What is Free Will?

The Philosophy of Free Will

In this course, Professor Thomas Pink (King's College, London) explores the philosophical problem of free will. The course begins by thinking about what free will actually is, before going on to ask why free will is actually a problem for philosophers. In the third module, we consider why the problem even matters—what does it matter, that is, whether we have free will or not?—before moving on in the fourth module to think about how we might ring-fence the problem of ethics from the problem of free will. In the final module, we try to answer one final question: does free will actually exist?

What is Free Will?

In this module, we think about what we mean when we talk about free will.