AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
How A Memory Question Led To Free Will Philosophy
- David Palmer recounts how a cognitive psychology class question about 'what it means to remember' led him to study philosophy and focus on free will.
- The episode frames his lifelong project: reconciling our self-picture as choosers with the causal picture of the rest of the world.
Why Non Causalists Say Free Choices Must Be Uncaused
- Non-causal libertarianism begins with the intuition that freely made choices don't seem caused, only guided by reasons, so free actions must be uncaused to be up to the agent.
- Palmer contrasts deterministic causes (rewind yields same choice) and indeterministic causes (rewind yields probabilistic different outcomes) to argue both undermine 'up to me' control.
Three Libertarian Models Explained And Differentiated
- Palmer contrasts event-causal, agent-causal, and non-causal libertarian views: event-causal uses indeterministic psychological events, agent-causal posits substances as causes, non-causal requires actions be uncaused for freedom.
- He clarifies weak vs strong non-causal variants and rejects the stronger view that all actions must be uncaused.