Chapter 15 Quiz: Freedom and Determinism

12 questions. Mix of multiple choice and short answer. Allow 30–40 minutes for the short-answer questions.

Part A — Multiple Choice

1. Benjamin Libet's experiments found that the brain's "readiness potential" begins approximately:

a) At the same moment the person consciously decides to move b) 200ms before the person consciously decides to move c) 350–550ms before the person consciously decides to move d) After the person consciously decides to move

2. Hard determinism holds that:

a) Human beings have free will, but it is compatible with determinism b) Every event, including every human decision, is causally necessitated by prior events and the laws of nature c) Human beings are the ultimate first causes of their actions d) Determinism applies to physical events but not to mental events

3. Derk Pereboom's "hard incompatibilism" argues that:

a) Determinism is false and humans have genuine libertarian free will b) Determinism is true and therefore ethics is meaningless c) Determinism is true, which undermines retributive punishment but preserves forward-looking approaches to harm prevention d) Determinism and free will are compatible if we define freedom correctly

4. The term "libertarian free will" in philosophy refers to:

a) The political philosophy of minimal government interference b) The metaphysical view that human beings have genuine causal power not reducible to prior physical causes c) Hume's view that freedom is compatible with determinism d) Frankfurt's view that freedom consists in acting from second-order endorsed desires

5. Harry Frankfurt's theory of free will centers on the distinction between:

a) Hard determinism and soft determinism b) Conscious and unconscious decision-making c) First-order desires and second-order desires (desires about desires) d) Agent causation and event causation

6. P.F. Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment" argues that:

a) Determinism is probably false based on quantum mechanics b) Our reactive attitudes (resentment, gratitude, indignation) are constitutive of human relationships, not conclusions drawn from metaphysical premises c) Compatibilism is incoherent because it changes the subject of the free will debate d) We should adopt the "objective stance" toward all human beings to avoid retributive punishment

7. According to compatibilism, an action is free when:

a) It is not caused by any prior events b) It is caused by quantum-level indeterminacy in the brain c) It flows from the agent's own desires, values, and reasoning rather than from coercion, compulsion, or manipulation d) The agent was consciously aware of every causal factor that produced it

8. The Buddhist concept relevant to free will is primarily:

a) Karma as supernatural fate b) Anatta (non-self) — the claim that what we call the "self" is a construction, not a fixed entity, which changes the shape of the free will question c) Reincarnation as a form of libertarian free will across lives d) Mindfulness as evidence that conscious attention can override physical causation

Part B — Short Answer

9. (3–4 sentences) Explain the "manipulation argument" against compatibilism. What does it claim, and why do compatibilists find it challenging to answer?

10. (3–4 sentences) Libet found that subjects could "veto" a movement close to the point of action. How does this complicate the popular interpretation of his experiments? Does it rescue conscious free will?

11. (4–5 sentences) A hard determinist and a compatibilist are discussing someone who committed a crime under severe duress and difficult circumstances. Both agree the person's action was caused. Where do they disagree about what follows — for moral responsibility, for punishment, for how we should respond?

12. (4–5 sentences) Frankfurt distinguishes between free actions and unfree ones by looking at whether the person endorses the desires driving the action. Give an original example (not from the chapter) that illustrates this distinction. Does Frankfurt's test capture something important about freedom, or does it miss something?

Answer Key

Part A: 1. c 2. b 3. c 4. b 5. c 6. b 7. c 8. b

Part B — Suggested Elements:

9. The manipulation argument: if a neuroscientist carefully arranged all causal influences from birth to produce specific choices, Frankfurt would say those choices are still free (they flow from endorsed desires). Critics argue this seems wrong — the person was set up, manipulated from the start. The challenge for compatibilists is explaining why "natural" causal history produces free choice but "designed" causal history does not, when both involve the same mechanism.

10. If subjects can veto a movement that the readiness potential had already "prepared," then conscious will may play a permissive or gating role rather than an initiating one. This doesn't obviously rescue libertarian free will — a veto is still a neural event with its own causal history — but it complicates the popular "the brain decides first" narrative. It suggests consciousness might still play a real role in action, even if not the role common sense imagines.

11. Both agree the action was caused. A hard determinist says retributive punishment (deserved suffering) is therefore unjustified, but forward-looking measures (incapacitation, rehabilitation, treatment) remain valid. A compatibilist may agree about rehabilitation but could defend some level of blame if the action flowed from the person's endorsed desires and values even under duress — they acted as who they are. Both tend toward more treatment-oriented, less purely punitive approaches than folk intuition often demands.

12. Good examples: a person who wants to stop smoking but can't (unfree — the addictive desire isn't endorsed); someone acting from racial prejudice they have tried to overcome but can't escape (unfree — the prejudice isn't endorsed); someone acting courageously from values they deeply hold (free — endorsed). Frankfurt's test captures something real about self-governance but is challenged by cases where people endorse desires that were themselves instilled through manipulation or indoctrination — the endorsement may be "all the way down," but something still seems wrong.