Spinoza's Dream Argument
David Rose and James Petrik
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“Spinoza’s Dream Argument: A Response to Introspective Arguments for Freedom”
Our focus in this paper is on a significant but neglected objection to introspective
arguments for human freedom that is suggested by a passing reference to dreamt volitions in
Spinoza’s Ethics. The argument – which we will call “Spinoza’s dream argument” -- calls into
doubt the evidentiary value of one’s introspective experience of freedom by pointing out that
choices made within dreams are experienced as free despite the fact that they are not free. It is a
potentially powerful objection to those endorsing introspective arguments for freedom and thus
merits careful consideration.
Here is how we will proceed. In Section 1, we will provide an overview of introspective
arguments for freedom. We will then provide a reconstruction of Spinoza’s dream argument in
Section 2. In Section 3, we critically evaluate the argument. First, we draw upon the results of
an experiment designed to test the claim that choices made while dreaming feel no less free than
choices made while awake. Here, we find that the experimental evidence does not support the
claim for a phenomenological equivalence between dreaming and waking choices. Second, we
explore possible justifications for the claim that choices made while dreaming are not free,
concluding that there is no solid justification for this premise. Third, we evaluate the strength of
the final inference to the conclusion that the felt freedom of choices made while awake does not
provide evidentiary support for the belief that those choices are free. We conclude that this
inference is unobjectionable. Though our conclusion is thus mixed, the final upshot of our
evaluation is that the version of Spinoza’s dream argument considered herein fails.
1. The Introspective Argument for Freedom
Introspective arguments for human freedom justify belief that there are free human
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choices by appealing to the alleged datum of introspection that human beings experience the
freeness of at least some of their choices. Though the appeal to introspectively felt freedom is
deployed in arguments of varying degrees of nuance and complexity, what we will mean by the
introspective argument for freedom is the following:
a) We experience some of our choices as being made freely.
b) We have no countervailing reason to doubt this experience.
c) We are justified in trusting any experience we have no countervailing reason to doubt.
Thus,
d) We are justified in trusting the experience of the freeness of some of our choices.
It is an argument with a noteworthy list of proponents, including several contemporary
defenders.1 Here, however, we restrict ourselves to considering two instances of the argument,
one contemporary and one historical. The contemporary example is from eminent
neurophysiologist, Benjamin Libet, and is noteworthy in that it is a case of an introspective
argument for freedom being advocated by a researcher with expertise in contemporary brain
science. The historical example is from René Descartes and is noteworthy in that it is a version
of the argument with which Spinoza was almost certainly familiar.
Advocates of the argument include René Descartes, Thomas Reid, C.A. Campbell, Keith Lehrer, James
Petrik and Benjamin Libet. For the locations of the argument in Descartes and Libet, see the passages
quoted and referenced below. For the rest, please see the following: Thomas Reid, Essays on the Active
Powers of Man in the Edinburgh Edition of Thomas Reid, Vol 7, edited by Knud Haakonssen and James
A. Harris, (Edinbugh: Edinbugh University Press Ltd, 2010); C.A. Campbell, In Defence of Free Will
(London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1967); Keith Lehrer, “Can We Know That We Have Free Will by
Introspection?”The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 57, No. 5 (Mar. 3, 1960), pp. 145-157; and James Petrik,
Evil Beyond Belief (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe Inc.,2000), p 50.
1
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Libet notes that the wish or inclination to act is preceded by unconscious brain processes
but maintains that there is room for a genuinely conscious and free will to veto the inclination’s
final progression to an intentional action. After detailing the research establishing that such a
window for vetoing an inclination does, in fact, exist, Libet appeals to the “phenomenal fact that
most of us feel that we do have free will” in arguing that such experiential evidence constitutes a
prima facie case in favor of the freedom of some human choices.
[W]e must recognize that the almost universal experience that we can act with a
free, independent choice provides a kind of prima facie evidence that conscious mental
processes can causatively control some brain processes . . . . This creates, for an
experimental scientist, more difficulty for a determinist than for a non-determinist option.
The phenomenal fact is that most of us feel that we do have free will, at least for some of
our actions and within certain limits that may be imposed by our brain’s status and by our
environment. The intuitive feelings about the phenomenon of free will form a
fundamental basis for views of our human nature, and great care should be taken not to
believe allegedly scientific conclusions about them that actually depend upon hidden ad
hoc assumptions. A theory that simply interprets the phenomenon of free will as illusory
and denies the validity of this phenomenal fact is less attractive than a theory that accepts
or accommodates the phenomenal fact.2
Though Spinoza did not, of course, have Libet’s argument in mind, Descartes advances
an argument that was likely the target of Spinoza’s dream argument and strongly resembles
Libet’s argument.
2
Benjamin Libet, “Do We Have Free Will?” in The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, ed. by Robert Kane
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In the Fifth Set of Objections, Pierre Gassendi challenged Descartes’s error theory,
contending that the will was not indifferent with respect to the contents of the intellect and thus
was not free to affirm or deny contents the intellect did not grasp clearly and distinctly. In
responding to this challenge, Descartes offered the following introspective argument for
freedom:
You next deny certain propositions about the indifference of the will. But
although these propositions are self-evident, I am not prepared to set about proving them
here. These are the sorts of things that each of us ought to know by experience in his
own case, rather than having to be convinced of them by rational argument; and you, O
Flesh, do not seem to attend to the actions the mind performs within itself. You may be
unfree if you wish, but I am certainly very pleased with my freedom since I experience it
within myself. What is more, you have produced no arguments to attack it but merely
bald denials. I affirm what I have experienced and what anyone else can experience for
himself, whereas your denial seems merely to be based on your own apparent failure to
have the appropriate experience; so my own view is probably entitled to receive more
widespread acceptance. (AT, VII, 377; CSM, II, 259-260)
Spinoza, of course, knew Descartes’s philosophy intimately, but was himself no fan of the
freedom Descartes espoused.3 Seeing determinism as the natural implication of the axioms and
(Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 563.
A less detailed version of Descartes’s introspective argument for freedom is found in article 39 of Part I
of Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy:
3
That there is freedom in our will, and that we have power in many cases to give or withhold our
assent at will, is so evident that it must be counted among the first and most common notions that
are innate in us. This was obvious earlier on when, in our attempt to doubt everything, we went
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definitions of his own geometric metaphysics, Spinoza not only supplied a direct proof for
determinism, he also took the extra step of explaining how others, including Descartes, had gone
wrong in affirming human freedom. It is to Spinoza’s diagnosis of the source of this alleged
error and, particularly, the role that dreamt volitions play in exposing it, to which we turn in the
next section.
