Metaphilosophy and Free Will

Richard Double looks at the contending schools of thought on the problem of free will and seeks the source of the current impasse. He argues that the free will problem is intractable because free will theorists are separated by metaphilosophical differences in the way they view the philosophical enterprise itself. Double begins by distinguishing the principal contemporary metaphilosophies. He goes on to apply these metaphilosophies to the free will problem and to the problem of the objectivity of value (which, he believes, is closely related to the free will problem). He champions one of these metaphilosophies, which he names "World-view construction as Continuous with Science." Applied to the free will and objectivity of value problems, Double's metaphilosophy yields the conclusion that free will and moral responsibility do not exist. Statements about what actions are "free" or "responsible", says Double, express attitudes and values but do not have objective truth value. In fact, values in general are subjective and statements about them have no objective truth value. Double goes on to make the wider claim that all of the metaphilosophical positions adopted by philosophers, including his own, are based on subjective considerations, not objective ones.