We Really Don’t Have Free Will?: A Conversation with Robert M. Sapolsky (Episode #360)

Sam Harris speaks with Robert Sapolsky about the widespread belief in free will. They discuss the limits of intuition, the views of Dan Dennett, complexity and emergence, downward causation, abstraction, epigenetics, predictability, fatalism, Benjamin Libet, the primacy of luck, historical change in attitudes about free will, implications for ethics and criminal justice, the psychological satisfaction of punishing bad people, understanding evil, punishment and reward as tools, meritocracy, the consequences of physical beauty, the logic of reasoning, and other topics. Robert M. Sapolsky is the author of several works of nonfiction, including A Primate’s Memoir, The Trouble with Testosterone, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, and most recently, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will. His book titled Behave was a New York Times bestseller and named a best book of the year by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of biology, neurology, and neurosurgery at Stanford University and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant.” He and his wife live in San Francisco. March 27, 2024 SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at https://samharris.org/subscribe/ OR become a channel member to access episodes on YouTube. For those who can't afford the full subscription price, we offer full and partial scholarships https://www.samharris.org/subscribe/scholarship Subscribe to the YT channel: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=samharrisorg Follow Making Sense on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MakingSenseHQ Follow Sam on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Samharrisorg/ Follow Sam on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samharrisorg/ For more information about Sam Harris: https://www.samharris.org