“You sound to me as though you don’t believe in free will,” said Billy Pilgrim.
“If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings,” said the Tralfamadorian, “I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by free will. I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.”
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse–Five
by John Horgan, New York Times, December 31, 2002
When I woke this morning, I stared at the ceiling above my bed and wondered: to what extent will my rising really be an exercise of my free will? Let's say I got up right . . . now. Would my subjective decision be the cause? Or would computations unfolding in a subconscious neural netherworld actually set off the muscular twitches that slide me out of the bed, quietly, so as not to wake my wife, and propel me toward the door?
In what sense do people deserve to suffer once we see that their character and behavior are entirely the result of genetic and environmental factors that they didn’t choose? Why shouldn’t we, instead of relentlessly and punitively imposing “just deserts,” address these factors, and so make criminality less likely without unnecessary suffering?
Mainstream science supports a physicalist understanding of human beings and their behavior which challenges traditional notions of self and free will. But a fully naturalistic, science-based view of ourselves nevertheless provides a robust basis for morality, while pointing the way toward humane revisions in our responsibility practices.
An article published in Free Inquiry (link is external), Spring 2002.
Despite concerted efforts by treatment professionals to change public perceptions of drug addiction, stigma against addicts remains widespread. According to the National Treatment Plan Initiative recently released by the U.S. Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), stigma can "cause ostracism, shame, and even denial of life’s necessities – such as employment and a place to live – for which the person in recovery is fully deserving."
Dear Msrs. Johnson, Behe, Dembski, Calvert, et al.:
To what extent can secular humanists be spiritual? Can those of us with a more or less naturalistic view of the world, one that doesn’t involve spirits, gods, or ghosts, legitimately seek spiritual experience? There seems a prima facie difficulty here since traditional notions of spirituality often posit a non-physical realm categorically separate from the world described by science. Such dualism is of course the antithesis of naturalism, which understands existence to be of a piece, not split into the natural and supernatural.
In a recent column in the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA) monthly newsletter (V 16, #2), NIDA director Alan Leshner gets close to an entirely naturalistic view of drug abuse. That is, with minor but telling exceptions (which I will discuss), he sees drug abuse as a function of various causes, not a matter of willful misconduct. I’ll quote several paragraphs, emphasizing one sentence. He says that
