Free Will Versus Determinism

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about the free will versus determinism debate, focusing in particular on: (i) the legal idea of guilty mind vs guilty act, and how a guilty mind might be determined; (ii) the role of someone’s biology and their environment within this debate; (iii) whether free will truly exists, with a historic tendency to lean towards no, indicating that determinism is the more relevant view to take on people’s actions; (iv) the distinction between hard and soft determinism; (v) psychological research evidence which generally finds support for soft determinism; (vi) the strengths and weaknesses of the deterministic approach.

About the lecturer

Dr Ayoub Bouguettaya is a lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham. Dr Bouguettaya’s research interests are in social psychology and how knowledge from that field can be applied to others, particularly health, including how we can apply social identity theory to societal problems, as well as investigating the different perspectives one might take on those issues. Some of Dr Bouguettaya’s recent publications include 'The relationship between gambling advertising and gambling attitudes, intentions and behaviours: a critical and meta-analytic review' (2020) and 'The Effect of a Food Addiction Explanation Model for Weight Control and Obesity on Weight Stigma' (2020).