2. Spinoza’s Dream Argument.
2.1 Spinoza’s Error Theory about the Experience of Freedom.
In the appendix to Book I of the Ethics, Spinoza turns his attention to diagnosing the
source of the widespread acceptance of teleological explanations of natural events. One of the
factors contributing to the mistaken belief that natural things act with ends in view is, according
to Spinoza, the fact that human beings believe themselves to be free in at least some of their
actions. And in diagnosing how human beings are misled into believing that they are free,
Spinoza remarks, ". . . men think themselves free, because they are conscious of their volitions
and their appetite, and do not think, even in their dreams, of the causes by which they are
disposed to wanting and willing, because they are ignorant of [those causes]." (Ethics I,
Appendix; Curley, I, 440; emphasis ours) The main thrust of this response is to suggest an error
so far as to make the supposition of some supremely powerful author of our being who was
attempting to deceive us in every possible way. For in spite of that supposition, the freedom
which we experienced within us was nonetheless so great as to enable us to abstain from
believing whatever was not quite certain or fully examined. And what we saw to be beyond
doubt even during the period of that supposition is as self-evident and as transparently clear as
anything can be. (CSM, I, 205-206; AT, VIIIA, 19-20)
Though there may be some doubt about whether Spinoza was aware of the passage from the
Fifth Replies quoted above, there can be little doubt that he was aware of the passage in the
Principles. The one work Spinoza published under his own name while alive, Descartes’s
Principles of Philosophy, was an exposition of Descartes’s Principles.
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theory about the widespread human experience of making free choices; i.e., choices that are not
causally necessitated by any set of preceding factors. We believe, mistakenly according to
Spinoza, that our volitions are free because we are immediately conscious of their occurrence but
fail to attend to the causes that necessitate them.4 What is of primary interest to us, however, is
not Spinoza's error theory about the experience of freedom; rather, our interest is in the
somewhat cryptic reference to dreams embedded within Spinoza’s presentation of his account of
our propensity to the illusion of freedom. Why, it is initially tempting to ask, does Spinoza think
it significant that human beings do not think "even in their dreams" about the causes of their
choices. The “even” suggests the elimination of a condition on the scope of the assertion that it
would be otherwise natural to think is in play – viz., that one is awake – but, the restriction being
eliminated is not one that seems natural. It’s not as if retrospective reports about observations
within dreams are commonly taken to have a greater reliability than those based upon waking
experience. It sounds a bit like remarking, "It is easy to get lost on the trail, even if one is
blindfolded" or “It is easy to violate traffic laws, even if one is intoxicated.” That people do not
attend to the causes of experienced effects within a dream is hardly surprising, given that dreamt
experience would typically be thought far less subject to controlled reflection than waking
experience. So, why the reference to "even in their dreams?”
Though the reference to dreaming in this passage is initially puzzling, it is our contention
that this cryptic reference contains the germ of an interesting objection to introspective
arguments for the existence human freedom.
4
Spinoza reiterates the error theory again in Book III of the Ethics. "[M]en believe themselves free
because they are conscious of their own actions, and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined
. . . ." Ethics 3p2sii; Curley, I, 496.
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2. 2 A Possible Response to Spinoza’s Error Theory
As noted above, the heart of Spinoza's response to introspective arguments for freedom
involves the assertion of an error theory; i.e., an explanation of why humans experience their
choices as free when in fact they are not. Of course, anybody who was not convinced by
Spinoza’s elaborate and controversial defense of determinism in the body of Ethics I might note
that a rival explanation for the experience of freedom is that we are experiencing choices that
are, in fact, undetermined and free. Perhaps it is not that we don’t attend to the causes of our
volitions, Descartes might observe; rather, it is that there are no causes to which to attend.
Moreover, in the absence of good reason to distrust the experience of freedom – and let’s
consider how many other than Spinoza have actually been convinced of the truth of determinism
by his geometric demonstration of it – we ought to accord the experience the prima facie
evidentiary weight we accord all experience. This potential objection to Spinoza’s error theory
is, we speculate, the target of Spinoza’s cryptic reference to dreamt volitions in the presentation
of his error theory. What Spinoza is doing, we propose, is supplying a defeater to the veridicality
of the experience at the heart of introspective arguments for freedom where this defeater relies
on premises that are independent of his complicated and controversial geometric demonstration
of determinism. We turn now to an elaboration of this response.
2.3. Dreamt Volition as a Defeater.
The reference to dreamt volitions by Spinoza, we propose, is meant to act as a defeater of
the prima facie reliability that attaches to one’s experience of the freeness of her choices.
Spinoza’s point is that dreamt volitions feel the same as waking volitions; yet, dreamt volitions
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are conceded by all – including advocates of freedom – to not be free. Moreover, this experience
is homogenous with the experience of making a choice while awake; thus, dreamt volitions show
that an experience of a volition as free is fully consistent with the volition not being free.
Therefore, we cannot accord the experience of the freedom of a waking choice as evidence for its
actually being free. And this means that introspective arguments are inconclusive.
What we are calling Spinoza’s Dream Argument can be summarized as follows:
1) Some choices made while dreaming are experienced as being no less free than any choice
made while awake. (Henceforth, PE, short for the Phenomenological Equivalence Claim.)
2) No choices made while dreaming are free. (Henceforth, DNF; short for Dreamt choices are
Not Free.)
From 1) and 2)
3) Some choices that are not free are experienced as being no less free than any choice made
while awake.
From 3)
4) A human being's experience of a choice as free provides no positive reason for believing that
the choice is free.5
5
As it stands, the dream argument outlined here might seem to have a rather long-distance relationship
with the text of the Ethics. This four step argument is, after all, quite a bit to draw out of Spinoza’s brief
reference to dreamt volitions. This is a fair concern; however, it is not an issue we take up in this paper.
The main aim of the paper is to lay out and critically evaluate a significant objection to introspective
arguments for freedom inspired by a passing remark in Spinoza’s Ethics. Since our primary aim in this
essay is neither textual nor historical, we are not overly concerned with the interpretive issue of whether
Spinoza actually held this view. We do, however, believe that a strong textual case can be made for
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Before proceeding to our evaluation of this argument in the next section, a few
clarificatory comments are in order. First, the claim made in 1) is only that the experience of
making a choice within a dream -- and not any other experiences related to the choice either
preceding it or following it -- feels no less free than choices made while awake. For instance, no
claim is being made about whether one typically experiences deliberation prior to the making of
a choice in a dream to the same extent that one typically experiences deliberating prior to the
making of a choice while awake. Nor is any claim being made about the comparative stability of
the environment in which the choice is made. We thus interpret "the experience of making a
choice" very narrowly, referring only to the experience of actually making the choice and not
any other experiences that might constitute part of the more extended dream environment in
which the choice is made.
