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Free LiberalismAuthor(s): Everett YoungSource: Foreign Policy, No. 146 (Jan. - Feb., 2005), pp. 12-13Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30048161 .

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Free Liberalism

In "Undermining Free Will" ("The World's Most Dangerous Ideas," September/October 2004), Paul Davies comes close to conceding that free will probably does not exist, but then he argues that this emerging understanding is so dan- gerous that it must remain secret. Maybe the idea shouldn't be adver- tised to street gangs or teenage anarchists, but that doesn't mean policy is better grounded in a com- forting illusion than in a scientific understanding of human behavior. Davies shudders at the lawlessness we'd confront if people threw off old ideas about guilt and responsi- bility. But hasn't the belief that our enemies have the freedom to be like us, but wantonly choose otherwise, inspired hateful acts for centuries?

Davies says the "assault on free will would be less alarming if some new legal and ethical framework existed to take its place." But maybe it already exists, though its adherents might not fully realize it. This framework recognizes that people aren't entirely in control of their circumstances. When bad out- comes befall them, it is not because they have chosen them. So, their suffering cannot be claimed to be just. To adherents of this framework, the unspoken denial of free will forms not an excuse for chaos, but a demand for compassion-in place of blame-as a basis for policy. It even leaves room for occasional dis- incentives to discourage undesirable behavior-implemented humanely, of course. This ethical framework is grounded in a rich tradition and already has a strong voice in modern governments. It stands ready for Davies's challenge. It is, of course, contemporary liberalism.

-EVERETT YOUNG Stony Brook, N.Y

12 FOREIGN POLICY

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Paul Davies Replies: Contemporary liberalism does acknowledge that an individual's circumstances are determined, in large part, by factors outside the individual's control. However, I do not believe that it denies free will. Western liberal thought is founded on the belief that people are not born to occupy a set social station but are free-and have the right-to make of their lives what they can.

I concede, though, that my remark that "nobody really has a clue" about a new ethical and legal structure to replace the tra- ditional one based on a belief in human freedom overstates the case. For example, it fails to do justice to the work of Daniel Den- nett, a philosophy professor at Tufts University, who presents a possible framework for such a system in his book, Freedom Evolves.

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