Kiichi Inarimori

This article critically examines the experimental philosophy of free will, particularly the interplay between ordinary individuals’ compatibilist and incompatibilist intuitions. It explores key insights from research studies that propose “natural compatibilism” and “natural incompatibilism”. These studies reveal a complex landscape of folk intuitions, where participants appear to exhibit both types of intuitions. Here, we examine error theories, which purport to explain the coexistence of apparently contradictory intuitions: the Affective Performance Error hypothesis, the “Free Will No Matter What” hypothesis, the Bypassing hypothesis, and the Intrusion hypothesis, and the article explores the cognitive errors that could shape individuals’ inconsistent perceptions of free will. We then explore three possibilities regarding folk intuitions: most individuals may hold either compatibilist or incompatibilist intuitions, both simultaneously, or neither. Our aim is to deepen the understanding of the complex dynamics of intuitions about free will, and we close with suggestions for future studies in experimental philosophy.

Este artículo pretende reivindicar la defensa de la pericia a la luz de la filosofía experimental del libre albedrío. Mi argumento central es que la estrategia de analogía entre la filosofía y otros dominios es defendible, al menos en el debate sobre el libre albedrío, porque la formación filosófica contribuye a la formación de la intuición filosófica al permitir a los filósofos expertos comprender correctamente las cuestiones filosóficas y tener intuiciones filosóficas sobre ellas. Este artículo comenzará derivando dos requisitos para la defensa de la pericia a partir de las principales críticas a la misma. En primer lugar, es preciso explicar con precisión cómo contribuye la formación filosófica a la creación de intuiciones filosóficas (Contribución); en segundo lugar, debe explicarse cómo la formación filosófica inmuniza a las intuiciones filosóficas frente a factores distorsionadores (Inmunidad). Argumentaré que el requisito de Contribución es crucial para la defensa de la pericia y que este requisito puede satisfacerse al menos en el dominio del libre albedrío: investigaciones recientes muestran que la mayoría de las personas inexpertas son incapaces de entender correctamente el determinismo, lo que sugiere que tener intuiciones sobre el determinismo requiere pericia filosófica. A continuación, discuto cómo esta propuesta puede aplicarse a otras disciplinas filosóficas.

This paper aims to vindicate the expertise defense in light of the experimental philosophy of free will. My central argument is that the analogy strategy between philosophy and other domains is defensible, at least in the free will debate, because philosophical training contributes to the formation of philosophical intuition by enabling expert philosophers to understand philosophical issues correctly and to have philosophical intuitions about them. This paper will begin by deriving two requirements on the expertise defense from major criticisms of it. First, precisely how philosophical training contributes to the formation of philosophical intuitions requires explanation (Contribution); second, it must be explained how philosophical training immunizes philosophical intuitions from distorting factors (Immunity). I shall argue that the Contribution requirement is crucial for the expertise defense and that this requirement can be satisfied at least in the domain of free will: recent research shows that most novices are unable to understand determinism correctly, suggesting that having intuitions about determinism requires philosophical expertise. I then discuss how this proposal can be applied to other philosophical disciplines.

This paper investigates the role of group identification in empathic emotion and its behavioral consequences. Our central idea is that group identification is the key to understanding the process in which empathic emotion causes helping behavior. Empathic emotion causes helping behavior because it involves group identification, which motivates helping behavior toward other members. This paper focuses on a hypothesis, which we call “self-other merging hypothesis (SMH),” according to which empathy-induced helping behavior is due to the “merging” between the helping agent and the helped agent. We argue that SMH should be interpreted in terms of group identification. The group identification interpretation of SMH is both behaviorally adequate (i.e., successfully predicts and explains the helping behavior in the experimental settings) and psychologically plausible (i.e., does not posit psychologically unrealistic beliefs, desires, etc.). Empathy-induced helping behavior, according to the group identification interpretation of the SMH, does not fit comfortably into the traditional egoism/altruism dichotomy. We thus propose a new taxonomy according to which empathy-induced helping behavior is both altruistic at the individual level and egoistic at the group level.