Free Will: New Perspectives from Philosophy, Biology and Neuroscience

In everyday life, we naturally assume that it is up to us how we act, and that we are therefore responsible for our actions. However, free will in this strong, ‘libertarian’ sense – involving a choice between alternatives – is increasingly being questioned by philosophers and scientists. While traditional concerns were predicated on the deterministic laws of classical physics, today sceptics also cite biology and neuroscience. We are told that our genes or our brains, not we, decide what we want and how we act.

This conference gathers leading experts in philosophy, biology, and neuroscience who argue the opposite. Cutting-edge research into the biological and neural basis of human and animal agency challenges deterministic assumptions, adding to doubts from quantum physics and pointing to non-reductionist views of agency and action causation. At the same time, recent advances in the philosophy of biology and metaphysics offer new conceptual resources for understanding agency and free will under indeterminism. The conference explores the resulting prospects for a scientifically grounded, ontologically robust concept of ‘libertarian’ free will, breaking new ground in interdisciplinary research on free will.