This is made

philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warberton.

Philosophy bites is available at

www

philosophy bites dot com.

Philosophy bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.

We, Nigel and I, are free to choose who to invite onto Philosophy Bites.

And we can give reasons, good reasons I hope, why we approach

the people we do. These reasons shape our choices, but are we free to choose

which reasons to give weight to? Are we free to be the kinds of beings

who take some reasons more seriously than others? After all, perhaps we've been shaped by a combination

of nature and nurture to value clarity and rigor above obfuscation.

Perhaps our apparent freedom to choose is at one level just an illusion.

Paul Russell is professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia.

He believes that fate and luck have their part to play in the kinds of people we become.

Important aspects of our moral lives are always partly outside our control.

An interesting topic, providing an excellent reason to interview him.

Paul Russell, welcome to Philosophy Bytes.

Nice to be here. We're going to talk about fate. What is

fate? Well that's a large question, but let me draw a basic distinction. The intuition that we've got when we're worried about fate I think

is that somehow whatever's going to happen in a future for our practical point of view.

There's nothing we can do or deliberations aren't going to make any difference. We don't have any kind of causal traction or influence on the world.

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