Folk Intuitions About Human Nature Among Nonreductive Physicalist Christians

Recent work at the intersection of social psychology and experimental philosophy has examined folk intuitions or lay beliefs about a number of philosophical issues, including free will. These discussions are important, because they take place in the context of the popularization of a particularly reductionist form of physicalism—one that restricts free will and conscious experience to mere convenient illusions. A few studies and commentators have gone so far as to suggest that while we (the notionally unified cognitive scientists and philosophers) might ‘know’ that there is no real agentive consciousness or free will, we should not tell anyone else, as morality may suffer in the face of a putative illusory subjective experience. On the other hand, rather than primitive and limited notions, social psychology and experimental philosophy paint a picture of rich folk intuitions that—at least in some cases—are at ease with complex tensions. What of Christians who as a group espouse a doctrine of nonreductive physicalism in contrast to a popularized reductive physicalism and a normative Christian dualism? I will report on some recent work characterizing folk intuitions among physicalist Christians.