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	Freedom Evolves - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Freedom Evolves is a 2003 popular science and philosophy book by Daniel C. Dennett.
		He expects hostility from those who fear that a skeptical analysis of freedom will undermine people's belief in the reality of moral considerations; he likens himself to an interfering crow who insists on telling Dumbo he doesn't really need the feather.
		To clarify this distinction, he coins the term 'evitability' as the opposite of 'inevitability', defining it as the ability of an agent to anticipate likely consequences and act to avoid undesirable ones.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Freedom_Evolves (551 words)

	Roger William Gilman - Review of Daniel Dennett's Freedom Evolves -- Logos: Spring 2004
		On the freedom side of the ledger the reader must quickly realize that Dennett’s topic is free will, not political freedom or psychological freedom from one’s worries, or any of the other kinds of freedom that might legitimately be of concern.
		Freedom is not, as Dennett claims, merely “the capacity to achieve what is of value in a range of circumstances.” Thermostats do that.
		Morally accountable freedom is the form of the thought of oneself as a practically rational agent.
	www.logosjournal.com /issue_3.2/gilman.htm (3894 words)

	Kenan Malik's review of 'Freedom Evolves' by Daniel Dennett
		If, on the other hand, you think that the coexistence of freedom and determinism is a preposterous notion, you probably saw him fall off a long time ago.
		The real difficulty with Dennett's argument is not his belief that freedom and determinism must coexist - a proposition with which I agree - but his insistence on viewing agency simply as a biological phenomenon.
		Freedom is a political, not a scientific, issue.
	www.kenanmalik.com /reviews/dennett_freedom.html (1156 words)

	Daniel Dennett, Freedom Evolves
		Not the radical freedom of uncaused choice (which would be just as useless as rigid determinism)—but “elbow room”: room to act within determined boundaries.
		Increasing the number of options available to an agent increases its range of freedom, even if the agent is forced to follow the rules.
		The human mind, that complicated engine of choice and avoidance, is affected by other minds and by happenstance encounters, on a level of description so far removed from microscopic particles that it is senseless to extrapolate from one level to the other.
	www.geocities.com /sande106/DanielDennett2.htm (2101 words)

	Amazon.fr : Freedom Evolves: Livres en anglais: Daniel C. Dennett (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Freedom Evolves is the culmination of three decades worth of research.
		This book comprises a kind of toolbox of intellectual exercises favoring cultural evolution, the idea that culture, morality and freedom are as much a result of evolution by natural selection as our physical and genetic attributes.
		In Freedom Evolves, Dennett seeks to place ethics on the foundation it deserves: a realistic, naturalistic, potentially unified vision of our place in nature.
	www.amazon.fr /Freedom-Evolves-Daniel-C-Dennett/dp/product-description/0140283897 (1068 words)

	washingtonpost.com: Inevitable Except for the Writing (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Known as "compatibilism," the position argues that the real contrast is not between freedom and determinism, but between freedom and autonomy or lack of the latter.
		In "Freedom Evolves," Dennett continues this thinking, now brought into line with and enriched by his enthusiasm for Darwinian biology.
		"Freedom Evolves" is good, then, but not as good as it might have been.
	www.washingtonpost.com /ac2/wp-dyn/A63540-2003Mar31?language=printer (858 words)

	Review: Freedom Evolves by Daniel C Dennett \| Books \| EducationGuardian.co.uk
		And with that increase goes a steadily increasing degree of freedom: "The freedom of the bird to fly wherever it wants is definitely a kind of freedom, a distinct improvement on the freedom of the jellyfish to float wherever it floats, but a poor cousin of our human freedom...
		Human freedom, in part a product of the revolution begat of language and culture, is about as different from bird freedom as language is different from birdsong.
		Interestingly, this evolutionary view of human freedom is quite close to the one Steven Rose suggested in his excellent book Lifelines.
	education.guardian.co.uk /higher/books/story/0,,904443,00.html (1408 words)

	Dennett and the Darwinizing of Free Will by David P. Barash [Freedom Evolves by Daniel C. Dennett]
		In Freedom Evolves, he takes on the question of free will and determinism, one of the oldest and most intransigent of conundrums, transporting the discussion where it belongs, into the realm of Darwinian thought.
		Two of my favorite examinations of this question, neither of which appear in Freedom Evolves, were contributed by B. Skinner, and Jean-Paul Sartre, representing opposite poles of the debate.
		For example, Freedom Evolves introduced me to the fascinating work of Benjamin Libet, who revealed the existence of “readiness potentials,” unconscious neural events that reliably occur a few hundred milliseconds before subjects realized they had decided to perform a simple physical movement.
	human-nature.com /nibbs/03/dcdennett.html (1901 words)

