Philosophy For Our Times

An individual "is responsible for everything he does," claimed Sartre. And from criminal justice to creative expression, free will and responsibility are central to our culture and our personal lives. Yet neuroscientists and materialist thinkers commonly maintain that freedom is an illusion. And it remains unknown how the core principles of freedom and responsibility can be reconciled with this outlook. Many attempts have been made to argue that the two seemingly contradictory frameworks can be made compatible. But critics say these "compatibilist" arguments are unconvincing and are driven merely by the attempt to make scientific materialism acceptable. Furthermore, whilst surveys suggest most materialist philosophers believe we can reconcile the two, the majority of us reject the idea that an action can be both determined and free.Paul Bloom is a Canadian-American psychologist, bestselling author, and celebrated speaker. He is Professor Emeritus at Yale and a professor at the University of Toronto. Bloom’s w