What Sort of Free Will Are We Supposed to Be Talking About? Who or What Is a Will a Will Of? What Are Praise and Blame / Guilt and Innocence For? What Is Fatalism and Why Is it Bad for You? Challenge yourself by studying these questions with me this January. It will help you with your own worldview and self-understanding, and with combating Christian apologists who try to use bad ideas about “free will” to defend their faith.
This is still my favorite course to teach! Affordable and fascinating. I think everyone should study it. Looking at free will as a subject gets you practiced in studying every aspect of philosophy and with thinking critically like a philosopher.
Studying free will touches on how to construct a credible non-supernatural metaphysics from the findings of the sciences; on semantics and epistemology, and how you can claim to know things, and what it even is you are claiming to know; on politics and law—as conclusions about consent, autonomy, and free will entail fundamental assumptions in those areas; and obviously also in matters of ethics and moral theory, such as in how we judge responsibility and why, and what we can reasonably expect from people, and how they can be manipulated; it even touches on aesthetics, as the lived experience of living with or without freedom is a fundamental component of human happiness—so what is the difference between those feelings, and why do they matter?
So come join me online next week! Registration is now open. And enter coupon code 2277437 to get a discount!
In class we will engage in open discussion in private class forums, after reading an array of key documents, from courts of law, medical ethics boards, philosophy and psychology journals, neuroscience, and beyond. We will interact with, critique, and test the merits of Sam Harris’s book Free Will, which you will need to purchase for the course (print or digital; a digital edition is fine). All the other readings will be provided for free.
It lasts one month. You can participate as much or as little as you like, and on any days and at any times of day you like. Begins January 1. Registration ends January 10. Use this course to pose all the challenges and ask all the questions you ever wanted of an expert on the matter of free will.
- More details on the content of the course, and course registration, are here. That plus the course text are all you need.
Join us and let’s have an interesting and educational discussion about both the science and philosophy of this central concept in Western thought, morality, society, and law! Come away from it knowing a whole lot more than you ever did, much of it fascinating and new.
Our Lancaster, PA Atheist Group met last evening and I conveyed your reports on the “Jesus Mysteries” book to them. They appreciated your frank comments and agree that your book, being peer reviewed, is a better source for them. However they were asking if there is an easier to read and understand form of your book that laypeople, without professional training in the field, could read. “How would you explain the core of your book to children”? We would appreciate any help you can give us this area. Thanks!
I can’t say as to children. But I plan to have a shorter, simpler, pop market version of the book out by the end of 2019. Meanwhile, there are several videos you can find online, of varying kinds, where I explain it in forty minutes. But I don’t know which is best for the purpose.
Dear Dr. Carrier,
I am very honored that you have been willing to exchange with me and our group! We are also pleased that you are planning a more easily read form of your very good book. We will all look forward to that, and perhaps it will make a dent in the Christian understanding of ‘Jesus’ as a real person. You have made a huge contribution to this field, and we appreciate that! Thank you again, very much!
Yours, Elaine Olson
PS: Will you e-mail me when the book comes out?
Thank you!
I will.