Freedom Evolves (Daniel C. Dennett)
(London: Penguin, 2004, ISBN 0140283897)
Reviewed by lizw
Dennett’s aim in this book is to argue that our free will is a product of evolution (both genetic and memetic). Since I already believe that, I’m not his intended reader. I am, however, quite interested in what free will is and whether or not it’s compatible with determinism; the first of these is a question which I thought Dennett would inevitably have to answer in order to do what he sets out to do, and the second is one which he announces in the first chapter that he’s going to have a go at, so the signs were good. In the end, I don’t think he quite answers either question.
It’s an odd book; it reads like three shorter books shoehorned together. The first four chapters seem to be aimed at creationists and, I think, are supposed to explain how quite complex behaviours can evolve through natural selection. Unfortunately, they’re not going to convince anyone, because they’re really hard going – the sort of hard going that makes me feel I could probably figure out what the author is going on about if I had four weeks of free time and an endless supply of tea, cold towels, and large pieces of paper for drawing diagrams on. The last time I had that luxury was when I spent a summer at Cambridge reading Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and something tells me that Dennett isn’t going to reward the effort in quite the way Kant does. He overuses metaphor, but mixes it with literal uses of the same words – at one point, he manages to use both literal and metaphorical meanings of “question” in the same sentence. This is particularly unfortunate if, in a book directed against creationists, one of the chosen metaphors is “design”. It is also less than helpful to have a re-definition of key concepts such as “determinism” separated by several chapters from the explanation of why a new definition is needed. But there’s good news! Most of the argument in these chapters is completely irrelevant to the rest of the book! Recommendation: if you’re not convinced that complexity can evolve, go find something by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen and read that instead. If you’re already familiar with that particular territory, skip straight to ch.5. You’ll wonder why you’re constantly being exhorted to Stop that crow!, but that’s about all you’ll miss.
The next four chapters are an enthralling account of consciousness, based in part on some fascinating experiments and debunkings of same. Not many books of philosophy are page-turners, but these chapters manage it. By the end of ch.8, I felt Dennett had all the building-blocks in place to explain what free will is…
… and then he just didn’t. If I didn’t trust Penguin better, I’d think there was a chapter missing, because chs.9 and 10 proceed on the assumption that we all now know the answers and can go on to explore their implications for morality (his choice of word, not mine). There’s nothing particularly difficult about these chapters, but because of the “missing chapter” phenomenon, they seem rather random. They’re also unnecessarily provocative – at one point, he likens people with learning disabilities to pets – and it’s fairly obvious that Dennett knows this and is enjoying it. It’s rather sad to find a grown man who still thinks trolling is clever.
