I am a lecturer in Philosophy at Lancaster University in the UK. I did a B.A. in philosophy and politics, and an M.A. in philosophy, both at University College Dublin; and a PhD in philosophy at Trinity College Dublin. The topic of my PhD thesis was Freud's Psychoanalysis of Religion. It was while working on this that I developed an interest in evolutionary psychology, and a large part of the thesis ended up exploring the idea of Freud as a proto-evolutionary-psychologist, and asking how well his account of the origins of religion stand up when viewed in this light. Following that I held a Government of Ireland Post-doctoral Research Fellowship from the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences, during which time I took my interest in evolutionary psychology further. Then I lectured at Trinity College Dublin, until joining the department at Lancaster in 2005.
My research interests cover areas relating to philosophy of mind and to the theory of evolution, and the interface between the two. I have published papers on the incorrigibility of conscious states, on psychoanalysis understood in the light of analytic philosophy of mind and in the light of evolution, and on the theoretical underpinnings and implications of Evolutionary Psychology. The last-named is a major focus of my current research, and I see myself as a friendly rather than hostile critic of the project of Evolutionary Psychology. I also have a special interest in the work of the philosophers of mind Gilbert Ryle and Daniel Dennett. I recently edited a volume called J.L. Austin on Language, published by Palgrave-Macmillan in 2014 as part of their Philosophers in Depth series.
A number of authors have combined a commitment to Darwinian evolution as a major source of insigh... more A number of authors have combined a commitment to Darwinian evolution as a major source of insight into human nature with a strong commitment to environmentalist concerns. The most notable of these is perhaps Edward O. Wilson, in a series of books. Yet it may appear that there is a tension between Darwinism as a world-view – or least some major aspects of it – and a concern for non-human entities as worthy of concern in their own right. In the present paper, I want to address some of the reasons for thinking there is such a tension.
Grünbaum claims it is possible that all belief in God is a delusion, meaning a false belief which... more Grünbaum claims it is possible that all belief in God is a delusion, meaning a false belief which is engendered by irrational psychological motives. I dispute this on the grounds that in many cases belief in God is engendered by purely cultural factors, and this is incompatible with its being engendered by psychological ones. Grünbaum also claims that saying a culturally engendered belief cannot be a delusion makes social consensus the sole arbiter of reality. I dispute this on the grounds that we can say that socially engendered beliefs fail to be delusions because they fail to meet the psychological criterion, rather than because they are true.
History and philosophy of the life sciences, Jan 21, 2018
According to most Evolutionary Psychologists, human moral attitudes are rooted in cognitive modul... more According to most Evolutionary Psychologists, human moral attitudes are rooted in cognitive modules that evolved in the Stone Age to solve problems of social interaction. A crucial component of their view is that such cognitive modules remain unchanged since the Stone Age, and I question that here. I appeal to evolutionary rollback, the phenomenon where an organ becomes non-functional and eventually atrophies or disappears-e.g. cave-dwelling fish losing their eyes. I argue that even if cognitive modules evolved in the Stone Age to solve problems of social interaction, conditions since then have favoured rollback of those modules. This is because there are institutions that solve those problems-e.g. legal systems. Moreover, evidence suggests that where external resources are available to perform cognitive tasks, humans often use them instead of internal ones. In arguing that Stone Age cognitive modules are unchanged, Evolutionary Psychologists say that evolutionary change is necessar...
According to most Evolutionary Psychologists, human moral attitudes are rooted in cognitive modul... more According to most Evolutionary Psychologists, human moral attitudes are rooted in cognitive modules that evolved in the Stone Age to solve problems of social interaction. A crucial component of their view is that such cognitive modules remain unchanged since the Stone Age, and I question that here. I appeal to evolutionary rollback, the phenomenon where an organ becomes non-functional and eventually atrophies or disappears - e.g. cave-dwelling fish losing their eyes. I argue that even if cognitive modules evolved in the Stone Age to solve problems of social interaction, conditions since then have favoured rollback of those modules. This is because there are institutions that solve those problems - e.g. legal systems. Moreover, evidence suggests that where external resources are available to perform cognitive tasks, humans often use them instead of internal ones. In arguing that Stone Age cognitive modules are unchanged, Evolutionary Psychologists say that evolutionary change is necessarily slow, and that there is high genetic similarity between human populations worldwide. I counter-argue that what is necessarily slow is the building-up of complex mechanisms. Undoing this can be much quicker. Moreover, rollback of cognitive mechanisms need not require any genetic change. Finally, I argue that cross-cultural similarity in some trait need not be rooted in genetic similarity. This is not intended as decisive evidence that rollback has occurred. To finish, I suggest ways we might decide whether moral attitudes are likely to be rooted in unchanged Stone Age modules, given that I have argued that cross-cultural similarity is not enough.