Second, though there might be compatibilist introspective arguments for freedom, we
will assume that the freedom being justified by introspective arguments is to be understood in
incompatibilist terms. Thus, in evaluating DNF, we would count a successful defense of the
thorough causal necessitation of all dream choices as entailing DNF.
Third, though we believe that the inference from 3) to 4) has an intuitive plausibility,
there is an undeniable gap between the third premise and the conclusion. Instead, however, of
trying to supply a missing premise or premises that would bridge this gap, we prefer at this point
believing that the argument is Spinoza’s. There are passages later in the Ethics – particularly IIP2sii and
IIp49cs – where Spinoza returns to the issue of dreamt volitions and makes several points that close the
distance between the argument and the text. Like so much in Spinoza’s Ethics, the passages are rich and
suggestive, but also somewhat elliptical and obscure. While we believe they go far in showing that
Spinoza had something very much like the dream argument in mind, making the case that this is so would
involve us in a detailed exegetical project that would amount to a lengthy digression from the main focus
of this work.
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to let the intuitive force of the inference stand on its own to avoid introducing too much
complexity into our reconstruction of the basic argument. We will, however, return to this issue
near the end of the next section, investigating the plausibility of this inference in section 3.3.
3. Evaluation of the Dream Argument.
Our assessment of Spinoza’s argument will have the following three foci: PE, DNF and
the inference from 3) to 4). In section 3.1, we draw upon the results of a survey designed to
evaluate the plausibility of the introspective claim made in PE. In section 3.2, we turn to the
second premise of the argument, DNF, investigating various strategies that might be used to
defend it and various objections that might be raised to these strategies. Finally, in section 3.3 we
consider the plausibility of the final inference in Spinoza’s argument.
3.1 Experimental Philosophy and the Phenomenological Equivalence Claim.
PE in Spinoza’s dream argument is an empirical assertion about the felt quality of the human
experience of choices made while awake and within dreams; thus, it is an appropriate candidate
for evaluation by experimental philosophical methods. This sections details the results of a study
designed to test this alleged phenomenological equivalence.
3.11. Experimental Design
Two scenarios and three sets of questions were created in order to examine the
phenomenological equivalence claim. We will begin by describing the two scenarios and related
questions and then turn to a description of the three sets of questions.
Both of the scenarios describe events that take place while one is dreaming. One scenario
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involves a choice that is a morally neutral event (Scenario Neutral) while the other involves
making a choice that has moral relevance (Scenario Moral).6 The first scenario is the following:
You are dreaming. In the dream, you are standing in a hallway. You see a light switch
on the wall which will turn on a ceiling light. You reach for the switch, place your finger
on it, and decide to flip it.
The second scenario is the following:
You are dreaming. In the dream, you forget your class project which was due on that
particular day. The instructor begins going around to each student to collect the projects.
As the instructor gets closer to you, you begin to consider what you will say to the
instructor. You realize that you can tell the instructor the truth and receive an F or you
can tell a lie and bring the project in the next day. When the instructor arrives at your
desk, you decide to tell a lie.
Following each scenario, participants were asked the following questions: (a) How vivid is your
experience within the dream of choosing to flip the switch/tell a lie? (Vividness); (b) Taking into
account all factors that you judge to be relevant, how similar do you think your choice to tell a lie
in the dream would be to your choice to tell a lie when you are awake? (Similarity); and (c) At
the very moment that you choose to flip the switch/tell a lie, does the experience you have of
making the choice while dreaming appear to be any different from the experience that you have
6
The decision to test a morally significant and morally neutral scenario was motivated by an interest in
seeing whether the test subjects’ experience of the freeness of a choice within a dream was at all shaped
by the moral significance of the choice. Any significant deviation in the responses to the two cases might,
for instance, suggest that the introspective “experience” of freedom is theory responsive at least in the
sense of being sensitive to the moral overtones of the situation.
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of making a similar choice while awake? (Phenomenal). Participants were asked to make ratings
on a 1-9 point scale with the following anchors: for Vividness, 1 “less vivid than everyday
waking experience”, 5 “as vivid as everyday waking experience”, and 9 “more vivid than
everyday waking experience; for Similarity, 1 “not at all similar to when I am awake”, 9
“extremely similar to when I am awake”; and for Phenomenal, 1 “the two feelings are entirely
different”, 9 “the two feelings are exactly the same”.
In addition to these two scenarios and their related questions, we included three other
sets of questions relevant to evaluating PE. The first set (i) is as follows:
(a) Recall an occasion on which you selected a meal or at a restaurant or cafeteria. How much
did it feel like you were freely making a choice at the moment in which the choice was made?
(Awake Choice)
(b) Recall an occasion when you made a choice in a dream. How much did it feel like you were
freely making a choice at the moment in which the choice was made? (Dream Choice)
For both questions, participants were asked to make their ratings on a scale ranging from 1-9,
where 1 was anchored with “did not at all feel like I was freely making a choice” and 9 was
anchored with “it definitely felt like I was freely making a choice”.
The second set of questions (ii) is the following:
(a) At least some of the choices you make while awake are free. (Awake Free)
(b) At least some of the choices you make in a dream are free. (Dream Free)
Both of the questions were asked using a 1-9 rating scale with 1 anchored with “definitely
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disagree” and 9 anchored with “definitely agree”.
Finally, the third set (iii) of questions relevant to assessing PE is the following:
(a) People ought to be held morally responsible for at least some of the choices they make while
awake. (Responsible Awake)
(b) People ought to be held morally responsible for at least some of the choices they make while
dreaming. (Responsible Dream)
These questions were, again, based on a 1-9 rating scale, using the same anchors as in (ii).
Lastly, we asked participants to report their gender, age range, whether they were familiar with
the free will debate in philosophy and whether or not the current philosophy course was their
first course.
3.12. Evaluating the PE
Having presented the items included in our study, a question now arises as to how these
relate to the evaluation of PE. Our answer will come in two parts. First, we will consider the
items that will serve as direct evidence for or against PE and second, we will consider the items
that could be relevant depending on whether the direct evidence does not support PE.
3.121. Direct Evidence
Phenomenal is the first item directly relevant to evaluating PE. The reason is that
Phenomenal is aimed directly at evaluating people’s introspective experience and thus, PE will
be supported if answers are, on average, statistically indistinguishable from a rating of 9, thereby
indicating that the introspective experience of waking and dreaming choices are
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phenomenologically indistinguishable. However, if it turns out that Phenomenal does not
support PE, this result would not falsify PE on its own. The reason is that while Phenomenal
asks about the total experience of making a waking and dreaming choice without specifically
referencing the felt freedom of the choice, Awake Choice and Dream Choice do specifically ask
how free the choices feel. Thus, it may be that the waking and dreaming choices with respect to
Phenomenal are phenomenologically distinguishable in certain respects and thus, in toto, but are
nonetheless phenomenologically indistinguishable with respect to their felt freedom. Awake
Choice and Dream Choice cover this possibility and if responses to these two items were
statistically indistinguishable, we would count this as supporting PE.
