| 2005 Summer Seminar |
—Christopher Robinson, Ph.D.
Course Description:
(Advanced Seminar session, advance registration required. See the Advanced Seminar application form.)
Ayn Rand held that humans are born conceptually tabula rasa. All knowledge, all values—all tendencies—she argued to be by choice. In this essay, Christopher Robinson will argue that this is false. While we may have free-will, it is tethered. In the end, this tethering of will holds implications for moral responsibility. While he will not argue that biology is destiny, he will show that not every option is equally open to our choice and not every option is equally easily made.
In order to show this, Robinson will begin with straightforward sex differences that are clearly loaded. From these, he will show how genetically generated variability, combined with clear genetic influences in a variety of disorders, indicates that there are broad characteristics of individuals that also show a tethering of the will.
Christopher Robinson is a professor of psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has taught a wide range of classes, including Evolutionary Psychology, Human Sexuality, and Psychological and Behavioral Sex Differences. He has had a long-standing interest in the ways that evolution influences our behavior, and in the philosophical questions that the theory raises.
Schedule: Monday, 2:15-3:30 PM
Track: Advanced Seminar