In this paper, I will argue that free will is not a property that individuals possess purely intr... more In this paper, I will argue that free will is not a property that individuals possess purely intrinsically. Rather, the amount of free will a person has is affected by the person’s surroundings: to have the fullest amount of free will requires one’s surroundings to be structured in a particular way. I will refer to the large body of studies in social psychology that have been taken to support the Situationist Thesis. Briefly stated, this thesis is that a person’s behaviour can be more reliably predicted by their immediate situation than by stable cross-situational character traits they might possess. I do not necessarily endorse the Situationist Thesis, but I will argue that the studies (henceforth the ‘situationist literature’) support the view that that free will is not an all-or-nothing thing, and that the amount of free will that we have can be increased or decreased by altering situational factors. I will argue that the effects of situational factors on decision-making shown in the situationist literature amount to distortions or reductions of individuals’ free will. For example, in the Milgram experiment, subjects were without any coercion manipulated into giving what they thought were highly dangerous electric shocks to other people, despite clearly not wanting to do so and having moral objections to such behaviour. A consequence of this is that if we believe that free will is something worth having, then we should try to find the right scaffolding to reinforce people’s freedom. That is, to reinforce the link between people’s wants, values etc. and what they do, or conversely to weaken the forces that threaten to break that link. I consider two approaches to providing that scaffolding that will not solve or will only partly solve the problem: libertarian paternalism, AKA ‘nudge’, and increased education in the situationist literature. ‘Nudge’ policies fail to solve it because they do not rely on appealing to people’s reason or their capacity to consciously decide for themselves what their best interests are. Moreover, ‘nudge’ policies are not aimed at producing actions that are in keeping with what the actor wants and values. Rather they are aimed at producing actions that some external agent deems desirable. The educational approach has some efficacy, but the problem remains that we all have a tendency to be better at seeing others’ failings than our own. Moreover, there is a potential danger that such an approach might lead to arms races of manipulation and manipulation-avoidance. I suggest that the key principle guiding any policies aimed at counteracting situational threats to free will must be that those policies facilitate individuals’ acting according to their own wants and values. The kinds of interventions that are acceptable in the name of protecting free will are ones that prevent manipulations or distortions of people’s wills, such as are illustrated in much situationist literature. This is likely to involve legal interventions into, for example, advertising and social media, that go beyond what classical liberals might be comfortable with.
What implications does Darwinism have for our attitude towards the environment? At first sight, i... more What implications does Darwinism have for our attitude towards the environment? At first sight, it might look as though Darwinism is not friendly towards environmental concerns. Darwinism is often thought to paint a picture of ruthless competition between, as well as within, species. Moreover, Darwinism may be thought to encourage a view of the environment as something to be exploited for self-interested gain. The present paper proposes a more positive view. It will be argued that mutual benefit is just as central to evolution as is competition. This will be argued for partly drawing on the work of Lynn Margulis, who makes a case that many of the major transitions in evolution came about through the setting-up of symbiotic relationships, and that what we often think of as an ‘organism’ is in fact a collection of symbionts. Moreover, a proper understanding of evolution reveals the intimate connection between an organism and its environment. The organism is partially constituted by its environment, so that in radically altering the environment an organism is potentially damaging itself. Recent work in evolutionary developmental biology has revealed previously unsuspected deep structural similarities, as well as co-operation, across a wide spectrum of living things. Thus, it will be argued, there is an environment which has shaped, and been shaped by, terrestrial life as a whole. It will be concluded that, firstly, a view that sees our duties towards the environment as deriving from our duties towards other humans would lead to a strongly conservationist programme of action; and secondly, a view of the natural world as in a strong sense ‘ours’, where this means belonging to life as a whole, makes good sense in the light of evolutionary theory.
