Joseph Gurrola

Humans have freedom, do other animals? This paper argues that they do. Specifically, it advances an account of a kind of freedom which I term animal freedom. Animal freedom is constituted by an agent’s pursuit of the things that matter to them. My account depends on two central considerations. The first is that many things matter to us independently of whether we endorse or consider their importance for our values or projects, because they reflect who we are. The second is that many things matter to other animals in just this way – that is, in a manner that reflects who they are. Since other animals can act in pursuit of the things that matter to them, they have animal freedom. But animal freedom is not restricted to the psychological lives of other animals, nor is it something which is easily contrasted with the way that we think of ourselves as free, such that we can say that ours is the freedom of persons while theirs is the freedom of animals. Instead, much of our own lives is also made up of instances of animal freedom, ones which we would regard as genuinely constituting or realizing our free agency. There is therefore considerable overlap in the free lives of human and other animals. Recognizing this fact stands to enrich our conception of ourselves as free agents, as well as our understanding of the psychological lives of other animals.

Much has been made about the ways that implicit biases and other apparently unreflective attitudes can affect our actions and judgments in ways that negatively affect our ability to do right. What has been discussed less is that these attitudes negatively affect our freedom. In this paper, I argue that implicit biases pose a problem for free will. My analysis focuses on the compatibilist notion of free will according to which acting freely consists in acting in accordance with our reflectively endorsed beliefs and desires. Though bias presents a problem for free action, I argue that there are steps agents can take to regain their freedom. One such strategy is for agents to cultivate better self-knowledge of the ways that their freedom depends on the relationship between their conscious and unconscious attitudes, and the way these work together to inform action and judgment. This knowledge can act as an important catalyst for agents to seek out and implement short- and long-term strategies for reducing the influence of bias, and I offer four proposals along these lines. The upshot is that though bias is a powerful influence on our actions, we need not resign ourselves to its negative effects for freedom.