Join an affordable one-month online course in August, where I’ll teach and discuss the philosophy of free will, including the scientific facts relating to it, the legal evidence relating to it, the medical ethics relating to it, and more. Let others know, too! Anyone you know who might be interested. This is one of the ways I support my work in history and philosophy. And it’s useful. And fun!
This is your chance to ask a published philosopher and historian of philosophy all the questions you have about the subject, and also to become more informed about it and how to discuss it with others, as well as just hone and exercise your philosophical mind in general, on an important subject in law, morality, and life. A better understanding of this subject will benefit your personal life, your political thought, your attitudes toward prison reform, your understanding of consent and personal autonomy, and a great deal else.
The course begins next month (in roughly two weeks). It requires buying only one small, affordable textbook (Sam Harris’s Free Will, print or electronic). All other materials will be provided. The approach to Harris will be critical, but constructive, and backed with further materials showing the actual application of free will as a concept in the real world, not just in the ivory tower.
Among things covered will be:
The most relevant elements of brain science, common fallacies in reasoning about free will, and the real-world application of the analysis of free will in diverse fields, from law to medical ethics. We will discuss the varieties of free will and the differences among them; identify causes and the role of personal identity in making decisions (and what the latest brain science has to say about both); the nature and purpose of assigning responsibility to personal agents (in law, ethics, and daily life); the difference between determinism and fatalism; and the importance of addressing both personal and genetic-environmental causes of decisions when thinking about social, political, legal, and moral systems.
Specific reading and discussion goals are set for every week, completing four units in four weeks, but within that framework you can participate in every element on your own time, and as much or as little as you want. There are no live events to be missed. Log in and participate anytime day or night, 24/7, throughout the month.
And by the way, I teach a different course every month online. As do a few others. So in case any future course covers a topic you are keen to learn more about, you might want to follow PSA (Partners for Secular Activism) on twitter and facebook.
I’m very interested, and as a coincidence, I already bought Sam’s book 2 weeks ago! How do I sign up and pay?
Good question! The link for that didn’t publish for some reason. So I’ve put it back in. But directly, it’s:
http://secularactivism.org/?p=732
I might be interested Richard. There doesn’t seem to be a additional link to register and whatnot.
Thanks! Links restored. Something went wrong in the publishing process. But all fixed now.
I don’t know if you’ve seen this but there appears to be some interesting developments in this area. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-06-consciousness-believed-theory.html
That is another example of something that will come up in the course: scientists, often being lousy philosophers, irrationally confuse the self with the awareness of the self. Thus that article confuses “consciousness of me” with “me” and thus confuses “what I, as a person with rational faculties reasoned out to do” with “my consciousness of that,” which is “the model subsequently built to report back on what I did” and not the actual person making the decision. Creating a false dichotomy in result, you can come up with false theories like that “I did not decide to do x because I only became aware that I decided to do x a fifth of a second after I decided to do x.” More in the course. And full discussion can ensue there.