Tutorial: Free Will

Tutorial taught by grad student. Enrollment limited to 10. Do we have free will? What, exactly, does 'free will' refer to? Does it refer to the ability to do otherwise, holding fixed the facts? That one is the source of one's behavior? Does it refer to something else? Why does it matter whether or not we have 'free will'? In turn, what kind or kinds of control over our conduct should we be interested in, and why? One reason questions about free will matter is that some sort of freedom or control seems to be required in order to fairly hold people responsible for how they have behaved -- for praise and blame, rewards and punishments, etc. In that case, is 'free will' simply whatever sort of control over our conduct would make sense of holding one another, and ourselves, responsible? Or, rather, do we have an independent conception of 'free will' that props up our practices of holding one another responsible, such that if it turns out that we don't have 'free will,' no one is ever really responsible for their behavior? In this tutorial we will explore these and related questions, focusing on developments in these debates in approximately the past 50 years.