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3. Understanding Free Will

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About this Lecture

Lecture

In this lecture, we think about free will in some more detail, focusing in particular on: (i) the fact that, in psychology, free will is actually more akin to soft determinism than complete free will: (ii) agent causation and its proposal that, as humans can rationally and irrationally work against natural laws, they have free will at least to some extent; (iii) the difficulty in scientifically examining the existence and role of free will; (iv) the idea that subjective free will means that, because humans believe they have free will, then they have it; (v) the strengths and weaknesses of theories which propose the existence of free will.

Course

In this course, Dr Ayoub Bouguettaya (University of Birmingham) explores psychological approaches with a focus on their philosophical bases. In the first lecture, we think about different philosophical views of psychological approaches, specifically free will, determinism, holism, and reductionism. In the second lecture, we think about the free will vs determinism debate, with a specific focus on the determinism aspect. In the third lecture, we think about free will in some more detail, considering whether it can be shown to exist or not exist. Next, we think about the holism vs reductionism debate and their two perspectives on whether objects and outcomes are a sum of their parts. In the fifth and final lecture, we think about some conclusions and controversies in this field, including an explanation for the verdict of guilt for each of the four individuals given in lecture one.

Lecturer

Dr Ayoub Bouguettaya is a lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham. Dr Bouguettaya’s research interests are in social psychology and how knowledge from that field can be applied to others, particularly health, including how we can apply social identity theory to societal problems, as well as investigating the different perspectives one might take on those issues. Some of Dr Bouguettaya’s recent publications include 'The relationship between gambling advertising and gambling attitudes, intentions and behaviours: a critical and meta-analytic review' (2020) and 'The Effect of a Food Addiction Explanation Model for Weight Control and Obesity on Weight Stigma' (2020).