Crucial to evaluating Spinoza’s phenomenological equivalence claim, then, are
Phenomenal and from set (i) above both Awake Choice and Dream Choice. Some support for
PE would be had if either (a) ratings on Phenomenal are statistically indistinguishable from 9,
but ratings for Awake Choice and Dream Choice are not statistically indistinguishable, (b) ratings
for Awake Choice and Dream Choice are statistically indistinguishable, but ratings on
Phenomenal are not statistically indistinguishable from 9, or (c) ratings on Phenomenal are
statistically indistinguishable from 9, and ratings for Awake Choice and Dream Choice are
statistically indistinguishable. To make the evaluation of PE as charitable as possible, then, we
will take it that PE is falsified only if both Phenomenal and Awake Choice and Dream Choice
fail to support it.
3.122. Evaluating Evidence Not Supporting PE
If PE fails to be supported, there are a couple of ways that such a failure might be
explained and so we would want to consider these alternatives before concluding that PE is, in
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fact, falsified. Suppose, for example, that Phenomenal is not supported. It could turn out that
people who give different ratings on Vividness and Similarity would give different responses to
Phenomenal, with some giving a rating of 9 or a rating that’s, on average, statistically
indistinguishable from 9. Thus, if different groups were giving different responses on
Phenomenal, then some support may be provided for PE via Phenomenal. We would want to
check for this possibility before concluding that Phenomenal does not support PE. After
checking for this possibility, if Phenomenal still fails to support PE and Awake Choice and
Awake Dream also fail to support PE, then before concluding that PE is falsified we would want
to consider an alternative explanation of our results.
If it turns out that both Phenomenal and Awake Choice and Dream Choice fail to support
PE, then one explanation for this result would be that people’s judgments are being driven by
their theoretical commitments to freedom and/or moral responsibility.
Sets (ii) and (iii) are
relevant to evaluating this possibility. That is, suppose that we find that for question
Phenomenal for the two scenarios that people disagree that the experiences are equivalent
between waking and dreaming. It may turn out that such a result may be explained by people’s
explicit beliefs that free will is something that we can only have when we are awake: when we’re
dreaming, we’re just not hooked up to the world in the right way in order to freely make choices
and be held accountable for those choices. These explicit beliefs about free will would then
influence participants’ responses to the crucial questions designed to evaluate the
phenomenological equivalence claim. Thus, if people’s explicit beliefs are influencing their
judgments to question Phenomenal, then we should expect that both Awake Free and Dream
Free will be correlated with each other and with question Phenomenal and that both
Responsibility Awake and Responsibility Dream will be correlated with each other and with
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question Phenomenal. We would also want to consider this possibility for Awake Choice and
Dream Choice since both of these and Phenomenal are required to conjointly undermine PE.
3.13. Experimental Results
3.131. Direct Evidence
We presented our survey to 50 undergraduate students (Female=31, Male=19) taking an
introductory philosophy course at Ohio University before any substantive teaching had begun.
Forty-nine of the participants fell into the 18-22 age range and only one person fell into the 2330 age range. Forty-four participants reported that this was their first philosophy course and
forty-five participants indicated that they were not familiar with the free will debate in
philosophy. Neither gender, familiarity with the free will debate, first course in philosophy nor
age produced any statistically significant effects on any of the results. We will thus exclude
them from the discussion that follows.
The first analysis important to evaluating the phenomenological equivalence claim
concerns whether people gave responses at or, on average, no different from nine for
Phenomenal for both of the scenarios where they were asked to introspect on their own
experiences. The mean response for both the Scenario Neutral (M=5.22, SD=2.14) and Scenario
Moral (M=5.32, SD=2.29) were no different from each other,7 a statistically significant
difference from the rating of nine that we would take as validating PE.8 This finding, then,
7
A paired-samples t-test shows that these responses on these two measures are not statistically different,
t(49)=-.298, p=767.
8
A one-sample t-test was conducted for both measures against a hypothesized value of nine. Mean
responses for Scenario Neutral were significantly below nine, t(49)=-12.485, p=.000 and mean responses
for Scenario Moral were also significantly below nine, t(49)=-11.365, p=.000.
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shows that people do not, upon introspection, think that the experience of making a choice in a
dream is experientially indistinguishable from making that same choice while awake.
Recall that we mentioned that there may be variation in people’s responses due to
differences in responses to questions Vividness and Similarity. If there were differences in
Phenomenal due to differences in Vividness and Similarity, then we would like to know as it
could be that some people who have different responses on Vividness and Similarity give
responses that are, on average, no different from nine on Phenomenal. To test for this
possibility, we conducted two separate analyses of variance (ANOVA) for each scenario9. The
results for Scenario Neutral revealed a main effect for both Vividness and Similarity.10 What this
tells us is that different groups that answered differently for both Vividness and Similarity gave
different responses to Phenomenal. However, what is most important to our evaluation of PE is
not so much that these groups gave different responses on Phenomenal. Rather, what is most
important is whether one of these groups gave a response that was at or no different from a rating
of nine on Phenomenal. The highest mean on Phenomenal among the groups within Vividness
was 6.5 and the highest mean on question Phenomenal among the groups within Similarity was
6.25. Clearly, neither of these are at or, on average, no different from nine.11 Looking at the
ANOVA for Scenario Moral we see essentially the same pattern. There were main effects for
9
Roughly, an ANOVA tests whether variations in the dependent variable can be accounted for by
variations in independent variables.
10
The main effect for Vividness was significant, F(2)=3.38, p=.044 and the main effect for Similarity
was also significant, F(2)=3.69, p=.033. There was not a significant interaction between these two items,
F(4)=.86, p=.495.
11
One sample t-tests were conducted for both of these items. Those with the highest mean rating on
Phenomenal from the Similarity group, gave responses that were significantly lower than a nine, t(25)=6.81, p=.000 and those with the highest mean rating on Phenomenal from the Vividness group, gave
responses that were significantly lower than nine, t(11)=-5.38, p=.000.
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both Vividness and Similarity12, but the highest mean on Phenomenal among the groups within
Vividness was 6.3 and the highest mean on Phenomenal among the groups in Similarity was 6.9.