	Amazon.com: Freedom Evolves: Books: Daniel C. Dennett (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		For those who wonder about the conditions that foster human freedom and those that suppress it, this book doesn't quite delve into political or social philosophy per se, but it is at least a start at a real answer by providing clear thoughts and useful science and meta-science.
		Don't be misled by the use of the term 'freedom': the story is not about how we escaped from determinism and acquired the ability of free choice.
		Human freedom, in Dennett's view, is the ability to deliberate about what is morally right and to act according to that insight.
	www.amazon.com /Freedom-Evolves-Daniel-C-Dennett/dp/0670031860 (3137 words)

	[No title]
		Introduction In his opening chapter, Daniel Dennett reports that his task in Freedom Evolves is “to provide a unified, stable, empirically well-grounded, coherent view of human free will” and that his conclusion is that “Free will is real, but is not a preexisting feature of our existence, like the law of gravity.
		If that perception is correct, then given the psychological similarities between the two agents, the difference in their current status regarding freedom and moral responsibility would seem to lie in how they came to have certain psychological features, hence in something external to their here-and-now psychological constitutions.
		Also, if you are inclined toward a history-sensitive position on freedom and moral responsibility, you would be inclined to believe that some of the things you did for your kids years ago you did not do freely and were not morally responsible for doing.
	gfp.typepad.com /online_papers/files/Al.doc (4837 words)

	Freedom evolves (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		The point that he is trying to put over is that it is possible to have something which we would call freedom, even in a deterministic universe.
		He describes how free will and morality could have evolved and gives detailed attention to the question of who benefits from altruism, and whether any actions can be called 'genuinely' altruistic, He also brings in relevant experimental results and theoretical studies - this is something that Dennett does better than most other philosophers.
		Thus we see how freedom could have evolved from simple choice mechanisms in early forms of life into the complex decision making which we face today.
	www.chronon.org /reviews/freevolves.html (439 words)

	Borders - Feature - Freedom Evolves
		The self-understanding we can gain from science can help us put our moral lives on a new and better foundation, and once we understand what our freedom consists in, we will be much better prepared to protect it against the genuine threats that are so regularly misidentified.
		The more we learn about how we have evolved, and how our brains work, the more certain we are becoming that there is no such extra ingredient.
		Their instincts guaranteed that they tried to mate with the right sorts, and flock with the right sorts, but just as those Brazilians didn't know they were Brazilians, no bison has ever known it's a bison.
	www.bordersstores.com /features/feature.jsp?file=freedomevolves (2021 words)

	Freedom Evolves, by Dennett: Final Chapters
		In Dennett, freedom means that what happens to us is not mechanistically determined, but he does not successfully show that decisions are more than something that more or less happens to us inside the brain.
		It was difficult, then to continue through the middle chapters of the book, where he shows that freedom of that sort could evolve.
		He can't persuade me freedom has evolved if he can't show that freedom of his sort actually exists.
	www.thinkingchristian.net /C228303755/E20050714205529/index.html (830 words)

	Reason Magazine - Freedom Evolves (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		For example, amoebas and bacteria use chemotaxis—the ability to change their direction of movement in response to concentrations of specific chemicals—thus enabling them to avoid toxins and to find food.
		Birds, like most earthly organisms, live as their ancestors did, and their range of choices is determined by the stately processes of biological evolution.
		We defend freedom, especially political freedom, because, among other things, it enables people to make better and better choices over time.
	www.reason.com /news/show/34767.html (1519 words)

	Freedom Evolves by Daniel C. Dennett
		Freedom Evolves, by long-time consciousness gadfly Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained, Darwin's Dangerous Idea), in which he attempts (more or less) to reconcile free will with evolutionary doctrine.
		In the end, Freedom Evolves comes across as an extended appendix, referring to or shamelessly rehashing material found in Dennett's earlier books.
		Freedom Evolves is a good snack, but Dennett has provided better meals before.
	www.scifidimensions.com /Oct04/freedomevolves.htm (768 words)

	Positive Liberty » Blog Archive » Freedom Evolves, I: Extending the Domain of the Self
		Freedom Evolves, I: Extending the Domain of the Self
		It is far more noble to value truth, or beauty, or freedom higher than you might value a case of beer or a really well-done steak.
		Selflessness is not the natural end of valuing truth, or beauty, or freedom; it is the enemy of these things, because the value that we attach to truth, or beauty, or freedom, is itself a part of us.
	positiveliberty.com /2005/09/freedom-evolves-i-extending-the-domain-of-the-self.html (2865 words)

	Neocompatibilism
		Using citations from psychology literature, A spends a good deal of time undermining the thesis that conscious control is all that it’s cracked up to be, and suggests instead that actions are largely shaped by processes outside conscious awareness.
		The difficulty with traditional compatibilism, in my view, is that compatibilists fudged or simply failed to address the obvious problem (that A raises) that the sorts of freedom compatible with determinism do not support moral responsibility practices that depend on intuitions about contra-causal agency.
		They would be regarded as responsible or not depending on their capacity for rationality and freedom from coercion.
	www.naturalism.org /neocompatibilism.htm (1952 words)

