Interview with Richard Carrier on the Determined Sinner (2026)
Watch on Youtube
Join host Edouard Tahmizian for this about 40-minute second follow-up interview with Richard Carrier on libertarian free will, conducted right after Carrier proofed the free will chapter of his forthcoming A Better World without God. After paraphrasing the Buridan’s ass paradox (featuring a donkey that dies of thirst because motivationally pulled in opposite directions by exactly the same amount), the interlocutors turn to how acting according to reasons (including premises or inferences made from them, correctly or otherwise)—or desires/inclinations, or memories, or anything else—straightforwardly requires the determination of our actions by those behavioral ‘roots.’ Carrier goes on to paraphrase how his simple thought experiment post, grounded in an argument from James Sterba, destroys Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense against the problem of evil. The discussion finally turns to how Christian apologists lean on absurdly convoluted cop-outs to avoid facing up to the force of arguments from evil before wrapping up on the role of the psychological drive to maintain or view ideas through narratives even when they directly conflict with the evidence. Check out this deeper dive tying the conceptual problems with libertarian free will to the specific conceptual problems facing Christian doctrines about original sin layered on top of them!
[ Internet Infidels: Freethinker Podcast Page | Youtube: Freethinker Podcast Channel ]
Watch on Youtube
Join host Edouard Tahmizian for this about 40-minute second follow-up interview with Richard Carrier on libertarian free will, conducted right after Carrier proofed the free will chapter of his forthcoming A Better World without God. After paraphrasing the Buridan’s ass paradox (featuring a donkey that dies of thirst because motivationally pulled in opposite directions by exactly the same amount), the interlocutors turn to how acting according to reasons (including premises or inferences made from them, correctly or otherwise)—or desires/inclinations, or memories, or anything else—straightforwardly requires the determination of our actions by those behavioral ‘roots.’ Carrier goes on to paraphrase how his simple thought experiment post, grounded in an argument from James Sterba, destroys Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense against the problem of evil. The discussion finally turns to how Christian apologists lean on absurdly convoluted cop-outs to avoid facing up to the force of arguments from evil before wrapping up on the role of the psychological drive to maintain or view ideas through narratives even when they directly conflict with the evidence. Check out this deeper dive tying the conceptual problems with libertarian free will to the specific conceptual problems facing Christian doctrines about original sin layered on top of them!
[ Internet Infidels: Freethinker Podcast Page | Youtube: Freethinker Podcast Channel ]