I recently got around to reading Daniel Dennett's contribution to Methode’s issue on Free Will. In one of his answers he indicated a (possible) shift in his position on free will that I found interesting and I was wondering what the rest of you thought. I quote Dennett below, followed by a few comments and questions.

In response to a question about the compatibilism/incompatibilism dichotomy, Dennett had the following to say:

"The problem with answering this question is that the everyday concept of free will, to which we must somehow anchor whatever philosophizing we do, has two radically independent – indeed well nigh inconsistent – “criteria” that have coexisted for millennia without resolution. On the one hand free will is supposedly an important phenomenon because it is, in one way or another, morally important; as I have put it, free will is “worth wanting”. On the other hand, it has traditionally been supposed that if a choice is determined, this in itself shows it not to be a free choice. Which criterion should dominate, when we ask what we mean by “free will”? Both have venerable traditions and supporting examples. For many years, I operated on the assumption that free will worth considering must be free will worth wanting, and have thus supposed that if you are talking about a variety of free will that has no direct bearing on issues of responsibility or moral competence, you are not talking about free will.

But recently I have learned from discussions with a variety of scientists and other non-philosophers (e.g., the scientists participating with me in the Sean Carroll workshop on the future of naturalism) that they lean the other way: free will, in their view, is obviously incompatible with naturalism, with determinism, and very likely incoherent against any background, so they cheerfully insist that of course they don’t have free will, couldn’t have free will, but so what? It has nothing to do with morality or the meaning of life. Their advice to me at the symposium was simple: recast my pressing question as whether naturalism (materialism, determinism, science...) has any implications for what we may call moral competence. For instance, does neuroscience show that we cannot be responsible for our choices, cannot justifiably be praised or blamed, rewarded or punished? Abandon the term “free will” to the libertarians and other incompatibilists, who can pursue their fantasies untroubled. Note that this is not a dismissal of the important issues; it’s a proposal about which camp gets to use, and define, the term. I am beginning to appreciate the benefits of discarding the term “free will” altogether, but that course too involves a lot of heavy lifting, if one is to avoid being misunderstood."