Daniel Dennett: Stop Telling People They Don’t Have Free Will

Philosopher Daniel Dennett takes issue with neuroscientists who say that neuroscience shows that humans don’t have free will. In this video, Dennett demonstrates an intuition pump (or thought experiment) featuring a “nefarious neurosurgeon“ who lies to a patient with obsessive compulsive disorder. Dennett argues that telling people that free will is an illusion makes them less concerned about the negative implications of their actions. For the full playlist go to : Follow Big Think here: YouTube: Facebook: Twitter: Transcript - Daniel Dennett: Well, let me trot out one of my recent favorites which I devised to jangle the nerves of neuroscientists who’ve been going around saying that neuroscience shows that we don’t have free will. I think their reasons for saying that are ill considered and moreover that what they