Please join for the 1st Philosophy Colloquium Series talk, “Believing in Free Will: A Philosophical / Psychological Investigation” by Thomas Nadelhoffer, Assistant Professor at the College of Charleston. This will take place Thursday, November 8th at 3:15pm in ECTR 113.
Abstract: Recently, psychologists and experimental philosophers have become increasingly interested in people’s intuitions about free will. However, the goal of this empirical research is not to explore whether humans actually have free will, metaphysically speaking; rather, the goal is to explore the instrumental value of believing in free will. After all, regardless of whether we have free will, believing that we do could nevertheless be interpersonally and personally beneficial. During this talk, I will situate my own research on this front within the broader project of trying to understand how people think about free will. I will also argue that my latest findings suggest that there may be a dark side to believing in free will–which is an issue that calls out for further investigation.