There has been much controversy over whether the claims of sociobiology and related schools of th... more There has been much controversy over whether the claims of sociobiology and related schools of thought, including Evolutionary Psychology, if true, imply that we humans are significantly less free than has traditionally been thought. The defenders of these schools themselves often respond to this concern by claiming that it presupposes that they believe in genetic determinism, which they do not. Philosophers, such as Janet Radcliffe-Richards, respond by appealing to compatibilist accounts of free will. The thought is that whether or not our behaviour is caused by evolved mental mechanisms has no bearing on whether or not it is free. The present paper takes issue with this use of compatibilist arguments, and argues that they do not absolve sociobiology’s most prominent successor-theory, Evolutionary Psychology, from the charge of suggesting that we have less free will than we might have otherwise thought. Compatibilist accounts of free will distinguish between situations where we are free and ones where we are not, the latter including not just situations of external coercion, but also situations where there are internal obstacles such as compulsions, addictions or phobias. While not attempting to outline a full account of what it is to be free, this paper outlines one set of conditions which are sufficient for our freedom to be said to be restricted – conditions which obtain in situations of addiction, etc. A central pillar of Evolutionary Psychology is that the mind consists wholly or largely of modules whose operation is mandatory. The present paper argues that this implies internal obstacles to free will that are relevantly similar to addiction, self-deception, etc. Moreover, it is Evolutionary Psychology’s commitment to their version of the modularity thesis, and not any genetic determinism, that leads to this conclusion. Hence, the view that Evolutionary Psychology implies that we are less free than has traditionally been thought is not without foundation.
Atheists often admit that there is no positive evidence for atheism. Many argue that there is non... more Atheists often admit that there is no positive evidence for atheism. Many argue that there is nonetheless a prima facie argument, which I will refer to as the ‘teapot argument’. They liken agnosticism to remaining neutral on the existence of a teapot in outer space. The present paper argues that this analogy fails, for the person who denies such a teapot can agree with the person who affirms it regarding every other feature of the world, which is not the case with the atheist vis-a-vis the theist. The atheist is committed to there being an alternative explanation of why the universe exists and is the way it is. Moreover, the analogy relies on assumptions about the prior plausibility of atheism. Hence, the teapot argument fails.
Freud often claims that 'mental formations', such as guilt for the primal murder, are preserved i... more Freud often claims that 'mental formations', such as guilt for the primal murder, are preserved in the unconscious of all or most humans. Further, he needs this claim for his psychoanalytic explanations of cultural institutions. This claim has often been labeled “Lamarckian.” The present paper, while not offering a complete defense of Freud's explanations of cultural institutions, attempts to rebut this charge of Lamarckism. This is done by examining three ways in which unconscious mental formations might be transmitted and preserved over generations: genetic inheritance, cultural transmission, and a combination of the two. The first is rejected, not because it is Lamarckian but because it entails the highly contentious view that every time a person is in physical state y, that person is in mental state x, where x is something fairly specific. The second and third are admitted as possibilities, however—cultural transmission with the aid of a model for unconscious transmission of ideas suggested by Freud in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, and the combined approach based on a model proposed by the evolutionary biologist J.M. Baldwin. Suggestions are also made as to how the mental formations would happen to remain unchanged over many generations.
A number of authors have combined a commitment to Darwinian evolution as a major source of insigh... more A number of authors have combined a commitment to Darwinian evolution as a major source of insight into human nature with a strong commitment to environmentalist concerns. The most notable of these is perhaps Edward O. Wilson, in a series of books. Yet it may appear that there is a tension between Darwinism as a world-view – or least some major aspects of it – and a concern for non-human entities as worthy of concern in their own right. In the present paper, I want to address some of the reasons for thinking there is such a tension.
Grünbaum claims it is possible that all belief in God is a delusion, meaning a false belief which... more Grünbaum claims it is possible that all belief in God is a delusion, meaning a false belief which is engendered by irrational psychological motives. I dispute this on the grounds that in many cases belief in God is engendered by purely cultural factors, and this is incompatible with its being engendered by psychological ones. Grünbaum also claims that saying a culturally engendered belief cannot be a delusion makes social consensus the sole arbiter of reality. I dispute this on the grounds that we can say that socially engendered beliefs fail to be delusions because they fail to meet the psychological criterion, rather than because they are true.
History and philosophy of the life sciences, Jan 21, 2018
According to most Evolutionary Psychologists, human moral attitudes are rooted in cognitive modul... more According to most Evolutionary Psychologists, human moral attitudes are rooted in cognitive modules that evolved in the Stone Age to solve problems of social interaction. A crucial component of their view is that such cognitive modules remain unchanged since the Stone Age, and I question that here. I appeal to evolutionary rollback, the phenomenon where an organ becomes non-functional and eventually atrophies or disappears-e.g. cave-dwelling fish losing their eyes. I argue that even if cognitive modules evolved in the Stone Age to solve problems of social interaction, conditions since then have favoured rollback of those modules. This is because there are institutions that solve those problems-e.g. legal systems. Moreover, evidence suggests that where external resources are available to perform cognitive tasks, humans often use them instead of internal ones. In arguing that Stone Age cognitive modules are unchanged, Evolutionary Psychologists say that evolutionary change is necessar...
