June 13, 2010
Skepticism and Free Will
Tom Clark
Tom Clark discusses his skepticism of the concept of free will, which he bases in the naturalistic view of the self resulting from research in the cognitive neurosciences and philosophy. He explores reasons why the skeptics community may be reticent to take on the issue. He explains contra-causal free will, and how it is different than freedom. He talks about the implications of adopting a thorough-going naturalism that advances free will skepticism, and what such a view means for our views of moral responsibility, crime and punishment, and our legal system, and also for the best strategies to advance the skeptical approach to fact claims. And he describes ways that the skeptics community may begin to address the issue of free will more directly.
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Listener Reactions
Yay!! D.J. Grothe is back! I’ve missed your voice and your always insightful interviews and conversations. Great job as usual with this very deep subject. I’m going to listen to it a second time as soon as I finish typing this comment.
Excellent interview! I first encountered Tom Clark as my skeptical inquiry into the idea of free will led me to his naturalism site.
I originally came to the question as a young man making meal deliveries to people with AIDS in San Francisco. At the time I was listening to a lot of awful, conservative talk radio. A longtime liberal, I was somewhat unchallenged and found it intriguing. But I came to be fascinated by the total disconnect between the conservative understanding of society, and the reality of what I was seeing around me. Within a manner of hours, I would be in the ritziest of SF apartment buildings, and then in the sleaziest, most depressed ghettos.
Over many years, I came to realize that the fundamental difference between how liberals and conservatives tend to see the world has to do with how we understand choice and human agency. If the most wretched among us could simply “choose” to do better, then why should we be wasting so much time and money helping them?
What completely sold me on CCFW however, may have been my experience as a parent and educator. Children can’t be expected to have free will, and must be treated as determined creatures - both for moral and practical reasons. Yet as they mature into adults, while their cognitive abilities grow, at what point can they ever be considered to no longer be determined? Looking at psychology, especially at new revelations in brain science, behavioral economics and the vast amount of research that has been done in the social sciences, the inescapable conclusion is that we are completely determined. This hypothesis is predictive, and has been proven again and again.
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I just heard Jamy Ian Swiss on the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe and want to subscribe to your podcast, but I don’t have itunes and link to feed.forgoodreason.org returns an error.
Huzzah! New FGR!