“Mattering and Mechanism: Why Mechanism Undermines Meaning in Life, and What (Philosophically) We Might Do about It”
Presentation
Overview
Overview
Description
What we want, when we want free will, is a life that matters, one which has a point and purpose. A life has point and purpose if the events in that life can be explained fully and fundamentally in intentional terms. Intentional explanations cannot be reduced to causal explanations, and they are undercut when causal explanations are full and fundamental. Consequently, what we want when we want free will is incompatible with causal explanations being considered full and fundamental explanations of events. Since the primacy of causal over intentional explanation is a legacy of the Scientific Revolution, this poses a problem.
