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 argue 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.
Must we conclude the materialist scientific account of the world is flawed? Or do we need to give up free will, and, like Taoist culture, see action as arising from the interconnectedness of all things? Or is there a way to maintain both that doesn't leave us feeling that we have been bamboozled into accepting the contradictory and impossible?
Philosopher Lucy Allais, psychologist Paul Bloom and neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky debate free will.