	Beerwolf Books
		A tour de force, Freedom Evolves addresses one of the great philosophical conundrums: the notion of free will.
		The natural sciences are an important ally in our quest to preserve and extend our freedom, not the threat that they are widely misperceived to be.
		And an evolutionary perspective is the essential foundation on which to rebuild the brilliant but tottering towers of traditional human freedom today.
	www.beerwolfbooks.co.uk (767 words)

	Pulling our own strings: philosopher Daniel Dennett on determinism, human "choice machines," and how evolution ...
		He says that we defend freedom, especially political freedom, because among other things it enables people to make better and better choices over time.
		What you want is freedom, and freedom and determinism are entirely compatible.
		To have freedom, you need the capacity to make reliable judgments about what's going to happen next, so you can base your action on it.
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_m1568/is_1_35/ai_99933031 (771 words)

	Daniel Dennett: The Evolution of the Freest :: Ephilosopher :: Philosophy News, Research and Philosophical Discussion
		Dennett "...returns to free will with a remarkably persuasive new idea derived from Darwinism: that freedom of the will is something that grows, that evolves.
		A rock has no freedom to choose; a bacterium has very little; a bird has some; a conscious primate has much more; a conscious primate inheriting a rich lode of cultural knowledge has the most of all.
		Note: Other reviews: daniel dennett freedom evolves (kenanmalik.com), Freedom Evolves by Daniel C Dennett, (independent.co.uk), and Reason mag's review.
	www.ephilosopher.com /article371.html (316 words)

	TCS Daily - Degrees of Freedom
		Dennett's new book Freedom Evolves presents an engrossing and valuable, though not always convincing, argument about free will.
		Freedom, in Dennett's telling, has emerged from biological and, importantly, cultural evolution.
		A bird that can fly where it wants has more freedom than a jellyfish that floats with the tides.
	www.tcsdaily.com /article.aspx?id=021703A (672 words)

	The future of free will
		Dennett's title -- "Freedom Evolves" -- contains his simplest and perhaps most radical recognition, that free will is a historical occurrence, not a metaphysical qualification of our existence.
		"The freedom of the bird to fly wherever it wants is definitely a kind of freedom," Dennett writes, "a distinct improvement on the freedom of the jellyfish to float wherever it floats, but a poor cousin to our human freedom.
		Our capacity to tolerate excesses of freedom cannot be assumed in others, or simply exported as one more commodity.
	www.sfgate.com /cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/06/RV259643.DTL (822 words)

	cannabisnews.com: Freedom Evolves in Surprising Ways
		cannabisnews.com: Freedom Evolves in Surprising Ways Freedom Evolves in Surprising Ways Posted by CN Staff on November 21, 2003 at 15:19:17 PT By Steve Chapman Source: Chicago Tribune It's been a good week for tolerance.
		The United States' current version of "Freedom", "tolerance", and "acceptance" is the scariest thing to happen since Hitler.
		This is truly doublethink, telling us that tolerance and freedom is increasing when instead it's been in a complete freefall over the last 25 years.
	www.cannabisnews.com /news/thread17847.shtml (872 words)

	DownsizeDC.org Blog \| Celebrate American Freedom! Introducing the NEW DownsizeDC.com
		But freedom constantly innovates to find new ways around these regulations, to render them obsolete and pointless, and to actually solve the problems the regulations were intended to address (but never do).
		We believe the miracles and progress caused by our freedom will always remain slightly ahead of the destruction wrought by coercive government.
		But a continued lead for freedom over government in âThe Raceâ is not enough for us.
	www.downsizedc.org /blog/2005/jul/02/celebrate_american_freedom_introducing_the_new_downsizedc_com (801 words)

	Derek James
		When you put a banana and an apple in front of a chimp, their "choice" is illusory, but if you put the same two pieces of fruit in front of a human, their choice is real?
		Dennett seems to be simultaneously degrading both evolutionary thought and materialism, though he claims to be a proponent of both.
		Traits, after all, evolve because they are adaptive to a particular environment.
	www.journalscape.com /derekjames/2003-02-26-11:49 (782 words)

	On Dennett's 'Freedom Evolves' - DETERMINISM - Eliminative Determinism - Athenaeum Library of Philosophy
		For me the 'activity' of thinking about human freedom or that the moon is made of green cheese does not exist.
		Dennett would never claim that the there is freedom in the heliotropic behavior of plants, or freedom of the robin to choose one bit of weed over another in nest building or the freedom of the beaver to selective one branch over another in his dam building.
		True - I understand what is signalled by the generality of the term 'Freedom, ' but I reserve my judgement of the 'value' or 'coinage' of the term until when I visit a community where 'freedom' is claimed to be in operation.
	evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com /ed_on_dennett.htm (6524 words)

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