According to most Evolutionary Psychologists, human moral attitudes are rooted in cognitive modul... more According to most Evolutionary Psychologists, human moral attitudes are rooted in cognitive modules that evolved in the Stone Age to solve problems of social interaction. A crucial component of their view is that such cognitive modules remain unchanged since the Stone Age, and I question that here. I appeal to evolutionary rollback, the phenomenon where an organ becomes non-functional and eventually atrophies or disappears - e.g. cave-dwelling fish losing their eyes. I argue that even if cognitive modules evolved in the Stone Age to solve problems of social interaction, conditions since then have favoured rollback of those modules. This is because there are institutions that solve those problems - e.g. legal systems. Moreover, evidence suggests that where external resources are available to perform cognitive tasks, humans often use them instead of internal ones. In arguing that Stone Age cognitive modules are unchanged, Evolutionary Psychologists say that evolutionary change is necessarily slow, and that there is high genetic similarity between human populations worldwide. I counter-argue that what is necessarily slow is the building-up of complex mechanisms. Undoing this can be much quicker. Moreover, rollback of cognitive mechanisms need not require any genetic change. Finally, I argue that cross-cultural similarity in some trait need not be rooted in genetic similarity. This is not intended as decisive evidence that rollback has occurred. To finish, I suggest ways we might decide whether moral attitudes are likely to be rooted in unchanged Stone Age modules, given that I have argued that cross-cultural similarity is not enough.
In this paper, I will argue that free will is not a property that individuals possess purely intr... more In this paper, I will argue that free will is not a property that individuals possess purely intrinsically. Rather, the amount of free will a person has is affected by the person’s surroundings: to have the fullest amount of free will requires one’s surroundings to be structured in a particular way. I will refer to the large body of studies in social psychology that have been taken to support the Situationist Thesis. Briefly stated, this thesis is that a person’s behaviour can be more reliably predicted by their immediate situation than by stable cross-situational character traits they might possess. I do not necessarily endorse the Situationist Thesis, but I will argue that the studies (henceforth the ‘situationist literature’) support the view that that free will is not an all-or-nothing thing, and that the amount of free will that we have can be increased or decreased by altering situational factors. I will argue that the effects of situational factors on decision-making shown in the situationist literature amount to distortions or reductions of individuals’ free will. For example, in the Milgram experiment, subjects were without any coercion manipulated into giving what they thought were highly dangerous electric shocks to other people, despite clearly not wanting to do so and having moral objections to such behaviour. A consequence of this is that if we believe that free will is something worth having, then we should try to find the right scaffolding to reinforce people’s freedom. That is, to reinforce the link between people’s wants, values etc. and what they do, or conversely to weaken the forces that threaten to break that link. I consider two approaches to providing that scaffolding that will not solve or will only partly solve the problem: libertarian paternalism, AKA ‘nudge’, and increased education in the situationist literature. ‘Nudge’ policies fail to solve it because they do not rely on appealing to people’s reason or their capacity to consciously decide for themselves what their best interests are. Moreover, ‘nudge’ policies are not aimed at producing actions that are in keeping with what the actor wants and values. Rather they are aimed at producing actions that some external agent deems desirable. The educational approach has some efficacy, but the problem remains that we all have a tendency to be better at seeing others’ failings than our own. Moreover, there is a potential danger that such an approach might lead to arms races of manipulation and manipulation-avoidance. I suggest that the key principle guiding any policies aimed at counteracting situational threats to free will must be that those policies facilitate individuals’ acting according to their own wants and values. The kinds of interventions that are acceptable in the name of protecting free will are ones that prevent manipulations or distortions of people’s wills, such as are illustrated in much situationist literature. This is likely to involve legal interventions into, for example, advertising and social media, that go beyond what classical liberals might be comfortable with.