Neither of these was, on average, indistinguishable from a rating of nine on Phenomenal13. Thus,
even after looking for group differences in the vividness of the introspective experience and in
the similarity of the dreamt choice to a waking choice, Phenomenal does not support the
phenomenological equivalence claim: in both scenarios even those who gave high responses on
Vividness and Similarity, indicating that the choice was both more similar and that the
experience was as vivid, did not think that, introspectively, the experience of making a choice
between waking an dreaming was similar. Possibilities for support of PE, (a) and (c) above, are
clearly ruled out.
Equally important to evaluating the PE are, Awake Choice and Dream Choice from set (i).
Recall that Awake Choice asked participants to recall an occasion when they selected a meal and
to report how free the choice felt while Dream Choice asked participants to recall an occasion
when they made a choice in a dream and to report how free it felt. We noted above that
Phenomenal’s failing to support PE might not necessarily indicate that the felt freedom of a
choice between waking and dream is distinguishable. Awake Choice and Dream Choice are
aimed at accounting for this possibility and thus if people’s ratings of the feeling of freely
12
The main effect for Vividness, was significant, F(2)=3.85, p=.029 and the main effect for Similarity was
also significant, F(2)=5.41, p=.008. There was not a significant interaction between these two items,
F(4)=.281, p=.889.
13
One sample t-tests were conducted for both of these items. Those with the highest mean rating on
Phenomenal from the Similarity group, gave responses that were significantly lower than a nine, t(16)=5.22, p=.000 and those with the highest mean rating on Phenomenal from the Vividness group, gave
responses that were significantly lower than nine, t(17)=-5.75, p=.000.
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making a choice while dreaming are no different from their ratings of the feeling of freely
making a choice while awake, this would provide some support for the phenomenological
equivalence claim. We thereby tested whether or not responses for both Awake Choice and
Dream Choice were statistically different. It turned out that people’s responses were different
with people giving lower responses to Dream Choice (M=4.88, SD=2.37) than to Awake Choice
(M=6.82, SD=2.22).14 Thus, people think the choice while awake felt freer than the choice while
dreaming. The final possibility for support of PE, (b) above, is thus ruled out and this finding in
conjunction with the findings with respect to Phenomenal fail to provide any positive support for
PE: (a) thru (c) are each ruled out. Since both Phenomenal and Awake Choice and Dream
Choice fail to support PE, we conclude that PE is falsified.
3.132. A Possible Spinozistic Response: The Theoretical Contamination Objection
One may object that our findings indicate only that people’s explicit beliefs about
freedom and/or moral responsibility are influencing their responses to items that ask about
freedom and moral responsibility with respect to dreaming experience. That is, people’s explicit
views that freedom and moral responsibility are such that they can only be had when an
individual is hooked up to the world in the appropriate way—namely, by being wake—and so
when confronted with a question about freedom and moral responsibility with respect to
dreaming, these explicit beliefs influence their responses and thereby render those responses as
unreliable indicators of the nature of the respondents’ actual experiences. Call this objection the
theoretical contamination objection.
14
A paired samples t-test was conducted and showed that people thought the Awake Choice more free
(M=6.82, SD=2.22) than the Dream Choice (M=4.88, SD=2.37): t(49)=-4.90, p=.000.
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One might begin by pointing out that ratings on Phenomenal for both Scenario Neutral
and Scenario Moral were around the mid-point and that ratings on Dream Choice were around
the midpoint while ratings on Awake Choice were clearly above the mid-point. It may be
suggested that this shows that people’s ratings reflect uncertainty because they have certain
beliefs about freedom. These beliefs are that one can only be free when making a choice while
awake, and this is clearly shown in responses to Awake Choice, and these explicit beliefs lead
them to withhold judgment on other items relating to dreamt choices. One response at this
point would be to note that ratings around the midpoint on Phenomenal for both Scenario
Neutral and Scenario Moral might not indicate uncertainty or suspended judgment, but rather
might reflect that people think there are just as many differences as there are similarities between
the dreaming and awake choice.
Another bit of evidence supporting the theoretical contamination conjecture may come
from responses to Awake Free/Dream Free and Responsible Awake/Responsible Dream from
sets (ii) and (iii) respectively. Let’s begin with the mean responses for both Responsible Awake
and Responsible Dream from set (iii). Participants were more likely to think that people ought to
be held morally responsible for some waking choices (M=8.24, SD=1.51) than they were for
dreaming choices (M=3.10, SD=2.11). 15 One may point out that people clearly agreed that people
ought to be held morally responsible for awake choices since the mean response fell far above
the mid-point while people clearly disagreed that people ought to be held morally responsible for
dreaming choices since mean responses fell far below the mid-point and so this may support the
theoretical contamination conjecture since people clearly agree or disagree with the two
15
A paired samples t-test was conducted and showed that participants thought people ought to be held
morally responsible for waking choices (M=8.24, SD=1.51) but not dreaming choices (M=3.10,
SD=2.11): t(49)=14.312, p=.000.
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statements. Whereas responses on Phenomenal for both Scenario Neutral and Scenario Moral
may be equivocal, this may show that people do, in fact, hold different explicit beliefs about free
will. We must notice, however, that although people might hold different beliefs about free will,
this does not show that these beliefs are influencing responses to Phenomenal or Awake Choice
and Dream Choice. Correlations would show that these responses are associated, however, and
this is something that we will need to look at.16 Before doing that, let’s consider the final set of
responses from set (ii). As with set (iii), people gave different responses on Awake Free and
Dream Free,17 with people being more likely to agree that some choices made while awake are
free (M=7.84, SD=1.87) than they were to agree that some choice made while dreaming were
free(M=6.10, SD=2.60). Interestingly, responses to both of the items were above the midpoint,18
indicating that although there were differences in the degree of agreement, people agreed on both
items nonetheless. At this point, the evidence supporting the theoretical contamination
conjecture is, at best, mixed. However, correlations will provide a better look at whether the data
do or do not support the theoretical contamination conjecture.
16
Correlations would only suggest that these two responses are associated. Causation would still be an
issue. The theoretical contamination conjecture is committed to a stronger causal claim regarding the
relationship between explicit beliefs about free will and responses to Phenomenal and Awake Choice and
Dream Choice. Specifically, the causal claim is that explicit beliefs about free will cause responses to
Phenomenal and Awake Choice and Dream Choice. A correlation would not tell us anything about the
causal direction of the association. Further tests would be needed, but a correlation would provide some
prima facie support for the theoretical contamination conjecture and would prompt us to assess the causal
relationship. So, if we find correlations we will conduct a causal analysis, if not, we can safely assume
that there is no causal relationship between the variables and so no causal analysis will be needed.
17
A paired samples t-test was conducted and showed that people were more likely to agree that some
awake choices are free (M=7.84, SD=1.87) than they were to agree that some dreaming choices are free
(M=6.10, SD=2.60): t(49)=4.136, p=.000.
