Miles - The free will delusion : how we settled for the illusion of morality

PRAISE FOR THE FREE WILL DELUSION

The Free Will Delusion is a remarkable book that covers an enormous range of positions, ideas, and writers on free will and moral responsibility, which is already impressive. But to take this often esoteric material and form it into a book that is powerful, provocative, clear, accessible, and a joy to read: that is a singular achievement

Bruce Waller, philosopher, and author of Freedom Without Responsibility and Against Moral Responsibility

a terrific book. bold and provocative, yet rigorously argued.... Miles maintains a hard incompatibilist and anti-utilitarian position against the most prominent defenders of a belief in free will strong enough to support moral responsibility, including Kane, Searle, Dennett, Watson, Fischer, Frankfurt, P. F. Strawson, and the free will illusionist Saul Smilansky. Miles uses the premise of the unfairness of holding persons morally responsible for either determined or non-determined actions to show the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of free will theory. The Free Will Delusion is passionate, compassionate, and an exciting read. Highly recommended

Richard Double, philosopher, and author of The Non-reality of Free Will and Metaphilosophy and Free Will

PRAISE FOR THE AUTHORS EARLIER WRITING ON FREE WILL

I greatly enjoyed it and hope it prompts a good response from friends and foes alike. Its a funny one, of course, since it seems so counter-intuitive to disbelieve in free will

Richard Holloway, former Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and retired Professor of Divinity, Gresham College

very fine and provocative. [Miless] account of the downsides of belief in free will in terms of deserved inequalities, decreasing concern for unequal wealth distribution and harsher views towards the poor and minorities as responsible for their own condition, is an important challenge to believers in free will like myself and a crucial issue at present for the human future generally. Important I believe for raising the issues so strikingly

Robert Kane, Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and Editor, The Oxford Handbook of Free Will

an impressive, powerful, thoroughly informed and eloquent challenge to the entrenched conviction that we have free will

Derk Pereboom, Professor, The Sage School of Philosophy, and author of Living Without Free Will

... which I was impressed by and much enjoyed

- Derek Parfit, Emeritus Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford; Global Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, NYU; Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University

in general I find [Miless] reasoning superb

Emeritus Professor George C. Williams, author of Adaptation and Natural Selection and father of selfish gene theory

has greater chance of changing peoples views on free will than anything else available. Incredibly important

Will Provine, Tisch Distinguished University Professor, Cornell University

It doesnt get more trenchant than this! very well taken indeed music to my ears

Tom Clark, Director, Center for Naturalism

a polemical piece (remarkably so, for an academic journal) but its hard to deny that he has a point: theres a dark side to the belief in free will

Neuroskeptic

a violent dissenter from [the orthodox] point of view

BioEdge.org

[came] at the topic in a way that before now I had not considered

Stephen Platten, the Bishop of Wakefield

I agree with [Miless] analysis that a world in which human beings lacked free will would require a radically different conception of criminal responsibility

Eric Metcalfe, Director of Human Rights Policy, JUSTICE

I love it

David Levitsky, Weiss Presidential Fellow and Professor of Psychology, Cornell University

fascinating

Brian Martin, Professor of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong

Few manuscripts have made me smile as much as reading this one. This is impassioned, exuberant, high-octane and quite funny writing that goes after its subject matter in a relentless fashion

anonymous peer review for the British Journal of Social Psychology

Copyright 2015 James B. Miles

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

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In March 2009 a British publishing house known for specialising in controversial non-fiction offered to publish the earliest draft of this manuscript, but subsequently withdrew that offer on concerns over the difficulty of marketing such a complex message (highly sophisticated subject matter too complicated in the current climate). A complex message, and for many a deeply unwelcome one. In hindsight, though, this was an important move, as that version was long on outrage and polemic but rather short on fully formed logical analysis. So began the first of many rewrites. Over the period late 2009 to early 2011 an updated version was being used at Cornell University as a text for students on the course LAW 7652, Human Free Will and Criminal Law, and I would like to thank the course organiser, my friend Will Provine. I would also like to thank the other Cornell academics philosophers, natural scientists and social scientists who have, since 2009, provided me with kind words and feedback on my writing, particularly Derk Pereboom, Yervant Terzian and David Levitsky.

Originally called The Free Will Delusion, the working title changed back and forth a few times, particularly after Sam Harris used that title for a 2011 magazine article. The text has changed far more profoundly than the title has, though, and since 2011 my work has acquired a tendency to upset people more thoroughly. In the period 2011~2012 Florida State University funded two separate studies solely to try to undercut my writing on free will. Its worth pointing out that FSU was recipient in 2010 of 4.4 million dollars from the billion-dollar Templeton Foundation; largesse intended to promote a better accommodation between religion and academia over the free will issue. The Foundations interest in free will, and the effect of the myth on the social order, goes back to well before 2010, and one world-renowned academic sitting on the Foundations board of trustees has called knowledge of the nonexistence of free will one of the worlds most dangerous ideas.

I would like to thank the journal editors who have carried my work or who have asked me to peer review others work on free will, and I would particularly like to thank Philip Laughlin at The MIT Press who in 2013 used me as a consultant on the arguments within the manuscript of one of the worlds leading free will philosophers. It was this approach from MIT Press that made me realise that I had moved sufficiently far from pure polemic such that I might once again think of getting a full manuscript published. There are a number of other academics I must single out for their kindness or words of encouragement, including the philosophers Robert Kane, Richard Double and Derek Parfit, but also the celebrated American biologist the late G. C. Williams. George Williamss technical assistance to me on free will was necessarily somewhat less than his incredible assistance during my earlier years writing on selfish gene (genic selection) theory, the theory he is credited with developing in 1966, ten years before Richard Dawkins popularised his work. However, without the confidence George showed in my early work, and which culminated in his writing the Foreword to my 2004 book, I may not have had the courage, years later, to go straight after the biggest names in free will theory. And including, sadly, being forced to target one of the best-known propagandists of Georges work, the philosopher and evolutionary theorist Dan Dennett. It should go without saying that I have benefited both intellectually and in presentation from reading the works of many philosophers, but in particular I have been influenced by the writing of Bruce Waller, Derk Pereboom, Richard Double, Ted Honderich and Saul Smilansky. Any errors in this work are of course mine alone. I would also like to thank the non-academics who have shown interest in my work, including Tom Clark at Naturalism.Org, and the former Bishop of Edinburgh and