What implications does Darwinism have for our attitude towards the environment? At first sight, i... more What implications does Darwinism have for our attitude towards the environment? At first sight, it might look as though Darwinism is not friendly towards environmental concerns. Darwinism is often thought to paint a picture of ruthless competition between, as well as within, species. Moreover, Darwinism may be thought to encourage a view of the environment as something to be exploited for self-interested gain. The present paper proposes a more positive view. It will be argued that mutual benefit is just as central to evolution as is competition. This will be argued for partly drawing on the work of Lynn Margulis, who makes a case that many of the major transitions in evolution came about through the setting-up of symbiotic relationships, and that what we often think of as an ‘organism’ is in fact a collection of symbionts. Moreover, a proper understanding of evolution reveals the intimate connection between an organism and its environment. The organism is partially constituted by its environment, so that in radically altering the environment an organism is potentially damaging itself. Recent work in evolutionary developmental biology has revealed previously unsuspected deep structural similarities, as well as co-operation, across a wide spectrum of living things. Thus, it will be argued, there is an environment which has shaped, and been shaped by, terrestrial life as a whole. It will be concluded that, firstly, a view that sees our duties towards the environment as deriving from our duties towards other humans would lead to a strongly conservationist programme of action; and secondly, a view of the natural world as in a strong sense ‘ours’, where this means belonging to life as a whole, makes good sense in the light of evolutionary theory.
There has been much controversy over whether the claims of sociobiology and related schools of th... more There has been much controversy over whether the claims of sociobiology and related schools of thought, including Evolutionary Psychology, if true, imply that we humans are significantly less free than has traditionally been thought. The defenders of these schools themselves often respond to this concern by claiming that it presupposes that they believe in genetic determinism, which they do not. Philosophers, such as Janet Radcliffe-Richards, respond by appealing to compatibilist accounts of free will. The thought is that whether or not our behaviour is caused by evolved mental mechanisms has no bearing on whether or not it is free. The present paper takes issue with this use of compatibilist arguments, and argues that they do not absolve sociobiology’s most prominent successor-theory, Evolutionary Psychology, from the charge of suggesting that we have less free will than we might have otherwise thought. Compatibilist accounts of free will distinguish between situations where we are free and ones where we are not, the latter including not just situations of external coercion, but also situations where there are internal obstacles such as compulsions, addictions or phobias. While not attempting to outline a full account of what it is to be free, this paper outlines one set of conditions which are sufficient for our freedom to be said to be restricted – conditions which obtain in situations of addiction, etc. A central pillar of Evolutionary Psychology is that the mind consists wholly or largely of modules whose operation is mandatory. The present paper argues that this implies internal obstacles to free will that are relevantly similar to addiction, self-deception, etc. Moreover, it is Evolutionary Psychology’s commitment to their version of the modularity thesis, and not any genetic determinism, that leads to this conclusion. Hence, the view that Evolutionary Psychology implies that we are less free than has traditionally been thought is not without foundation.
Atheists often admit that there is no positive evidence for atheism. Many argue that there is non... more Atheists often admit that there is no positive evidence for atheism. Many argue that there is nonetheless a prima facie argument, which I will refer to as the ‘teapot argument’. They liken agnosticism to remaining neutral on the existence of a teapot in outer space. The present paper argues that this analogy fails, for the person who denies such a teapot can agree with the person who affirms it regarding every other feature of the world, which is not the case with the atheist vis-a-vis the theist. The atheist is committed to there being an alternative explanation of why the universe exists and is the way it is. Moreover, the analogy relies on assumptions about the prior plausibility of atheism. Hence, the teapot argument fails.
Freud often claims that 'mental formations', such as guilt for the primal murder, are preserved i... more Freud often claims that 'mental formations', such as guilt for the primal murder, are preserved in the unconscious of all or most humans. Further, he needs this claim for his psychoanalytic explanations of cultural institutions. This claim has often been labeled “Lamarckian.” The present paper, while not offering a complete defense of Freud's explanations of cultural institutions, attempts to rebut this charge of Lamarckism. This is done by examining three ways in which unconscious mental formations might be transmitted and preserved over generations: genetic inheritance, cultural transmission, and a combination of the two. The first is rejected, not because it is Lamarckian but because it entails the highly contentious view that every time a person is in physical state y, that person is in mental state x, where x is something fairly specific. The second and third are admitted as possibilities, however—cultural transmission with the aid of a model for unconscious transmission of ideas suggested by Freud in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, and the combined approach based on a model proposed by the evolutionary biologist J.M. Baldwin. Suggestions are also made as to how the mental formations would happen to remain unchanged over many generations.