18
A one-sample t-test was conducted for both items against a hypothesized value of 5 (the midpoint).
The results indicate that agreement for Awake Free was significantly above the midpoint, t(49)=10.759,
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Correlations between question from sets (ii) and (iii) are most relevant to evaluating the
possibility that respondents’ answers to Phenomenal in both Scenario Neutral and Scenario
Moral and respondents’ answers with respect to Awake Choice and Dream Choice are being
driven by their theoretical commitments to freedom. There are separate pieces of evidence, one
weaker and the other stronger, that might support the theoretical contamination conjecture. The
strongest piece of evidence would come from the following correlations: both Awake Free and
Dream Free being correlated with each other and with question Phenomenal (for both Scenario
Neutral and Scenario Moral) and Awake Choice and Dream Choice and both Responsibility
Awake and Responsibility Dream being correlated with each other and with question
Phenomenal (for both Scenario Neutral and Scenario Moral) and Awake Choice and Dream
Choice. The weakest piece of evidence would come from the following correlations:
correlations between either Responsibility Awake or Responsibility Dream with Phenomenal for
Scenario Moral.
The reason for this is because the responsibility issue is salient and so if
people are drawing on their explicitly held beliefs that the experience of making a choice cannot
be the same between waking and dreaming since one can only choose freely and be held
accountable for free choices when awake, then we should expect people to use these beliefs to
guide their judgments. That is, if people truly hold this belief and this is influencing their
judgments regarding the similarity of the experience between waking and dreaming, then we
should expect people’s views regarding whether or not people ought to be held morally
responsible for waking and dreaming choices to influence these judgments.
Let us begin by evaluating correlations that would lend the weakest support to the
theoretical contamination conjecture. This means that we are interested in whether either
p=.000, while agreement for Dream Free was also significantly above the midpoint, t(49)=2.995, p=.004.
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Responsibility Awake or Responsibility Dream from set (iii) is associated with responses to
Phenomenal in Scenario Moral. As it turns out, neither of these ratings are correlated with
Phenomenal in Scenario Moral.19 In other words, neither beliefs that people ought to be held
morally responsible for dreaming choices nor beliefs that people ought to be held morally
responsible for waking choices were related to ratings of the similarity of waking and dreaming
experience in Scenario Moral. This is surprising since Scenario Moral was designed to make the
responsibility issue salient. Thus, even making the responsibility issue salient does not lead to an
association between these measurements. This finding, thus, fails to provide even weak support
for the theoretical contamination conjecture.
The correlations relevant to assessing the strongest support for the theoretical
contamination conjecture comes from Awake Free/Dream Free and Responsibility
Awake/Responsibility Dream from both sets (ii) and (iii), respectively, being correlated with
each other and Awake Free/Dream Free and Responsibility Awake/Responsibility Dream from
sets (ii) and (iii), respectively, being correlated with responses to Phenomenal (for both Scenario
Neutral and Scenario Moral) and Awake Choice and Dream Choice. Let us begin with
correlations between Awake Free and Dream Free from set (ii) and with correlations between
Responsibility Awake and Responsibility Dream from set (iii). Surprisingly, neither Awake Free
nor Dream Free are correlated in set (ii)20 and neither is Responsibility Awake nor Responsibility
19
The correlation between beliefs about moral responsibility while dreaming and the similarity of waking
and dreaming experience in the moral (r(50)=-.015, p=.917) scenario is non-significant. Additionally, the
correlation between beliefs about moral responsibility while awake and the similarity of waking and
dreaming experience in both the moral (r(50)=-.094, p=.517) scenario is non-significant.
20
The correlation between beliefs that some awake choices are free and that some dream choices are free
is not statistically significant, r(50)=.142, p=.324.
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Dream correlated in set (iii)21. This thereby counts as a mark against the theoretical
contamination conjecture since explicit beliefs about awake choices are unrelated to beliefs about
dreaming choices and beliefs about moral responsibility while awake are unrelated to beliefs
about moral responsibility while dreaming. We should expect that, if the theoretical
contamination conjecture is correct, explicit beliefs relating to free will and the dependence of
free will on waking experience would be related to beliefs about dreaming choices and
responsibility for dreaming choices. The fact that there is no association suggests that these
beliefs are not influencing one another.
The final piece of evidence relevant to providing strong support to the theoretical
contamination conjecture comes from possible correlations between Awake Free/Dream Free
and Responsibility Awake/Responsibility Dream from both sets (ii) and (iii), respectively, with
Phenomenal (for both Scenario Neutral and Scenario Moral) and Awake Choice and Dream
Choice. If these items are correlated with Phenomenal (from either Scenario Neutral or
Scenario Moral) and Awake Choice and Dream Choice, then there would be some support for
the theoretical contamination conjecture. Let’s begin with correlations between these items and
Phenomenal. We have already seen that Responsibility Awake and Responsibility Dream from
set (iii) are not associated with responses to Phenomenal in Scenario Moral, and so we will
exclude this from the discussion that follows. As it turns out, the only significant correlation
between any of these items and Phenomenal comes from Dream Free in set (ii).22 That is,
21
The correlation between beliefs that people ought to be held morally responsible for some choices made
while awake and beliefs that people ought to be held morally responsible for some choices made while
dreaming is not statistically significant, r(50)=.044, p=.763.
22
The correlation between beliefs about moral responsibility while dreaming and the similarity of waking
and dreaming experience in the non-moral (r(50)=.158, p=.275) scenario is non-significant. Additionally,
the correlation between beliefs about moral responsibility while awake and the similarity of waking and
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people’s beliefs concerning whether some dream choices are free is associated with whether or
not they think the experience of dreamt choices is similar to waking choices for both the moral
and non-moral scenarios. The final set of correlations to consider is between the above items and
Awake Choice and Dream Choice. As was the case with Phenomenal, the only significant
correlation between any of these items and Awake Choice and Dream Choice comes from Dream
Free in set (ii)23. These findings, then, at best provide only very weak support for the theoretical
contamination conjecture. 24
The reason that this evidence provides only weak support is because people’s views
regarding both responsibility and freedom with respect to waking and dreaming choices, as we
say above, were unrelated. From the theoretical contamination conjecture, we should expect that
these are related to each other and, furthermore, that they are related to ratings on Phenomenal
and Awake Choice and Dream Choice. The fact that we only find that people’s views about
dreamt choices being free are related to both Phenomenal and Awake Choice and Dream Choice,
dreaming experience in the non-moral (r(50)=-.042, p=.772) scenario is non-significant. The correlation
between beliefs that some awake choices are free and the similarity of waking and dreaming experience in
both the moral (r(50)=-.069, p=.634) and non-moral (r(50)=.234, p=.102) scenario is non-significant, but
the correlation between beliefs that some dreaming choices are free and the similarity of waking and
dreaming experience in both the moral (r(50)=-.410, p=.003) and non-moral (r(50)=.334, p=.018)
scenario is significant.
