I think that at some level, we might have a basic conflict the minute we start talking about the sources, the causes of human behavior. But so, so, so I think that's definitely the pull and it has a lot of intuitive plausibility. This is why you're capturing probably better than I did. Why I was a skeptic because I thought in the end that luck, it all comes down to luck how you are. You don't have any control over your heredity. And then those things together determine exactly how you are going to shape your care,. How you're going to shapeYour character, how you're Going To Shape Your Future experiences.
Dave and Tamler start out talking about the new wave of skepticism about free will and moral responsibility in the popular press from people like Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne.
Neuroscience figures heavily in their arguments, but Dave and Tamler agree that neuroscientific data adds little of substance to the case other than telling us what we already know: human beings are natural biological entities. Dave also accuses Tamler of being a hipster philosopher for abandoning a view once it got popular.
Next, we talk about what kind freedom we need to have in order to deserve blame and punishment. Do we need to create ourselves out of the swamps of nothingness? Dave comes out as a Star Trek nerd and asks whether we're all, in the end, like Data the android. They also wonder whether a belief in free will is all that's keeping us from having sex with our dogs.
Finally, Dave grills Tamler about his new book on the differences in attitudes about free will and moral responsibility across cultures. After seeing how long they've been carrying on, they then agree to talk about all the stuff they left out in the next episode.
Links
Coyne, J. “Why You Don’t Really Have Free Will.”
Sam Harris. “Free Will.”
Eddy Nahmias. "Is Neuroscience the Death of Free Will?"
Galen Strawson "Luck Swallows Everything."
Support Very Bad Wizards