Free Will (the Forum)

Is everything we do the product of unconscious brain processes that are beyond our control? If so, what happens to moral and criminal responsibility if a defendant can always argue, ‘my brain made me do it’? And if free will does exist, could other animals possess it too? We bring together a philosopher, a psychiatrist, and a neuroscientist to discuss what recent research into the brain might mean for our understanding of free will.

Speakers
Matthew Broome, Chair in Psychiatry and Youth Mental Health, University of Birmingham
Nura Sidarus, Postdoctoral Researcher in Cognitive Science, Institut Jean Nicod, Ecole Normale Supérieure

Chair
Jonathan Birch, Fellow, the Forum; Assistant Professor of Philosophy, LSE

In conjunction with the British Society for the Philosophy of Science