23
Awake Choice is not correlated with Awake Free (r(50)=.190, p=.186), Awake Responsible (r(50)=.160,
p=.268), or Dream Responsible (r(50)=-.083, p=.566) while Dream Choice is not correlated with Awake
Free (r(50)=-.115, p=.426), Awake Responsible (r(50)=.117, p=.419) or Dream Responsible (r(50)=.080,
p=.581). Awake choice is correlated with Dream Free (r(50)=.386, p=.000) and Dream Choice is also
correlated with Dream Free (r(50)=.592, p=.000).
24
We mentioned above in footnote 17 that if correlations were found to support the theoretical
contamination conjecture that this would warrant a causal analysis. Since we did not find but one of these
items to be correlated with Phenomenal and Awake Choice and Dream Choice, this only marginally, if at
all, supports the theoretical contamination conjecture, and so a causal analysis is unnecessary.
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does not suggest that the relationship between these variables holds because of peoples’ explicit
beliefs about free will and its dependence upon waking experience. Furthermore, none of the
other items were related and so the fact that only one of these items was related to ratings on
both Phenomenal and Awake Choice and Dream Choice thus provides negligible support for the
theoretical contamination conjecture. And since there is no correlation between people’s views
about waking and dreaming choices being free (Awake Free and Dream Free), then the burden is
on the proponent of the theoretical contamination conjecture to provide compelling reason how
this negligible correlation between people’s beliefs about dreamt choices being free and ratings
on Phenomenal and Awake Choice and Dream Choice shows that people’s explicit views about
free will and its dependence upon waking experience are having any impact. We thus conclude
that that the phenomenological equivalence claim is undermined by the empirical evidence.
3.2. Critical Evaluation of DNF.
In this section we consider and critique the most promising strategies that might be use
to defend DNF.
3.21. The Control Argument.
Aside from his general arguments to defend a thoroughgoing determinism, the closest
that Spinoza comes to giving a direct defense of DNF occurs in the following passage from Book
II of the Ethics.
We find this daily in our dreams, and I do not believe there is anyone who thinks that
while he is dreaming he has a free power of suspending judgment concerning the things
he dreams, and of bringing it about that he does not dream the things he dreams he sees.
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Nevertheless, it happens that even in dreams we suspend judgment. (Ethics IIp49cs;
Curley, I, 489)
The reference to the act of suspending judgment makes it fairly clear that the target of the
argument is Descartes. Here we can recall the earlier passage from the Sixth Replies in which
Descartes points to the act of suspending judgment as a paradigm case of a free act to which
persons have introspective access. How the argument is supposed to work, however, is
somewhat less clear. The argument begins by maintaining that a dreamer does not have the
power to freely suspend judgment about the contents of his dreams; nonetheless, the dreamer
does experience the act of suspending judgment within a dream. The implied conclusion of these
two points is that the act of suspending judgment is not one over which the dreamer has control;
i.e., it is no more avoidable than are any of the other events that occur within a dream.
The structure of this argument seems, thus, to be the following:
a) The things we experience within dreams are not subject to our free control,
b) We experience the act of suspending judgment within our dreams,
therefore,
c) The act of suspending judgments within dreams is not subject to our free control.
The argument stated thus is valid; however, it is not clear that it is sound. Though some may
have qualms about the second premise, our worries relate to the first. Specifically, the argument
only works if the first premise is understood to be an exceptionless, universal judgment. If it
isn’t, then it is open to the counterproposal that while most events experienced within dreams are
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not subject to free control, the dreamt act of suspending judgment is. An opponent of this
argument might propose that dreamt suspensions of judgment mirror waking ones in this respect.
In both cases, the entire external environment of one’s experiences is not under one’s direct
control; however, some mental acts – such as choosing to suspend judgment – are under one’s
control. It is not clear why this account should be any less plausible for the dreamt environment
than for the waking environment; thus, we are owed an argument to eliminate this possibility.
3.22. The Moral Argument.
A second argument that might be given in defense of DNF would appeal to the intuition
that people should not be held accountable for their dreamt choices. If a wife chooses to have
sex with someone other than her husband within a dream, we aren’t at all inclined to believe that
the wife is morally blameworthy for this choice. One explanation that might be given for this
general unwillingness to hold human beings responsible for their dreamt choices is that no
dreamt choices are free.
Though we concede the intuition concerning the inappropriateness of holding a person
responsible for a dreamt choice, the argument faces a significant obstacle as a defense of DNF;
viz., one must eliminate explanations of equal or greater plausibility other than DNF for the
inappropriateness of holding a person responsible for choices made within dreams. We explore
several of these and evaluate their viability as rival explanations.
3.221. No real consequences response.
It might be alleged that the reason we don’t hold people accountable for their dreamt
choices is – to paraphrase a recent promotional campaign for an American City – what happens
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in dreams, stays in dreams. Since the events experienced within a dream are not direct
experiences of real events, there is nothing for which a person ought to be held accountable. One
might, of course, maintain that this is only true with respect to legal responsibility but that moral
responsibility is a different matter. Specifically, it might be observed that there are significant
moral traditions in which intent on its own is an important object of moral evaluation; thus, if the
choice or intent in a dream is accepted as real, then the lack of real consequences would not
explain our tendency to offer universal amnesty to dreamt choices. Another possible response to
the “no real consequences” account is that even in cases in which a dreamt choice does have real
consequences – such as a murder committed by a sleepwalker – we are still not inclined to assign
moral responsibility for the act. Any unwillingness to accept a “sleepwalking defense” in a court
of law is, we suggest, the result of skepticism about the truth of the defendant’s claim to have
been sleepwalking and not a repudiation of the intuition that genuine sleepwalking – if it could
be proven – is exculpating.
3.222. The disordered environment response.
The reason that we do not hold people accountable for choices made while dreaming, it
might be suggested, is that the environment of a dream is not one in which one’s actions have
predictable consequences. An environment in which actions do not have predictable
consequences allows for no morally meaningful action. If jumping off a cliff in a dream is as
likely to result in floating higher into the air as it is in plunging to the ground, then it is hard to
see that the choice to jump off a cliff within a dream has the moral significance as the same
choice while awake. Similarly, the wife’s choice to cheat on her husband within a dream does
not have predictable consequences. In fact, the person with whom she is sharing intimacy might
change identities within the dream episode of intimacy.
