Humans – members of the biological species homo sapiens – are products of evolution. Therefore, if we have free will, it is plausible to assume that our free will is also a product of evolution. But do we actually have free will? Is it – at least sometimes – up to us what we decide to do? Strikingly, philosophers have long ignored biology when it comes to answering these questions. Instead, they have quibbled about whether and how free will might fit into a supposedly deterministic universe as studied by (classical) physics. Only recently has the debate about free will begun to open up to biological considerations – so far, however, mostly with sceptical results. We are told that it is not we but our brains that decide what we want and how we act, or that our genes determine our decisions, or other biological factors beyond our control.
In this Young Academy Distinguished Lecture, Alfred R. Mele, Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University, and Anne Sophie Meincke, member of the Young Academy and philosopher at the University of Vienna, will take an overdue fresh look at the relationship between free will and biology: Can biology help us understand and perhaps even defend free will? If so, how? If not, why not? To make progress here, it is necessary to critically analyse the arguments put forward against free will in the name of biology. Do these sceptical arguments really show what they claim to show? If not, then there is room to explore what constructive role biology could play in an attempt to defend free will against scepticism. Perhaps the common conception of a biological organism as some kind of deterministic machine is not accurate after all? How should we understand organisms instead? What biological function could free will serve? Taking evolution seriously also suggests considering the possibility that free will may not be a privilege of human organisms.
First Lecture: Alfred R. Mele: "Free Will and Neurobiology"
Second Lecture: Anne Sophie Meincke: "Free Will Is Real and Biology Helps Us Understand Why"
The Young Academy Distinguished Lecture Series brings cutting-edge scientific topics to the public, presented by distinguished experts and members of the Young Academy. The present two lectures kick off the interdisciplinary conference "Free Will: New Perspectives from Philosophy, Biology and Neuroscience", organised by Anne Sophie Meincke and taking place at the Austrian Academy of Sciences on 11 and 12 June 2025.
More information (including the programme with abstracts of the lectures) is to be found at www.oeaw.ac.at/detail/veranstaltung/willensfreiheit-und-biologie.
To attend in person, please register free of charge via www.oeaw.ac.at/veranstaltungen/anmeldung/young-academy-distinguished-lecture-series.
On-site childcare is available upon request.
Or follow the event via live stream at www.oeaw.ac.at/veranstaltungen/live.
Young Academy Distinguished Lecture: Can Biology Help Us Defend Free Will? An Emerging Debate in Philosophy
