Experimental Philosophy of Action: Free Will and Moral Responsibility

During the past 20 years, researchers have become increasingly interested in how people ordinarily think about free will and moral responsibility. One central issue that has been explored by experimental philosophers is whether people believe that determinism threatens their commonsense views about moral agency. A related issue that has been explored is whether people believe that advances in neuroscience and other cognate fields pose a similar threat. In this chapter, I will first survey some of the findings on these two compatibility questions. I will then discuss two error theories that experimental philosophers have developed to explain away findings that conflict with their preferred views about commonsense intuitions (namely, bypassing and indeterministic intrusion). As we will see, the gathering evidence suggests that comprehension errors are far more common than researchers have previously assumed. Having discussed the recent work on this issue, I will briefly consider some strategies for addressing it and explain why I am cautiously optimistic that experimental philosophers will find a way forward. Finally, I will highlight some further topics that experimental philosophers have explored when it comes to people’s beliefs about free will and moral responsibility that I did not have space to explore in this chapter.