Skip content
Get a free audiobook AND support bookstores Make the switch
Who's in Charge? by Michael S. Gazzaniga
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Libro.fm app

Get a free audiobook when you make the switch!

When you start a new membership in support of local bookstores with the promo code SWITCH, you’ll get a bonus audiobook credit at sign-up.

Make the switch

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

Who's in Charge?

Free Will and the Science of the Brain

$18.89

Get for $14.99 with membership
Narrator Pete Larkin
Length 8 hours 5 minutes
Language English
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

A powerful orthodoxy in the study of the brain has taken hold in
recent years: Since physical laws govern the physical world and our own brains are part of that world, physical laws therefore govern our
behavior and even our conscious selves. Free will is meaningless, goes
the mantra; we live in a "determined" world.

Not so, argues the renowned neuroscientist Michael S. Gazzaniga in this thoughtful, provocative book based on his Gifford Lectures—one of the foremost lecture series in the world dealing with religion, science, and
philosophy. Who's in Charge? proposes that the mind, which is
somehow generated by the physical processes of the brain, "constrains" the brain just as cars are constrained by the traffic they create.

Writing with what Steven Pinker has called "his trademark wit and lack
of pretension," Gazzaniga shows how determinism immeasurably weakens our views of human responsibility; it allows a murderer to argue, in effect, "It wasn't me who did it—it was my brain." Gazzaniga convincingly argues that even given the latest insights into the physical mechanisms of the mind, there is an undeniable human reality: We are responsible agents who should be held accountable for our actions,
because responsibility is found in how people interact, not in brains.



An extraordinary book that ranges across neuroscience, psychology,
ethics, and the law with a light touch but profound implications, Who's in Charge? is a lasting contribution from one of the leading thinkers of our time.

Michael S. Gazzaniga is the director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The author of Human: The Science Behind What Makes Your Brain Unique and The Ethical Brain: The Science of Our Moral Dilemmas, he is president of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute; founding director of the MacArthur Foundation's Law and Neuroscience Project; and a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences. Michael lives in California.

Pete Larkin is an AudioFile Earphones Award winner and a 2014 Audie Award finalist. He has wide voice-over and on-camera experience and has worked in virtually all media. He was the public address announcer for the New York Mets from 1988 to 1993. He has worked as a disc jockey in Baltimore, Washington, and New York, including as host of WNEW-FM's highly rated "Saturday Morning Sixties" program. An award-winning on-camera host, Pete has worked on many industrial films for many of the country's top companies, corporations, and governmental agencies and has done hundreds of commercials, promos, and narrations. His theater experience includes a variety of dramatic, comedic, and musical roles.

Libro.fm app

Get a free audiobook when you make the switch!

When you start a new membership in support of local bookstores with the promo code SWITCH, you’ll get a bonus audiobook credit at sign-up.

Make the switch

Gift audiobook credit bundles

You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.

Start gifting

Reviews

"A fascinating affirmation of our essential humanity." ---Kirkus Expand reviews
Get a free audiobook AND support bookstores Make the switch