Al Mele
William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor
I’m from Michigan. I got my B.A. in Detroit, at Wayne State University, and my Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. I taught at Davidson College in North Carolina for 21 years before joining the faculty at FSU in 2000.
When did you first become interested in philosophy and the concept of free will?
I first became interested in philosophy as an undergraduate. A course I took on ancient Greek philosophy — mainly Plato and Aristotle — is what clinched it for me. I saw two brilliant minds trying to figure out just about everything they could imagine understanding, and I was hooked.
I didn’t develop a serious interest in free will until much later, when I was in my early 40s. Until then, it seemed to me that work on the issue had stagnated and that progress was unlikely. I had been working on various issues involved in explaining human behavior. For example, why do students sometimes cave in to temptation and play a video game instead of doing the work they believe they should be doing then? And why do they sometimes overcome the temptation and do the work instead of playing? To make a long story short, I thought I’d take a shot at building a bridge from what I had been writing about to free will. This resulted in my third book, “Autonomous Agents: From Self-Control to Autonomy,” published in 1995 by Oxford University Press.
What are your current research interests, and what makes you passionate about them?
I continue to work on several related projects simultaneously. Just today, I finished writing chapter abstracts for a book of mine that Oxford University Press will publish early next year. The title is “Manipulated Agents: A Window to Moral Responsibility.” The book’s guiding question is this: What can we learn about the nature of moral responsibility from reflection on various thought experiments that I cook up? Moral responsibility is related to free will, and I continue to write about free will.
My work on that topic has two strands: There’s a purely theoretical strand, and there’s a strand featuring scientific work that bears on free will — especially work in neuroscience. Predictably, the two strands sometimes are woven together. I also continue to write about self-deception and various issues involved in the general project of explaining human actions — for example, motivation, self-control and intentions. If I’m passionate about these issues, that’s because I find human behavior fascinating.
What do you want the public to know about your research? Why is your topic important?
A lot of my work definitely is not for mass consumption. I usually write for experts on my topics and for people who want to be experts — for example, the experts’ graduate students. But I did write a book for a general audience — “Free: Why Science Hasn’t Disproved Free Will.”
Many people have encountered the news that free will is an illusion and that some experiment or other in neuroscience has proved this. Some people find this news disturbing — deeply disturbing, in some cases. This book is an antidote. It explains the main experiments mentioned in the news and explains why they do not close the door on free will.
So, you might ask, does free will exist? (I hear this question a lot.) Well, that depends on what you mean by “free will.” I like to give readers two different ways of understanding free will. Neither is in any way supernatural, but one is more demanding than the other. For people who are happy with the less demanding conception, my answer is a confident yes. For those who favor the more demanding conception, I say maybe.
Who are your role models? Who has influenced you most in your life?
My role model is my father, who is doing well at the age of 94. He has always lived up to his own high standards. He also is the person who has influenced me the most. When I think back on the things he spent the most time teaching my sister, my three brothers, and me, I find that they are at the center of my life: the importance of family and the value of hard work. He also emphasized the importance of having a job that you enjoy, given how many hours people spend working in a lifetime. Luckily, I found a line of work that I enjoy very much. I’d like to add that my mother was wonderful too; she passed away long ago.
What brought you to Florida State University? Why do you enjoy working at FSU?
What brought me to FSU was a great position to occupy, the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Chair in Philosophy, and the opportunity to be involved in building an excellent philosophy department. FSU is a great place to work. Good research and teaching are valued, people are friendly, students are bright, and there’s lots of sunshine. I especially appreciated the Research Foundation’s efforts in helping me manage some $9 million in grant money during a pair of projects I directed: “Big Questions in Free Will” and “The Philosophy and Science of Self-Control.” The good people there were a pleasure to work with.
What is your favorite part of your job?
I enjoy both teaching and research. My favorite thing about my job is the particular mixture of both that it involves. Because I had back-to-back, multi-year major grants that required me to do significant administrative work, my teaching load was restricted to graduate teaching for quite a few years. I’m looking forward to teaching undergraduates again next spring.
What is the most challenging part of your job?
There are challenges that one enjoys facing and challenges that one would prefer to avoid. I’m treating this as a question about challenges of the former kind. I think of philosophical work as problem solving of a certain kind. The problem challenges you to come up with a solution. The harder the problem, the bigger the challenge. The most challenging part of my job is writing articles and books that solve hard philosophical problems.
How do you like to spend your free time?
Spending time with family and friends is great. I enjoy shooting pool. When I recover from a foot injury, I’ll enjoy playing racquetball again too. My wife and I like watching movies and some HBO series.
If your students only learned one thing from you (of course hopefully they learn much more than that), what would you hope it to be?
If doing something is important to you, it’s important to do it well.
