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Christie Bane's Reviews > Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
by
by
This book is a real winner for me — not only pop science at its best, but also giving scientific credibility to something I have long believed: the idea that the great majority of our actions (the author would say all of our actions) are determined by A) who we are genetically and B) what our life experiences have been. The author’s conclusion is that there is no such thing as free will. Obviously this brings up some thorny issues, such as whether or not people who have achieved a lot in life deserve all their good fortune, and how punishment can be moral if people don’t truly have choices. (His answers: no and no, but the fact that punishment is not moral doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, because the rest of society still needs to be protected even if what the criminal does isn’t his fault.) I’m not enough of a scientist to critique the science in the book, but I will say that everything he says supports everything that I’ve always thought. I feel like almost everything I have is due to factors I didn’t have any control over, not to personal choices I’ve made, so I’m lucky rather than virtuous. Do with this book what you will, but I do think everyone should read it.
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Reading Progress
February 18, 2023
– Shelved as:
to-read
February 18, 2023
– Shelved
October 19, 2023
–
Started Reading
October 28, 2023
–
Finished Reading
If nobody has free will, then the adjudicators are just as un-free as the perpetrators. As well as the book's readers. If you want to make the perpetrator suffer in the same way that the perpetrator made you suffer, apparently Sapolsky believes you have the free will to override the lust for vengeance that your genes and environmental shaping put into your head.
Now it's possible of course for Sapolsky's book to influence some readers, without there needing to be any free will involved. Sapolsky would necessarily say there was no free will involved in his writing of the book. But nobody really operates that way. The book publisher for example runs its business as if employees can be incentivized with paychecks, presumably by exercising choice. Even if there is not really any free will operating anywhere, the illusion is so expressive that it's hard to get oneself completely free from it, and Sapolsky doesn't seem to. At least when it comes to telling those adjudicators how they ought to do their jobs and telling the vengeful victims to take one for the team instead.
I wonder if Sapolsky swats a mosquito that bites him, or if he lets it feed because it didn't have a choice.