Free Will, Moral Responsibility, And Social Justice w/ Manuel Vargas

Hello, everybody! I finish this week with an interview with Dr. Manuel Vargas. He is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at UC San Diego, where he teaches classes on various topics, including ethics, the history of Mexican philosophy, and whatever it is he’s thinking about with respect to agency, moral psychology, and sociality.

In this episode, we focus on free will, moral responsibility, and the legal system. We first discuss what free will is about, and how we can determine if it exists. We also consider the degree to which we should take folk intuitions about free will seriously. We talk about how we can move from knowledge about people’s blameworthiness to deciding how to punish them. We then discuss social justice, and much weight we should attribute to the environmental conditions people live in, when judging them. Finally, we talk about the concept of history, and its importance for moral responsibility, and the role of moral luck.

https://youtu.be/ZgNa4ZsP2Ho

Link to podcast version (Anchor): http://bit.ly/37WzEpQ