Massimo Takes on Coyne's Free Will

Although he doesn’t admit to it straight out, Massimo Pigliucci seems to go dualist in his latest critique of Jerry Coyne. In an analysis of Coyne’s declaration that Free Will is a universal delusion, Massimo takes non-deterministic positions, many of which I agree with, which is some sort of first, I believe. Massimo’s final analysis concludes that we do make choices and that we should be held accountable; but he is also a fairly strict materialist. So he seems to be sliding into a moderately dualist mode here (emphasis on the "seems"). Massimo concludes,

” In the end, skepticism about free will seems to me to be akin to radical skepticism about reality in general (the idea that all of reality is an illusion, or a computer simulation, or something along those lines): it denies what we all think is self-evident, it cannot be defeated logically (though it is not based on empirical evidence), and it is completely irrelevant to our lives. If it teaches us anything, it is to humble us into contemplating the possibility that we may know (in the case of radical skepticism) or be able to act (in the case of free will skepticism) much less than we often smugly think — and we can all use an occasional lesson in humility. That said, we should then proceed by ignoring the radical skeptic in order to get back to the business of navigating reality, making willful decisions about our lives (including New Year’s resolutions, which actually succeed surprisingly often), and assign moral responsibility to our and other people’s actions.

Here Massimo takes on the characteristics of Coyne’s argument without first asserting that the universe is totally physical, therefore totally causal, and thus there cannot be any motions or actions that are not totally pre-determined. This seems like a departure for Massimo. And his negative comments on skepticism are surprising, especially given that his own skepticism about non-material existence follows the skeptical line, as I recall. Massimo is mellowing? It hasn’t been that long, geologically, that Massimo finally accepted that science cannot produce morality and cannot produce truth due to its contingency, facts which he now mentions. So is this a preview of an all-dualist Massimo? Doubtful, but I need to tune over there more often.