2021a) and Terence Horgan (2015, 2022).

(2022) “Why the Manipulation Argument Fails: Determinism Does Not Entail Perfect Prediction,” Philosophical Studies, 180: 451–71.

With Eddy Nahmias [PDF]

Determinism is frequently understood as implying the possibility of perfect prediction. This possibility then functions as an assumption in the Manipulation Argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. Yet this assumption is mistaken. As a result, arguments that rely on it fail to show that determinism would rule out human free will. We explain why determinism does not imply the possibility of perfect prediction in any world with laws of nature like ours, since it would be impossible for an agent to predict with certainty any future event that is causally influenced by events outside her own backward light cone yet inside the backward light cone of the future event. This is the light-cone limit and it undermines the Manipulation Argument or limits what this argument can tell us about the relevance of determinism to free will. We also respond to objections that the light-cone limit is irrelevant to the Manipulation Argument.

(2022) “The Bias Dilemma: The Ethics of Algorithmic Bias in Natural-Language Processing,” Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, 8 (3/4): Article 1.

With Katherine Bailey [Open Access Link]

Addressing biases in natural-language processing (NLP) systems presents an underappreciated ethical dilemma, which we think underlies recent debates about bias in NLP models. In brief, even if we could eliminate bias from language models or their outputs, we would thereby often withhold descriptively or ethically useful information, despite avoiding perpetuating or amplifying bias. Yet if we do not debias, we can perpetuate or amplify bias, even if we retain relevant descriptively or ethically useful information. Understanding this dilemma provides for a useful way of rethinking the ethics of algorithmic bias in NLP.

(2021) Naturally Free Action, Oxford University Press.

In this book, I argue that free will exists, where free will is understood as the ability to act freely, and free actions as exercises of that ability.

I do so by showing how the concept of free will plausibly refers to many actual human behaviors, and how these behaviors count as a natural category or kind. Additionally, I address the role of phenomenology in fixing the reference of the concept, arguing that our phenomenology as of deciding or acting freely is typically accurate, even if determinism is true. The result is a realist, naturalistic framework for theorizing about free will, according to which free will almost certainly exists and we act freely. My position mostly sidesteps the question of whether free will is compatible with determinism. Even so, I maintain that my natural-kind view about free will supports compatibilism and provides compatibilists with an attractive way to be realists about free will.

In the book, I also respond to recent empirical threats to free will, including those posed by findings about behaviors caused by implicit biases. Finally, I show how my view possesses the resources to address emerging questions about whether artificially intelligent agents might ever act freely or be responsible for their behaviors, and if so in what sense.

(2021) “Free Actions As a Natural Kind,” Synthese, 198: 823–843.

[PDF]

Do we have free will? Understanding free will as the ability to act freely, and free actions as exercises of this ability, I maintain that the default answer to this question is “yes.” I maintain that free actions are a natural kind, by relying on the influential idea that kinds are homeostatic property clusters. The resulting position builds on the view that agents are a natural kind and yields an attractive alternative to recent revisionist accounts of free action. My view also overcomes difficulties confronted by previous views according to which free actions might be a natural kind. On my view, free actions exist and we often act freely, as long as we possess various features that are related in the right sorts of ways to each other and to the world. In turn, we acquire and retain the concept as long as most of us possess enough of those features.

(2018) “Ethics, Bias and Statistical Models,” Input paper for the Horizon Scanning Project, The Effective and Ethical Development of Artificial Intelligence: An Opportunity to Improve Our Wellbeing, on behalf of the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA).

With Katherine Bailey [PDF]

In this article, we will briefly consider three questions and how they might be answered.

  1. Are there problems with using models based on population averages for predicting individual outcomes?

  2. How might using such models contribute to the further marginalization of already vulnerable population groups?

  3. What other sources of bias in statistical models should we be concerned with?

We will take these three questions in turn.

(2017) “Defeating Manipulation Arguments: Interventionist Causation and Compatibilist Sourcehood,” Philosophical Studies, 174(5): 1255–1276.

With Eddy Nahmias  [PDF]

We use recent interventionist theories of causation to develop a compatibilist account of causal sourcehood, which provides a response to Manipulation Arguments for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. Our account explains the difference between manipulation and determinism, against the claim of Manipulation Arguments that there is no relevant difference. Interventionism allows us to see that causal determinism does not mean that variables outside of the agent causally explain her actions better than variables within the agent, whereas the causal source of a manipulated agent’s actions instead lies outside of the agent in the intentions of the manipulator. As a result, determined agents can have free will and be morally responsible in a way that manipulated agents cannot, contrary to what Manipulation Arguments conclude. In this way, our account demonstrates not only how Manipulation Arguments fail but also how compatibilism can be strengthened by means of a plausible account of causal sourcehood.

(2015) “The Fall from Eden: Why Libertarianism Isn’t Justified by Experience,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 93(2): 319-334.

