The Spookcast Episode 11: Are You Free?

The Spookcast

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-59:35

The Spookcast Episode 11: Are You Free?

Recurring Paradox

Jun 22, 2025

Transcript

In today’s episode I discuss the spook of free will in relation to ethics and other spooks. I also shamelessly spotlight my own master’s thesis in the spotlight segment.

0:01 Introduction

3:40 Spook of the Week: Free Will

18:50 Dissecting the Spook: From Augustine to Sapolsky

33:24 Living Ownness: You can’t choose, but you can own.

43:23 Spotlight: Aneka Brunßen The Politicization of the German Ethical Consumer

56:06 Outro

OUR PROJECT - IMPORTANT LINKS (please have a look):

The Project: ⁠

https://theunspookedproject.com

PLEASE DONATE!

My master’s thesis: https://philarchive.org/rec/BRUTPO-35

BOOKS AND ARTICLES / ESSAYS:

If you make a purchase using my links, I will receive a commission payment via the Amazon Affiliate program:

Classical & Theological Works

Aristotle – Nicomachean Ethics: https://amzn.to/4ncZ61R
Early exploration of voluntary action, responsibility, and moral choice.
Augustine – On Free Choice of the Will: https://amzn.to/4kSLPdq
Christian foundation of free will as moral accountability for sin.
Boethius – The Consolation of Philosophy: https://amzn.to/44oBMqt
Grapples with the paradox of divine foreknowledge and human freedom.

Philosophical Cornerstones

René Descartes – Meditations on First Philosophy: https://amzn.to/45xtDRR
Argues for the freedom of the rational mind in contrast to bodily determinism.
Baruch Spinoza – Ethics: https://amzn.to/45zgnvU
Denies free will; everything is determined by the necessity of nature.
Immanuel Kant – Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: https://amzn.to/4ldPfXI
Defines freedom as rational self-legislation — moral autonomy.

Critiques of Free Will

Friedrich Nietzsche – Beyond Good and Evil: https://amzn.to/3TA5L8K
Attacks the metaphysical notion of free will as a moralizing spook; introduces eternal recurrence.
Arthur Schopenhauer – On the Freedom of the Will: https://amzn.to/3TmQp7L
Argues for determinism based on character and motivation.
Jean-Paul Sartre – Being and Nothingness: https://amzn.to/4ljM1SU
Radical existential freedom; we are condemned to choose.
Michel Foucault – Discipline and Punish: https://amzn.to/403uupV
Freedom as a construct shaped by disciplinary power.
Max Stirner – The Ego and Its Own: https://amzn.to/3G4ZizF
Free will as a ghostly ideal; real liberation lies in ownness, not ideal sovereignty.

Scientific & Neuroscientific Views

Daniel Dennett – Freedom Evolves: https://amzn.to/4n7I45r
Compatibilist take: free will as a product of evolutionary processes.
Robert Sapolsky – Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will: https://amzn.to/45A5HNK
Strong determinist view from biology, psychology, and neurochemistry.
Sam Harris – Free Will: https://amzn.to/468fGdd
Concise argument that conscious will is an illusion.
Benjamin Libet – Mind Time: https://amzn.to/3TwLkJM
Neuroscience experiments suggesting decisions precede conscious awareness.

Postmodern, Psychoanalytic & Cultural Critiques

Jacques Lacan – Écrits and The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis: https://amzn.to/43RjTAA
Subject as divided; agency as a linguistic fiction.
Slavoj Žižek – The Parallax View: https://amzn.to/3FPK5Cy
Examines how ideology mediates our sense of freedom and choice.
Nick Land – Fanged Noumena: https://amzn.to/4la8fXe
Dismisses human freedom as obsolete in a cybernetic capitalist system.
Katherine Hayles – How We Became Posthuman: https://amzn.to/4jXfX5V
Interrogates the boundary between human agency and computational control.