Daniel Dennett uses the context of the conference and some previous talks by fellow thinkers to clarify his view on Free Will.
This talk has a clear takeaway leading to the conclusion that absolute Free Will is a historic remnant that isn’t desirable nor realistic. Dennett hence follows up to explain Free Will as a dependent but sufficient function that satisfies the demands of social and moral interaction in society much like the general agreement on the worth of money (hence the title). He also ties back Free Will to his concept of competence and shows that „Free“ will is therefor dependent on our ability, knowledge, environment and education. This talk might not be the best to start into the thoughts of Daniel Dennett as it’s pretty specific and only scratches the surface of the irrelevance of determinism. If you haven’t listend to Dennett before and want to learn more about Free Will and determinism also watch the talk „Is Science Showing That We Don’t Have Free Will?”. For your connivance I compiled a list with timecodes with topics covered in this talk:
00:04:02 Beginning of Talk
00:06:39 „We are our brains“
00:08:20 „The clothes have no Emperor“
00:09:30 „There is no such thing as absolute free will“
00:12:23 The implications on „Free will is illusory“ (Swaab)
00:16:41 „The brain is a computer“ (Lamme)
00:20:35 Neuroscience and moral competence
00:25:54 „Practical“ vs. „absolute“ free will
00:27:25 What is real? …
00:29:03 Manifest image compared to the Scientific image
00:35:55 Does free will exist?
00:39:37 Free will as moral compentence is a user-illusion
00:47:36 … free will depends on constraints …
00:50:40 … competence as the heart of free will …
00:55:22 Dennett deconstructs causal indeterminism as a relevant factor for free will
00:59:02 The „Moral Agents Club“ …
01:01:54 … wrong conclusions drawn from neuroscience experiments …
01:07:45 Conclusion
01:09:24 Q & A