Free Will and Illusion

by Smilansky, Saul

• ISBN13: 9780199252596
• ISBN10: 0199252599
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-12-26
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

Saul Smilansky presents an original treatment of the problem of free will, which lies at the heart of morality and human self-understanding. He maintains that we have most of the resources we need for a proper understanding of the problem; and the key to it is the role played by illusion. Themajor traditional philosophical approaches are inadequate, Smilansky argues: their partial insights need to be integrated into a hybrid view, which he calls Fundamental Dualism. Common views about justice, responsibility, human worth, and related notions are radically misguided, and the absurd loomslarge. We do, however, find some justification for enlightened moral views, and grounding for some of our most cherished views of human nature. The bold and perhaps disturbing claim of Free Will and Illusion is that we could not live adequately with a complete awareness of the truth about humanfreedom: illusion lies at the centre of the human condition. The necessity of illusion is seen to follow from the basic elements of the free will issue, helping keep our moral and psychological worlds intact. Smilansky offers the challenge of recognizing the centrality of illusion and trying to freeourselves to some extent from it; this is not only a philosophical challenge, but a moral and psychological one as well.

Author Biography

Saul Smilansky is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Haifa, Israel.

Table of Contents

Author's Note	xiii
Introduction	1	(12)
PART I: METAPHYSICAL AND ETHICAL FOUNDATIONS
The Core Conception	13	(27)
Control and Respect for Persons	14	(9)
Some Alternatives	23	(13)
The Assumption of Monism	36	(4)
Why Not Compatibilism?	40	(16)
Why Not Libertarian Free Will?	56	(18)
Why Not Hard Determinism?	74	(20)
The Fundamental Dualism	94	(51)
The Joint Perspective: Combining Compatibilism and Hard Determinism	95	(10)
Ten Types of Injustice	105	(3)
Distributive Justice	108	(15)
Worth, Self-Understanding, and Personal Life	123	(10)
The Complexity of Judgement	133	(12)
PART II: THE ROLE OF ILLUSION
The Positive Importance of Illusion	145	(47)
Preliminaries	145	(4)
The Dissonance Problem: Living with the Fundamental Dualism	149	(12)
The Insufficiency Problem: Living without Libertarian Free Will	161	(8)
How Illusion Helps	169	(23)
Explorations in the Land of Illusion	192	(28)
Playing with Depth	192	(7)
Illusion and Ignorance: More Varieties	199	(5)
Choice, Time, and Self-Deception	204	(10)
The Many Types of Illusion	214	(6)
Why Not Reactive-Naturalism?	220	(14)
Some Further Benefits	234	(22)
Hard Determinism and the Opportunity for Purity and Nobility	234	(8)
The Opportunity for Being Unillusioned	242	(8)
Freedom from the Self and Consolation	250	(6)
Some Additional Problems	256	(27)
Structural Injustice	256	(2)
Honesty and Truth	258	(10)
Who is to Decide?	268	(5)
The Paradoxical Role of Philosophy	273	(4)
Life is Absurd	277	(6)
Conclusion	283	(14)
References	297	(14)
Glossary	311	(7)
Index	318