What makes you… you?
NINE TO NOON – RADIO NEW ZEALAND, 12 APRIL. Interviewed by Kathryn Ryan ahead of my appearance at the Auckland Writers[…]
ReadTag: Free Will
Why the Free Will Debate Never Ends
Many see the compatibilist version of free will as a “watered-down” version of the real thing, as Robert Kane puts it. Others dismiss compatibilist accounts of free will in less temperate terms. For Sam Harris, it amounts to nothing more than the assertion “A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.” Kant called it a “wretched subterfuge,” James a “quagmire of evasion” and Wallace Matson “the most flabbergasting instance of the fallacy of changing the subject to be encountered anywhere in the complete history of sophistry.” For many, the free will which compatibilism offers is never as attractive as what they set out to look for, and so we are caught between settling for what we can get and holding out for the elusive ideal.
ReadFreedom Regained interview
How much personal responsibility do we have for our actions? Does free will truly exist? Drawing on conclusions from his new book, ‘Freedom Regained’, writer Julian Baggini considers these questions with Ali Millar, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
ReadCan we help the way we feel?
Emotions are assumed to be beyond our control, ebbing and flowing in anarchic independence from the rational mind. But if we question the judgments that lie behind our emotions, we will often find that those feelings do, indeed, change. We can help the way we feel, if the way we feel flows from a mistaken judgment that we can correct.
ReadDo lefties lack self-control?
It’s official. “Left-wingers can’t control themselves as well as conservatives.” It’s not the first headline like this appear in the Daily Mail, but this time they have proper scientific research to prove it. This is uncomfortable reading for many on the left, who generally attribute lack of success in life more to social forces than weakness of will. But if you look at the source research more carefully, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a credible progressive response to the conclusions begins to emerge.
Read