The website Atheism Analyzed wondered out loud, as it where, whether the atheist Massimo Pigliucci is flirting with dualism. This was in regards to Coyne’s denial of free will in anticipation of Sam Harris soon to be published book, a topic that this Examiner has been covering in some detail, see: Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne on free will.
Atheism Analyzed notes:
Although he doesn’t admit to it straight out, Massimo Pigliucci seems to go dualist in his latest critique of Jerry Coyne. In an analysis of Coyne’s declaration that Free Will is a universal delusion, Massimo takes non-deterministic positions, many of which I agree with, which is some sort of first, I believe.
Massimo’s final analysis concludes that we do make choices and that we should be held accountable; but he is also a fairly strict materialist. So he seems to be sliding into a moderately dualist mode here (emphasis on the “seems”).
Sam Harris’ book it due to be published in March of 2012 AD and will surely set off a firestorm of polemics. This will be interesting as the issue of free will is multifaceted as, for example, Calvinist Christians deny it for some reasons and some Atheistsdeny it for others whilst other Christiansand Atheists affirm it.
Even considering only two personages who are both atheists, Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne, we encounter a variety of views. It was just observed that “Massimo’s final analysis concludes that we do make choices and that we should be held accountable.” Now, Jerry Coyne asserts that we do not make choices, and therefore do not have free will, but still should be held accountable. Sam Harris, on the other hand, asserts that we make choices, while not having free will, and are thus, accountable (Harris holds that we do not have free will on the subconscious level but that we then make choices on the conscious level).
In the end, skepticism about free will seems to me to be akin to radical skepticism about reality in general (the idea that all of reality is an illusion, or a computer simulation, or something along those lines): it denies what we all think is self-evident, it cannot be defeated logically (though it is not based on empirical evidence), and it is completely irrelevant to our lives…we should then proceed by ignoring the radical skeptic in order to get back to the business of navigating reality, making willful decisions about our lives…and assign moral responsibility to our and other people’s actions.
So is, Pigliucci nearing dualism? Only time will tell but here, may be, a clue. His statement, that the denial of free will “denies what we all think is self-evident” mirrors what this Examiner wrote as a guest author on the statistician William Briggs’ website in an article titled, To Be, Or Not To Be…Free: Sam Harris & Jerry Coyne On Free Will, the relevant portion of which is:
What reason, really, is there to deny our common knowledge, our common experience and well, our common sense conclusion that we have free will? In this case, it is that some Atheists are interpreting lights flashing on a screen [this is referring to neuroscience]. Moreover, their interpretations are based upon materialism, mechanism, reductionism in short: based upon their particular, and peculiar, Atheistic world-views. But why should we believe that their world-view is accurate? After all, they claim that it cannot be proven and since they are making extraordinary claims they must provide evidence that is more extraordinary than expecting us to believe their personal interpretations of “data.”