Churchland and Free Will
- Posted by Andrew Bailey on Saturday, December 09, 2006 at 6:18 AM
| 
2 Comments |
Patricia Churchland cites an interesting case that bears on both philosophy of mind and free will debates (HT):
A middle-aged Virginian man with no history of any misdemeanour began to stash child pornography and sexually molest his 8-year-old stepdaughter. Placed in the court system, his sexual behaviour became increasingly compulsive. Eventually, after repeatedly complaining of headaches and vertigo, he was sent for a brain scan. It showed a large but benign tumour in the frontal area of his brain, invading the septum and hypothalmus - regions known to regulate sexual behaviour.
After removal of the tumour, his sexual interests returned to normal. Months later, his sexual focus on young girls rekindled, and a new scan revealed that bits of tissue missed in the surgery had grown into a sizeable tumour. Surgery once again restored his behavioural profile to "normal".
This is interesting stuff. One sees hypothetical cases like the above used as intuition pumps about what it takes for someone to be free or morally responsible. But finding an actual case along these lines enhances the force of the intuition pump, I think. Suppose our actions have sufficient causes in the natural order; then they are relevantly alike to the actions of this pedophile. And as such, these actions aren't freely performed (nor are we morally responsible for them). Or so the intuition pump goes.
Incidentally, Churchland is the author of one of the finest jokes found in a professional philosophy journal, I think. She writes (Journal of Philosophy Vol 89, October 1987):
Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F's: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing.
2 Comments:
the metaphysician at 1:15 PM said... Yes, the "Four-Fs"...Al's made good use of them, too, via his "evolutionary argument against naturalism." :)
Noumena at 7:25 AM said... That's why we need a fifth F: Fhaving fveridical fknowledge fof fthe fworld.
That was funnier in my head. Sorry.
