Just discovered this (via Eleanor Anstruther’s 8 Questions). This articulates well what I think is becoming a popular position on the free will debate.

I’m still not sold. I feel that the current neuroscience angle gets too tied up in, well, neuroscience. It misses the bigger picture, and conflates an argument for “will” as an argument for “free will”.

I talked about free will and consciousness in a series of articles (4 of them) starting here: fictionalaether.substac…

Mostly talked about Erik Hoel’s recent book, but in the third part (fictionalaether.substac…) I try to argue against the “agency” view of free will.

In particular, one way to see the problem with talking about free will as Tommy Blanchard does here, is to ask what would happen to it if we discovered (as we might) how the brain and consciousness really works, and learn how to control people’s decisions? The main point being that we need a lot more scientific understanding to say anything definitive about these things — which is why non-experts like us can talk about them just as usefully (or more likely uselessly) as expert philosophers, neuroscientists, and anyone else.