Browsing All posts tagged under »Free Will«

CFP: Does Free Will Require Alternative Possibilities?

May 11, 2016 by

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Here is a call for papers for an upcoming conference on free will. You can find the original CFP here. The deadline is fast approaching! Blasco Disputatio is a yearly workshop designed to promote the discussion on topics in epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language. Each edition of this workshop focuses on […]

Is Dennett rethinking free will?

April 4, 2014 by

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Coyne seems to be adopting agnosticism with regards to free will. This is far from FW skepticism. Maybe Dennett is right to call him a “closet compatibilist”. I look forward to reading Dennett’s critique. Why Evolution Is True Reader Jiten called my attention to this post by Gregg Caruso on Flickers of Freedom about Dan […]

CFP: Free Will (University of Michigan-Flint)

February 26, 2014 by

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Details “Mankind has a free will; but it is free to milk cows and to build houses, nothing more.” — Martin Luther “[M]en believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.” ― Baruch Spinoza We have an intuitive sense of ourselves as […]

Sam Harris Still Needs to Read More Philosophy

February 12, 2014 by

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In a scathing review of Sam Harris’ pamphlet Free Will , Daniel Dennett rightfully calls out Harris for some obvious missteps that Harris has taken (once again).  Harris responds here. Though I am more aligned with incompatibilism these days, Harris again makes some serious missteps in his response. First, he forwards his compatibilist thesis with regards to […]

30 Views on Free Will

February 5, 2014 by

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Anyone trying to get caught up to date with the contemporary views in the free will debate will do well to visit this site (see here). This is the newest issue of Methode, and they interviewed 30 philosophers working on free will. Each philosopher, the line-up is impressive, was asked the same series of questions […]

Romantic Dysfunction, BPD, and Moral Responsibility

January 22, 2014 by

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It is commonly argued that for one to be morally responsible, one must have control over one’s actions (see here for a run-down on arguments for that claim). Now, one does not generally concede that a person is moral pariah simply because the person is in the deepest stages of love, even if we do tend to […]

Book Release: Free Will and Moral Responsibility

November 4, 2013 by

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It brings me great pleasure to announce the release of my first edited volume, Free Will and Moral Responsibility (co-edited with Ish Haji).  For those interested in purchasing the book here is a link to amazon and here is the publisher’s press release. Below you can find a summary to the book. “Determinism is, roughly, the […]

A Dilemma Concerning Moral Obligation

November 4, 2013 by

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There seems to be a dilemma that has not been addressed much in the literature (a dilemma I have hinted at in the past) that concerns freedom and the deontic appraisals of moral obligation, right, and wrong. The dilemma arises when we combine the hard incompatibilist stance regarding the truth of two doctrines coupled with […]

Free Will and Love

October 4, 2013 by

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I have argued in the past that Sam Harris needs to read more philosophy. I have said this because Harris, in his book “Free Will“, failed to respond to compatibilist criticisms to the view he was arguing for, criticisms that have been around for quite some time. Harris’ arguments  attempt to prove the thesis that […]

Hard Incompatibilism and Ethics: Some Concerns

July 1, 2013 by

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If we think that ethics is supposed to tell us what we ought to do (this is the common understanding of ethics see here), and, if our conception of right and wrong is derived from our sense of moral obligation then the thesis of hard incompatibilism poses a serious threat to any ethical system that incorporates […]

The Importance of Free Will

June 29, 2013 by

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For those who think that a belief in free will is not that important I refer you to this excellent piece by Rebbeca Roach. I further some of the issues raised by Roach and will be posting on it soon, as soon as I get a draft of my candidacy complete which also happens to […]

The ‘Free Will Problem’

August 13, 2012 by

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The purpose of this post is simple; to navigate through some of the different positions one could take regarding the ‘problem of free will‘. I’ve been asked by some to go over the basics, so, here it goes. I’ll define the major terms internal to the debate  to give readers a bit more context and […]

Neuroscience and Free Will: New study debunks Libet’s interpretation

August 10, 2012 by

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The interconnection of neuroscience and free will has many researchers trying to make bold claims about their findings. In my last post I called Sam Harris’ conclusion that “free will is an illusion” into question. Specifically, I suggested that there were competing interpretations that could be made from the data that neuroscientist Benjamin Libet was […]

Free Will: Why Sam Harris needs to read more Philosophy

July 29, 2012 by

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In his book ‘Free Will’ (2012) Sam Harris offers up the conclusion that “free will is an illusion”. I can’t say that I’m surprised given the fact that  many neuroscientists have offered up similar responses to the free will problem (Libet 83′, 99′, 01′, 03′, among others) . But, falling in line with Libet and other neuroscientists […]

James Holmes: How his case can shed light on discussions of Moral Responsibility.

July 24, 2012 by

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In a recent blog post in Scientific American the author, Larry Geenemeier, suggests that the accused Colorado Shooter was lacking cognitive control and points specifically to one’s cognitive ability in order to try to make sense of the actions in Aurora, Colorado and other recent events by similarly profiled assailants. Though I agree that we […]

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EDITORS: Alison McConwell; Justin Caouette; Aaron Thomas-Bolduc.

FOUNDING EDITOR: Justin Caouette

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