On Sunday, Seth Andrews, aka “The Thinking Atheist” emailed me that he was doing a show on “Blame,” and that he wanted to include my take on free will and its relationship to blame and responsibility. He said that he needed my participation that day, and so I responded, “Let’s just do it now.” So I did.
You can hear Seth’s podcast here, and he tells me I come in about the 18 minute mark (Seth’s introduction begins at about 14:50). I haven’t listened to it (I have an aversion to hearing myself), but regular readers will already know my views about free will, the determinism of behavior, and the implications of determinism on both moral responsibility and the way that society both praises achievers and punishes offenders.
“I have an aversion to hearing myself.”
Just as long as you don’t blame yourself.
Ba-dum-bump!
Cool, I always enjoy listening to your discussions Prof CC.
I didn’t know until your conversation with Sam Harris that you were getting close to retirement, and will be able to devote time more easily to all these fascinating discussions. I hope you continue writing about scientific issues, at least on your web sit. Also, as a reader/supporter I am most enthusiastic about your stance on the conflict between religious faith and science.
It’s great to see someone hammering away on that one instead of the mushy accommodationism that usually fills that void.
Good to see Prof CC is becoming ever closer to omni-present on the web 🙂
Just a quick note:
Seth Andrews does not want to be known as “The Thinking Atheist”. The “thinking atheist” is a goal or an ideal. The idea is that we should all be “thinking atheists”. So while the podcast is called “The Thinking Atheist”, do not construe that as an alias for Seth Andrews himself.
Duly noted, thanks. He never told me that.
Me too, but I have to do it sometimes. What I do is simply pretend that I’m listening to someone else.
I know, sounds dumb, but it works!
Really? When I hear myself and pretend it’s someone else, I simply think: “Wow, he’s just as incoherent as I am.”
I think that our belief in free will is being undermined by new scientific findings from various fields of study in a similar way religious “truths” have been for many years already.
Consider for example the fact that “childhood neglect erodes the brain,” and that “the affected brain regions include nerve bundles that support attention, general cognition, and emotion processing.“
http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2015/01/childhood-neglect-erodes-brain
Or that, as we can learn from the recent issue of Scientific American, a teenager’s brain is more prone to risky behavior, as “the limbic system, which drives emotions, intensifies at puberty, but the prefrontal cortex, which controls impulses, does not mature until the 20s.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/risky-teen-behavior-is-driven-by-an-imbalance-in-brain-development/
Or the influence of testosterone on our behavior. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/increasing-testosterone-use-raises-safety-concerns/
In other words, the more we learn about the mechanics of our behavior, the less room there is for the notion of our will being free from all the neurological/biological/chemical/environmental influences.
I listened to it and enjoyed it. One person listening to it with me made a bit of a face at the final comment, but c’est la vie.
I found the back and forth with Seth brought out some points I haven’t read here before. He seems to be a great interviewer.
Seth has an intriguing back story. He was a Christian radio host for many years. His youtube videos are superb. My favourite is “welcome to this world”. If you value his efforts please consider giving support at Patreon.
That episode was one of the best podcast episodes from any podcast that I’ve heard in a while.
Prof. Ceiling Cat,
Your contribution to Seth’s radio show deserves praise. 😉 You mentioned that Dan Dennett thinks at any one moment, you can only do one thing. Here’s something relevant that he wrote (<a href="https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/I%20Could%20not%20have%20Done%20Otherwise–So%20What%20-%20Daniel%20Dennett.pdf"source):
As usual, Dennett hits the nail on the head.
If we define “could have done otherwise” by the thought-experiment of rewinding the tape of the universe as you have, then if quantum uncertainties in the brain propagate up to macroscopic levels, it follows that people could have done otherwise, since, in some of those rewinds, they would do otherwise. That wouldn’t be interesting, though, as you yourself have pointed out on different occasions. So that is the wrong way to understand “could have done otherwise” in connection with blame.