Re: Evolutionary Psychology and Free Will

Mile's paper did resonate with my reading of Dennett's "Freedom Evolves"
some time ago. I was impressed at how urgent it seemed to the author
(as a hard-core naturalist) to try to resurrect some basis for morality
-- apart from any overt religious underpinning. Even as a lay reader I
felt that Dennett was walking into territory somewhat foreign to
himself, or at least onto a playing field which I think levels the most
credentialed scholars to within intelligent criticism from any
interested reader.

Here is an offshoot question: will the mechanism by which "choice" is
made, (should freewill exist -- and I take it that all of us here are
committed to that axiom?) remain forever beyond scientific scrutiny?
If so, does this necessitate our thinking of every choice as an (albeit
mundane) miracle (i.e. in that it has no accessible explanation even
in theory)? How does an EP explaining group selection origins for
morality OR others using selfish-gene-selection "morality") escape
Lewis' old criticism of materialism in which any so-called "evil" act
could no more be criticized as such than we could admonish a rock for
having rolled down a hill? Explaining how morality came to be (even
successfully) is not the same as constructing an "ought to" for myself
for the future, is it?

Lastly, how do you maintain methodological naturalism while still
remaining committed to free-will? Somebody may have to acknowledge a
"black box" beyond our reach somewhere. This seems like something in
which explanation would kill not only the thing explained, but maybe
even the explanation itself.

--merv
Received on Tue May 2 20:41:40 2006