Free will is an illusion. Who we are and what we do is the result of factors beyond our control. So claim many philosophers and cognitive scientists, armed with empirical data and reasoned arguments. But their conclusion seems intolerable. Without freedom, in what sense are our lives and actions really ours? And if what we do isn’t under our control, how can we be held responsible for our doing it? What sense could we make of the idea of criminal justice? Is a life without free will a life worth living? Philosopher and free will skeptic Gregg D. Caruso thinks it is. Join us as he discusses how we, as individuals and a society, can make sense of life without free will.

Monday, January 11, 2016 at 6pm at The Cornelia Street Café, located at 29 Cornelia Street, New York, NY 10014 (near Sixth Avenue and West 4th St.). Admission is $9, which includes the price of one drink. Reservations are recommended (212. 989.9319).

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Gregg D. Caruso is an award winning Associate Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Corning and Co-Director of the Justice Without Retribution Network at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He is the author of Free Will and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free Will (2012), and the editor of Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility (ed., 2013), Science and Religion: 5 Questions (ed., 2014), and Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals, and Purpose in the Age of Neuroscience (co-ed. w/Owen Flanagan, forthcoming). He is also the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Science, Religion and Culture.