Department: Philosophy
Description: Examination of fundamental issues in moral philosophy, e.g., possibility of moral knowledge, justification of value judgments, nature of moral responsibility.
Credit Hours: 3
Prerequisites: PHI 232
Graduate Level Course: This course is approved for graduate credit
Meeting Times:
Instructor: Daniel Breyer
Class Notes: Course Title: Free Will Skepticism Course Description: What is free will? How would you define it? Do you think you have it? Do you think having free will is important? What if you discovered, after considering all the arguments and all the evidence, that free will is actually an illusion? Would that change the way you live your life? In this course, you’ll consider questions like these as you explore the contemporary free will debate, with an emphasis on “free will skepticism,” the view that no one is sufficiently free to count as morally responsible. You’ll start the course by considering recent work on the nature and significance of free will. You’ll then examine a variety of skeptical challenges to the existence and importance of free will (from philosophers like Galen Strawson and Derk Pereboom, as well as scientists like Robert Sapolsky), before investigating what life would look like without free will: What would society look like if we took the notion that free will is an illusion seriously? What would your life look like? Would life without free will be better, or worse? In the final analysis, is free will skepticism a viable way of life, or is it an existential dead-end? Along the way, you’ll consider responses to free will skepticism by philosophers like Myisha Cherry, Michael McKenna, Carolina Sartorio, Robert Kane, and Angela Smith. And you’ll end the course by considering Professor Breyer’s own work (published and in-progress) on the possibility of marking a middle way between traditional and skeptical positions on free will.
Textbooks are not required for this section.