Mock Class: Free Will - What Is It? Do We Have It?

David Denby, Distinguished Senior Lecturer of Philosophy

Free will makes you a person. Without it, you are not morally responsible for your actions, and the projects and commitments that your actions express and that give your life meaning would not really be yours at all. On the other hand, it is a fundamental presupposition of science, everyday thought, and perhaps rationality itself that every event has a cause. The problem is that universal causation seems to be incompatible with freewill. Being a person means acting freely; an intelligible world in which rational action is possible means universal causation, but we can’t have it both ways!