[PDF]

Libertarians claim that our experience of free choice is indeterministic. They think that when we choose, our choice feels open in a way that would require indeterminism for the experience to be accurate. This claim then functions as a step in an argument in favour of libertarianism, the view that freedom requires indeterminism and we are free. Since, all else being equal, we should take experience at face value, libertarians argue, we should endorse libertarianism. Compatibilists, who think that freedom is consistent with determinism, respond to this argument in a number of ways, none of which is adequate. This paper defends a stronger compatibilist response. Compatibilists should concede, at least for argument’s sake, that our experience of freedom is in a sense libertarian. Yet they should also insist that our experience is in another sense compatibilist. Thus, even if libertarian descriptions of experience are phenomenologically apt, there is still a sense in which the experience might be veridical, assuming determinism. This response undermines a central motivation for libertarianism, since it removes any presumption in favour of libertarianism based on experience.

(2015) “Why People Believe in Indeterminist Free Will,” Philosophical Studies, 172(8): 2033-2054.

[PDF]

Recent empirical evidence indicates that (1) people tend to believe that they possess indeterminist free will, and (2) people’s experience of choosing and deciding is that they possess such freedom. Some also maintain that (3) people’s belief in indeterminist free will has its source in their experience of choosing and deciding. Yet there seem to be good reasons to resist endorsing (3). Despite this, I maintain that belief in indeterminist free will really does have its source in experience. I explain how this is so by appeal to the phenomenon of prospection, which is the mental simulation of future possibilities for the purpose of guiding action. Crucially, prospection can be experienced. And because of the way in which prospection models choice, it is easy for agents to experience and to believe that their choice is indeterministic. Yet this belief is not justified; the experience of prospection, and hence of free will as being indeterminist, is actually consistent with determinism.

(2015) “Defending the Free-Will Intuitions Scale: Reply to Stephen Morris,” Philosophical Psychology, 28(6): 808-814.

With Taylor Davis and Jasmine Carey [PDF]

In our paper, “The Free-Will Intuitions Scale and the Question of Natural Compatibilism” (this issue), we seek to advance empirical debates about free will by measuring the relevant folk intuitions using the scale methodology of psychology, as a supplement to standard experimental methods. Stephen Morris (this issue) raises a number of concerns about our paper. Here, we respond to Morris’s concerns.

[NOTE: Morris’s paper is available here.]

(2015) “The Free-Will Intuitions Scale and the Question of Natural Compatibilism,” Philosophical Psychology, 28(6): 776-801.

With Taylor Davis and Jasmine Carey [PDF]

Standard methods in experimental philosophy have sought to measure folk intuitions using experiments, but certain limitations are inherent in experimental methods. Accordingly, we have designed the Free-Will Intuitions Scale to empirically measure folk intuitions relevant to free-will debates using a different method. This method reveals what folk intuitions are like prior to participants’ being put in forced-choice experiments. Our results suggest that a central debate in the experimental philosophy of free will—the ‘natural’ compatibilism debate—is mistaken in assuming that folk intuitions are exclusively either compatibilist or incompatibilist. They also identify a number of important new issues in the empirical study of free-will intuitions.

(2015) “Is Agentive Experience Compatible with Determinism?” Philosophical Explorations, 18(1): 2-19.

[PDF]

Many philosophers think not only that we are free to act otherwise than we do, but also that we experience being free in this way. Terry Horgan argues that such experience is compatibilist: it is accurate even if determinism is true. According to Horgan, when people judge their experience as incompatibilist, they misinterpret it. While Horgan’s position is attractive, it incurs significant theoretical costs. I sketch an alternative way to be a compatibilist about experiences of free agency that avoids these costs. In brief, I assume that experiences of freedom have a sort of phenomenal content that is inaccurate if determinism is true, just as many incompatibilists claim. Still, I argue that these experiences also have another sort of phenomenal content that is normally accurate, even assuming determinism.

(2013) “Phenomenal Abilities: Incompatibilism and the Experience of Agency,” in David Shoemaker (ed.), Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility, Vol. 1, Oxford University Press. 126-150.

With Matt Bedke and Shaun Nichols [PDF]

Incompatibilists often claim that we experience our agency as incompatible with determinism, while compatibilists challenge this claim. We report a series of experiments that focus on whether the experience of having an ability to do otherwise is taken to be at odds with determinism. We found that participants in our studies described their experience as incompatibilist whether the decision was (i) present-focused or retrospective, (ii) imagined or actual, (iii) morally salient or morally neutral. The only case in which participants did not give incompatibilist judgments was when the question was explicitly about whether one’s ignorance of the future was compatible with determinism. This lends empirical support to claims made by incompatibilists about the experience of agency, while also showing that compatibilist accounts of ability are inadequate to the reported phenomenology. Our results also inform recent debates about the presuppositions of deliberation.

(2013) “Absences and Late Preemption,” Theoria, 79(4):309-325.

[PDF]

I focus on token, deterministic causal claims as they feature in causal explanations. Adequately handling absences is difficult for most causal theories, including theories of causal explanation. Yet so is adequately handling cases of late preemption. The best account of absence-causal claims as they appear in causal explanations is Jonathan Schaffer’s quaternary, contrastive account. Yet Schaffer’s account can’t handle preemption. The account that best handles late preemption is James Woodward’s interventionist account. Yet Woodward’s account is inadequate when it comes to absences. I propose an account that handles both absences and preemption by transposing Schaffer’s account into an interventionist framework.

(2013) Review of Joshua Alexander, Experimental Philosophy: An Introduction (Polity Press), International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 21(5):787-791.

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