Elbow Room

"Elbow Room was written in 1984 so perhaps it’s getting a bit long in the tooth. However, I selected it because it’s a really good place for readers to start if they want to work their way into the contemporary debate. In terms of style, it’s very accessible and enjoyable. Dennett is a sharp philosopher with an engaging style. The main aim of this book is to debunk or defang the feeling that determinism presents an ominous sceptical threat to freedom and moral responsibility. Dennett sees the free will problem as a problem generated by philosophy. Philosophers abuse what he calls ‘intuition pumps’ and employ misleading philosophical analogies. By these means they generate groundless worries about the implications and consequences of determinism. An example would be, ‘If determinism is true, it would be like being in prison.’ Or ‘If determinism is true, we’re like a robot, mere mechanism.’ Dennett systematically tries to debunk claims of this kind and by doing this he wants to, as he puts it, vindicate a modestly optimistic self-image. In other words, he wants to bring us back to the original common-sense view that we talked about at the beginning. In many ways Dennett, who was a student of Gilbert Ryle’s, and in some ways belongs to the Wittgensteinian tradition, simply wants to ‘show the fly the way out of the fly bottle’ on this topic. The idea is that we’re confusing ourselves, and panicking ourselves into sceptical conundrums that make us feel worried and anxious. But when we properly and thoroughly expose these false and misleading analogies and intuitions we see there is no real problem or threat here. Yes. It’s good philosophical psychotherapy, that’s what Elbow Room aims to be. Yes, that’s it in a nutshell. The negative part of the book is debunking the scepticism and the anxiety generated by illusory philosophical bugbears and bogeymen. The positive agenda is that Dennett wants to show that there’s a perfectly coherent, naturalistic account of freedom and moral responsibility that’s entirely consistent with the idea that we’re part of the natural fabric of the world. Any freedom that requires something more than this isn’t worth wanting, it’s actually neither desirable nor intelligible. Dennett has quite an interesting and important chapter on what it is to be a self-creator or self-controller. This has influenced a whole generation of compatibilists, people who believe that determinism, or naturalism more broadly, is not a threat to our self-image as free responsible beings. The idea is that radical freedom, or what Dennett calls absolute unconditional freedom, to create ourselves ex-nihilo (out of nothing), is absurd. It’s not even intelligible for God, or at least it’s highly problematic. For human beings, however, it’s obviously absurd. We can’t have that, it’s not clear we would want it. More importantly, it’s not even clear what it would mean. What we want is to be able to reflect on our situation, to be able to consider what our interests are and how we can secure them. To give ourselves ‘elbow room,’ as Dennett understands it, is to be able to anticipate things and leave ourselves room for maneuver, where there may be variables that are unpredictable or unknown to us. This is what we actually want in order to be able to operate in the world as intelligent, rational creatures who are in control of our future. It doesn’t imply radical, 100% self-creation. It involves us developing, as we mature, and as we evolve as a species, certain capacities and dispositions of rational self-control. These can all be naturalistically accounted for and help us understand the basic distinctions between us that really matter. If, for example, I’m dealing with a small child or an animal, or a severely brain-damaged person, it’s precisely those capacities that they lack. Dennett’s common-sensical point of view is that what we’re looking for is something perfectly ordinary and intelligible that we can easily identify and recognize. This is an important point and Dennett’s critics would certainly press this concern. This is why, although Dennett is a good place to start, you also have to read the other books I’ve recommended. It might be a bit unfair or too severe to say that Dennett is complacent, given that he offers substantial and interesting arguments for his position. But I think his critics would say — and I have considerable sympathy with this — that his optimism comes too easily. Dennett simply wants to dismiss this sort of concern as groundless. However, while it may well be true that there is something problematic about articulating what it would be to have absolute freedom, there may still be something we care about that is missing or that we aspire to but lack. Perhaps the aspiration to immortality is impossible and doesn’t even make sense, but an awareness of our mortality may still disconcert or trouble us."