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While we grant that dreams typically do have this character, we do not believe that this is
a viable explanation for the intuition that moral accountability does not attach to choices made
within dreams. The reason is that while dreams often do manifest the irregularity noted above,
this irregularity is not evident to the dreamer. It is only in reflecting on dreams while awake that
due notice is taken of this feature. Moreover, the choices within dreams do often have a
narrowly targeted content in that the choice is often made with a very specific end in view. So
the spouse who chooses to sleep with another within a dream is often choosing a very specific
other. The fact that this other may later change identities in the dream does not alter the targeted
nature of the initial choice.
3.223. The no prior deliberation explanation.
This response to the moral argument, in our judgment, is the most viable of the three. It
begins by pointing out that a morally responsible act requires more than the making of a choice
that is not causally determined. For a free act in this minimalist sense to rise to the level of
moral responsibility, it must be accompanied by certain other cognitive abilities, including the
ability to accurately perceive one’s environment and the ability to engage in controlled
deliberation over possible courses of action. A person in the grips of a schizophrenic
hallucination might still be alleged to make free choices; however, the choices are not morally
accountable because the person’s ability to accurately process information about her or his
environment is significantly compromised. A very young child might be believed to make free
choices for which he is not morally accountable since his capacity to engage in controlled
deliberation over possible courses of action is significantly undeveloped. Similarly, a dreamer
might be alleged to make free choices for which she is not morally accountable because being in
a dream state typically involves lacking a cognitive capacity that is necessary for full moral
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responsibility. Specifically, it might be alleged that one’s capacity to engage in controlled
deliberation over possible courses of action is diminished within a dream and that this, and not
DNF, is the reason we do not hold dreamers morally accountable for their choices.
This explanation for the intuition that dreamers ought not to be held accountable for their
choices is, we submit, at least as plausible as the suggestion that choices within dreams are all
causally determined; thus, the inapplicability of moral responsibility to dreamt choices does not,
without some further argument, further support DNF.
3.23. Conclusion Concerning DNF.
Based on the shortcomings of possible defenses of DNF we considered, we conclude that
DNF is not warranted. This is, of course, an argument by elimination and thus subject to the
limitations of such strategies that were so eloquently pointed out by David Hume:
[A] man is guilty of unpardonable arrogance, who concludes, because an argument has
escaped his own investigation, that therefore it does not really exist. I must also confess,
that, though all the learned, for several ages, should have employed themselves in
fruitless search upon any subject, it may still, perhaps, be rash to conclude positively, that
the subject must, therefore, pass all human comprehension. Even though we examine all
the sources of our knowledge, and conclude them unfit for such a subject, there may still
remain a suspicion, that the enumeration is not complete, or the examination not
accurate.25
25
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Eric Steinberg (Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1977) , section IV, p. 25.
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Keeping Hume’s warning in mind and thus being open to justifications that didn’t occur to us,
we conclude that DNF is not warranted.
3.3. The inference from 3) to 4).
In evaluating the inference from 3) to 4), it is important to note that it has a very limited
scope. It is a response to a specific type of argument – that based on an appeal to introspective
experience -- for freedom. It is not an argument against the possibility or existence of free will.
It is only designed to counteract the prima facie weight that would otherwise be accorded to the
introspective experience of a choice as free. With this in mind, we can now turn to evaluating
the inference from 3) to 4).
To justify the inference from 3) to 4), we propose the following general principle: when
the introspective experience of A and B feel the same and our introspective experience of A
portrays it as having a characteristic, f, that it is in fact known to lack, then it follows that B’s
apparent possession of this characteristic in our introspective experience provides no grounds for
believing B has this characteristic; provided that the following conditions are met: a) there is not
a majority of cases of experiences qualitatively the same as the experiences of A and B but for
which the portrayal of property f is independently known to be veridical and b) we are aware of
no reason for trusting our experience of the presence of f in the case of B that is not equally
applicable to A. What the first condition rules out are cases in which the apparent possession of
characteristic f is known to be veridical more often than not and thus it would still make sense to
trust the experience of f in cases where the actual presence of f is otherwise indeterminate with
respect to what we know. What the second condition rules out is any case where the experience
of B takes place under conditions where the conditions are positively correlated with the
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veridicality of an experience of B having f and these conditions are in effect for A. If the
experience of B occurs on a Tuesday, for instance, and it is known that experiences qualitatively
similar to B that occur on Tuesday’s only portray f if f is in fact the case, and that none of the
instances of A occurred on Tuesday, then the experience of B as having f is grounds for believing
that B does in fact have f.
Applying this general principle of inference to the specific inference from 3) to 4), we
have “free” as the characteristic f and dreamt choices and waking choices as A and B
respectively. It is clear that premise 3) satisfies the antecedent to the principle; however, it is not
as obvious that neither of the exclusionary principles, a) and b) above, is in play. With respect to
a), we will stipulate that there are no compelling arguments to establish that a majority of cases
of the experience of the freedom of choice are veridical. This is not to say that we are convinced
that there are no legitimate arguments for the actual freedom of a majority of cases in which
human beings experience their choices as free; rather, it is only to note that there are none
uncontroversial enough to be dealt with in a subsection of a paper. With respect to exclusionary
principle b), however, it might be thought that a compelling case could be made for believing
that the inference we are making in fact is excluded by this condition. It might be said, simply,
that experiences while awake are generally known to have a much higher degree of reliability
than experiences had within dreams; thus, the inference from 3) to 4) does not go through. As
we explain immediately below, however, this natural objection is not decisive in this case.
With respect to the experience of external, physical objects, it is certainly true that
conditions of wakefulness will have a much greater tendency to veridicality than experiences had
within a dream; however, it is not as clear that this is the case with respect to the experience of
“psychological” events and states within a dream. It is not clear that dreaming that one is
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experiencing an emotion, such as anger, or a desire, such as hunger, or a mental act, such as a
choice, is any less reliable when had within a dream as opposed to while one is awake. Thus,
having stipulated that there are no independent arguments for the actual freedom of a majority of
cases in which human beings experience their choices as free, we find no substantial grounds for
objecting to the inference from 3) to 4).
4. Conclusion.
Our conclusion is twofold. First, we conclude that Spinoza’s Dream Argument as stated
herein fails. While we found no substantial grounds for objecting to the final inference of the
argument, the argument’s key premises, PE and DNF, face serious challenges. The psychological
claim in PE runs afoul of our experimental evidence, and our critical survey of possible
justifications of DNF found them all wanting. This does not, of course, mean that introspective
arguments for freedom are therefore successful; however, it does mean that advocates of
introspective arguments for freedom need not be troubled by the challenge posed by Spinoza’s
Dream Argument.
Second, and despite our negative verdict on its viability, we believe that Spinoza’s Dream
Argument merits further study. It taps a significant and complex strategy for challenging the
force of appeals to introspection, and the issues it raises cannot all be handled adequately within
a single paper.