Blueberry comments on Less Wrong Q&A with Eliezer Yudkowsky: Ask Your Questions - Less Wrong
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I've definitely changed my mind on free will. I used to be an incompatibilist with libertarian leanings. After reading Daniel Dennett's books, I changed my mind and became a compatiblist soft determinist.
Are you a professional philosopher/ were you a professional philosopher when you were an incompatibilist with libertarian leanings? I'd say the vast majority of those untrained in philosophy hold the view you held and the most rational/intelligent of them would change their minds once confronted with a decent compatiblist argument.
Edit: I'm being a little unfair. There are plenty of smart people who disagree with us.
No, I wasn't, and I agree with you. Defending philosophical positions as a career creates a bias where you're less likely to change your mind (see Cialdini's work on congruence: e.g. POWs in communist brainwashing camps who wrote essays on why communism was good were more likely to support communism afer release). But even so, professional philosophers do change their mind once in a while.
Absolutely! I tentatively hold the thesis that professional philosophers even make progress on understanding some issues. But there seem to be a couple positions that professional philosophers rarely sway from once they hold those positions and I think Alicorn is right that metaphysical libertarianism is one of these views.