Christian List is professor of political science and philosophy at the London School of Economics. List's research interests relate to social choice theory, formal epistemology, political philosophy, and the philosophy of social science.
List earned his BA and M.Phil. at St. Peter's College, and his D.Phil. at Nuffield College, both University of Oxford. He was elected to the British Academy in 2014, the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.
I have prepared a detailed Summary of Why Free Will Is Real.
Book Review: Why Free Will Is Real
By Christian List
Christian List approaches the subject of free will from the perspective of an external observer investigating what it means for a human being to have free will. He acknowledges that his subject is much too big for any single book to give a comprehensive account of free will. List also indicates that his book addresses only attacks on the reality of free will which come from the scientific community.
In Chapter 1 List defines the meaning of free will in detail which he summarizes as follows:
Free will can be understood as a three-part capacity... It consists of
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the capacity to act intentionally;
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the capacity to choose between alternative possibilities;
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and the capacity to control one’s actions.
In Chapter 2 List describes three challenges to free will which roughly align with the three capacities which constitute free will as noted in Chapter 1.
The first challenge comes from scientific materialism which asserts that there is no such thing as intentional agency. The second challenge argues that if the world is deterministic, that the past fully determines the future, there is no free will. The third challenge claims that all human actions are wholly caused by underlying nonintentional physical processes.
In Chapter 3 Christian List confronts the first challenge. He argues that intentional properties, including free will, cannot be reduced to physical properties. He differentiates higher-level properties from lower-level properties. Lower-level properties are properties of the brain while higher level properties are properties of the mind. The higher-level properties depend on the lower-level properties but cannot be reduced to them.
In Chapter 4 the author faces the second challenge. He defends the idea that there are genuine choices, the possibility of doing otherwise. He argues that free will at the level of a human being is compatible with physical determinism at lower levels.
In Chapter 5 List tackles the third challenge. Human beings, he says, can form intentions and can control their own actions. He outlines three problems with arguments that causation is confined to lower level explanations.
- The idea that there is a fundamental reality is flawed.
- The idea of causation at a physical level does not translate to causation at higher levels.
- Correlations and physical processes are not the best explanations of causation at higher levels.
In his Conclusion, List maintains that it is possible that science may in the future prove we have no free will. But such a conclusion is not justified at this time. The best understanding at this time is that human beings can freely form intentions, have alternative possibilities and have control over their actions.
My short review of this book is no substitute for reading this book itself. It is not an easy book to read but I found the effort well worthwhile. In my article, I Have Free Will, I discuss the implications of free will for my spiritual journey.
Other reviews, blogs, podcasts and videos
- Because Christian List begins his book by quoting Sam Harris, and because Sam Harris changed the trajectory of my life with his book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion , I am interested in what he has said recently. I found Making Sense with Sam Harris #39 - Free Will Revisited (with Daniel Dennett) posted on February 15, 2019. It is long and mostly disappointingly uninteresting.
- After quoting Harris, List quotes Jerry Coyne. On his blog, Why Evolution Is True, Coyne has three posts about Why Free Will Is Real - Oy! : A completely incoherent defense of free will, More about Christian List’s confusing views of free will and Once more: Why Christian List’s “proof of free will” fails, posted in May, 2019. These are worth reading but I am unconvinced by Coyne.
- Philosopher Christian List argues against reductionism and determinism in accounts of the mind by John Horgan on June 3, 2019 on his blog Cross-Check in Scientific American
- An article in NAUTILUS, Yes, Determinists, There Is Free Will by George Musser dated May 16, 2019 is a very good summary of the book.
- Finally, I enjoyed listening to this long YouTube video: Michael Shermer with Dr. Christian List — Why Free Will is Real: Response to Determinists.
Still interested in free will, I recently (October 2023) listened to this podcast.
EP 203 Robert Sapolsky on Life Without Free Will
Jim talks with Robert Sapolsky about the ideas in his book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. They discuss what motivates his writing about the topic, turtles all the way down, closing off the escape valves, the general critique of determinism, 4 positions on free will, naturalism vs determinism, intent, free will vs agency, Phineas Gage’s famous brain injury, disruption of cognitive abilities, the limitations of metacognition, Benjamin Libet’s volition experiments, why consciousness research doesn’t have to do with free will, free won’t, the theory of grit, an update to the marshmallow test, cusp decisions, deterministic chaos, the De Broglie-Bohm theory, New Age quantum bullshit, emergent complexity, downward causality, how attention determines who we become, the noble lie, why rejecting free will doesn’t make people less ethical, and much more.
Robert M. Sapolsky is the author of several works of nonfiction, including A Primate’s Memoir, The Trouble with Testosterone, and Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. His most recent book, Behave, was a New York Times bestseller and named a best book of the year by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant.” He and his wife live in San Francisco.
I am in substantial agreement with this review of Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will.
You Have No Choice But to Read This
It is a book about why science says we have no free will, and how we might best live once we accept that. It is simultaneously moral, scientific, and compassionate. It is funny and irreverent. It is merciless in its attack on victim-blaming “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” philosophers. It contains the most magnificent and beautiful description of the anatomy of the sea slug that you will ever read.
It is both a masterpiece and a missed opportunity.
It seems to me that Robert Sapolsky is a True Believer in a scientific materialism worldview.