Tag: free will

Psychiatry’s main role was always to forcibly negate the free will of society’s outliers. Its methods included forced removal, confinement, and electrical, surgical, and chemical lobotomy. But then it sought to lure non-outliers into willingly allowing psychiatry to negate their free will, too. So it devised ways to trick people into "lobotomizing" themselves.

In this piece for Nautilus, Michael S. Gazzaniga explores William James' conceptualization of consciousness as an instinct, emphasizing the compatibility of this paradim with James' belief in free...

From The Irish Times: In recent experiments, scientists have identified "unconscious determinants" in the brain that help predict the decisions of research subjects. However, philosophers argue...

“Genetic explanations for violent crimes may encourage jurors to support an insanity defense, but jurors may also believe the defendant is a persistent threat who will commit more crimes in the future,” Science Daily reports. A study on over 600 participants found that when people read a genetic explanation for a violent murder they attributed less blame to the defendant but recommended a longer sentence.