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modules. This is because there are institutions that solve those problems - e.g. legal systems. Moreover, evidence suggests that where external resources are available to perform cognitive tasks, humans often use them instead of internal ones. In arguing that Stone Age cognitive modules are unchanged, Evolutionary Psychologists say that evolutionary change is necessarily slow, and that there is high genetic similarity between human populations worldwide. I counter-argue that what is necessarily slow is the building-up of complex mechanisms. Undoing this can be much quicker. Moreover, rollback of cognitive mechanisms need not require any genetic change. Finally, I argue that cross-cultural similarity in some trait need not be rooted in genetic similarity. This is not intended as decisive evidence that rollback has occurred. To finish, I suggest ways we might decide whether moral attitudes are likely to be rooted in unchanged Stone Age modules, given that I have argued that cross-cultural similarity is not enough.
I will argue that the effects of situational factors on decision-making shown in the situationist literature amount to distortions or reductions of individuals’ free will. For example, in the Milgram experiment, subjects were without any coercion manipulated into giving what they thought were highly dangerous electric shocks to other people, despite clearly not wanting to do so and having moral objections to such behaviour.
A consequence of this is that if we believe that free will is something worth having, then we should try to find the right scaffolding to reinforce people’s freedom. That is, to reinforce the link between people’s wants, values etc. and what they do, or conversely to weaken the forces that threaten to break that link. I consider two approaches to providing that scaffolding that will not solve or will only partly solve the problem: libertarian paternalism, AKA ‘nudge’, and increased education in the situationist literature. ‘Nudge’ policies fail to solve it because they do not rely on appealing to people’s reason or their capacity to consciously decide for themselves what their best interests are. Moreover, ‘nudge’ policies are not aimed at producing actions that are in keeping with what the actor wants and values. Rather they are aimed at producing actions that some external agent deems desirable. The educational approach has some efficacy, but the problem remains that we all have a tendency to be better at seeing others’ failings than our own. Moreover, there is a potential danger that such an approach might lead to arms races of manipulation and manipulation-avoidance. I suggest that the key principle guiding any policies aimed at counteracting situational threats to free will must be that those policies facilitate individuals’ acting according to their own wants and values. The kinds of interventions that are acceptable in the name of protecting free will are ones that prevent manipulations or distortions of people’s wills, such as are illustrated in much situationist literature. This is likely to involve legal interventions into, for example, advertising and social media, that go beyond what classical liberals might be comfortable with.
modules. This is because there are institutions that solve those problems - e.g. legal systems. Moreover, evidence suggests that where external resources are available to perform cognitive tasks, humans often use them instead of internal ones. In arguing that Stone Age cognitive modules are unchanged, Evolutionary Psychologists say that evolutionary change is necessarily slow, and that there is high genetic similarity between human populations worldwide. I counter-argue that what is necessarily slow is the building-up of complex mechanisms. Undoing this can be much quicker. Moreover, rollback of cognitive mechanisms need not require any genetic change. Finally, I argue that cross-cultural similarity in some trait need not be rooted in genetic similarity. This is not intended as decisive evidence that rollback has occurred. To finish, I suggest ways we might decide whether moral attitudes are likely to be rooted in unchanged Stone Age modules, given that I have argued that cross-cultural similarity is not enough.
I will argue that the effects of situational factors on decision-making shown in the situationist literature amount to distortions or reductions of individuals’ free will. For example, in the Milgram experiment, subjects were without any coercion manipulated into giving what they thought were highly dangerous electric shocks to other people, despite clearly not wanting to do so and having moral objections to such behaviour.
A consequence of this is that if we believe that free will is something worth having, then we should try to find the right scaffolding to reinforce people’s freedom. That is, to reinforce the link between people’s wants, values etc. and what they do, or conversely to weaken the forces that threaten to break that link. I consider two approaches to providing that scaffolding that will not solve or will only partly solve the problem: libertarian paternalism, AKA ‘nudge’, and increased education in the situationist literature. ‘Nudge’ policies fail to solve it because they do not rely on appealing to people’s reason or their capacity to consciously decide for themselves what their best interests are. Moreover, ‘nudge’ policies are not aimed at producing actions that are in keeping with what the actor wants and values. Rather they are aimed at producing actions that some external agent deems desirable. The educational approach has some efficacy, but the problem remains that we all have a tendency to be better at seeing others’ failings than our own. Moreover, there is a potential danger that such an approach might lead to arms races of manipulation and manipulation-avoidance. I suggest that the key principle guiding any policies aimed at counteracting situational threats to free will must be that those policies facilitate individuals’ acting according to their own wants and values. The kinds of interventions that are acceptable in the name of protecting free will are ones that prevent manipulations or distortions of people’s wills, such as are illustrated in much situationist literature. This is likely to involve legal interventions into, for example, advertising and social media, that go beyond what classical liberals might be comfortable with.