By a strange coincidence, my college roommate pissed on our chest of drawers while sleepwalking once in our dorm room at NYU (something which, decades later, I still gleefully tease him about) AND I am currently reading Sapolsky’s Determined. (I was a convert to no free will before I started.)
I think it was an inkling, a background suspicion always there that just firmed and hardened. One recent push was the chance to interview Jay L Garfield on my pod. He’s very eloquent on the Humean/Buddhist view of free will.
I think the issue isn’t determinism but moralised language. When people hear ‘no free will,’ they interpret it through moral vocabulary, which makes them think it means ‘no control’ or ‘nothing matters.’ Those conclusions don’t actually follow from determinism itself.
The reaction is a moral reflex — a defence of the moral framework that feels threatened when free will is removed. Because morality is taken as a given, people can’t see past it, so they perceive a void.
In my own work, I argue that the void is an illusion created by moral language. Beneath it is what was always there: empathic ethics. We don’t lose agency when morality dissolves — we simply return to the underlying system that actually regulates behaviour.
I think what you said there makes a lot of sense. Josh Knobe, if you have not read him, has a paper on how certain spheres are morally inflected. Even causation or causal talk. I started to read one of your posts on your Substack and left a comment there. Thanks again for commenting. Good luck!
To me, this points to people who need meaning and purpose in their lives — who need to be engaged in and contributing something to community/civic life. Doing something productive as opposed to sitting around idly — like baboons.
I’d also love to see a study of people who grew up poor who don’t go on to exhibit a lack of impulse control, like those who end up in jail.
Our psychology and even physiology may predispose us to certain behaviors and actions, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of making the morally right decision in the moment. With more awareness, we can take small steps prior to any questionable action/behavior to condition ourselves to do the right thing when the moment arises.
It seems to me that whether we have free will in those moments doesn’t really matter — because our actions can (and often do) have a positive or negative effect on someone else (as well as on ourselves). Perhaps that consideration should be our North Star.
Thank you for your reply. I appreciate that you started reading. I will reply in more detail as soon as I can. You wrote: "Our psychology and even physiology may predispose us to certain behaviors and actions, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of making the morally right decision in the moment." Yes, depending on what you mean by some of those words. But at first glance I'd say that is consistent with what the essay says about libertarian free will... or better what it says about determinism, specifically that poverty study. The conclusions are statistical which means plenty of cases involved poor kids who showed no effects on their brains claimed by the statistical conclusion.
While I am here (still promising to come back later)... you mentioned "awareness." Where does the ability to marshal or not that awareness come from? What was its cause? And your answer, what caused it?
Then you wrote: "...have a positive or negative effect on someone else..." Here I hear an opportunity for me to talk about the fact that even in the absence of libertarian FW incentives continue to work. In fact, they work better. If one thought they wouldn't one would actually be thinking of fatalism not hard determinism.
Finally, I promise to write up soon how it is possible, according to Sam Harris, but not in agreement with Robert Sapolsky, how it is possible to act "voluntarily" in the context of denial of libertarian free will. Hint: it has to do with compatibilism.
Sometimes people say, “If there’s no free will, then don’t bother calling the doctor when you are sick because whether or not you get better is already determined.” To defend against that, a hard determinist will try to strike a distinction between hard determinism and fatalism. In fatalism it indeed does not matter what you do. But hard determinism is different and does not imply fatalism. You still have to try. If you do not call the doctor then (let us suppose) you won’t get better so you are incentivized to call the doctor. So then you do call the doctor. That action was determined meaning it was caused… caused by what? By the incentive. Or, no need to get meta. Perhaps it was some other chain of causes. But it was caused. As long as you define free will contra-causally as “an ability to do otherwise in the ultimate sense” then if an action is caused then that action is unfree. But all actions are caused. It’s just we do not always know the causes of things and when we do it is still always an incomplete picture. You don’t know and we don’t know enough for every last things to look explicitly determined. If we did know then that starts to get close to fatalism. I did not mention much of this in my essay because it is kind of boring philosophy stuff to some people. And even if it’s not boring, as I write it I feel like I am losing my reader. It is hard to write about academic topics in a non academic way.
By a strange coincidence, my college roommate pissed on our chest of drawers while sleepwalking once in our dorm room at NYU (something which, decades later, I still gleefully tease him about) AND I am currently reading Sapolsky’s Determined. (I was a convert to no free will before I started.)
Interesting! And what had converted you before you read Determined?
I think it was an inkling, a background suspicion always there that just firmed and hardened. One recent push was the chance to interview Jay L Garfield on my pod. He’s very eloquent on the Humean/Buddhist view of free will.
I looked up Jay L Garfield. Cool! Great get!
I think the issue isn’t determinism but moralised language. When people hear ‘no free will,’ they interpret it through moral vocabulary, which makes them think it means ‘no control’ or ‘nothing matters.’ Those conclusions don’t actually follow from determinism itself.
The reaction is a moral reflex — a defence of the moral framework that feels threatened when free will is removed. Because morality is taken as a given, people can’t see past it, so they perceive a void.
In my own work, I argue that the void is an illusion created by moral language. Beneath it is what was always there: empathic ethics. We don’t lose agency when morality dissolves — we simply return to the underlying system that actually regulates behaviour.
Hi Graham, Thank you for reading and for your thoughtful response. I will respond in more detail ASAP. Thanks again!
I think what you said there makes a lot of sense. Josh Knobe, if you have not read him, has a paper on how certain spheres are morally inflected. Even causation or causal talk. I started to read one of your posts on your Substack and left a comment there. Thanks again for commenting. Good luck!
Thanks for the citation, Josh Knobe, I was unaware of his work I will follow up on him, our perceptions seem to align. Again thanks.
Obviously, I haven't read all of this, but ...
To me, this points to people who need meaning and purpose in their lives — who need to be engaged in and contributing something to community/civic life. Doing something productive as opposed to sitting around idly — like baboons.
I’d also love to see a study of people who grew up poor who don’t go on to exhibit a lack of impulse control, like those who end up in jail.
Our psychology and even physiology may predispose us to certain behaviors and actions, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of making the morally right decision in the moment. With more awareness, we can take small steps prior to any questionable action/behavior to condition ourselves to do the right thing when the moment arises.
It seems to me that whether we have free will in those moments doesn’t really matter — because our actions can (and often do) have a positive or negative effect on someone else (as well as on ourselves). Perhaps that consideration should be our North Star.
Thank you for your reply. I appreciate that you started reading. I will reply in more detail as soon as I can. You wrote: "Our psychology and even physiology may predispose us to certain behaviors and actions, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of making the morally right decision in the moment." Yes, depending on what you mean by some of those words. But at first glance I'd say that is consistent with what the essay says about libertarian free will... or better what it says about determinism, specifically that poverty study. The conclusions are statistical which means plenty of cases involved poor kids who showed no effects on their brains claimed by the statistical conclusion.
While I am here (still promising to come back later)... you mentioned "awareness." Where does the ability to marshal or not that awareness come from? What was its cause? And your answer, what caused it?
Then you wrote: "...have a positive or negative effect on someone else..." Here I hear an opportunity for me to talk about the fact that even in the absence of libertarian FW incentives continue to work. In fact, they work better. If one thought they wouldn't one would actually be thinking of fatalism not hard determinism.
Finally, I promise to write up soon how it is possible, according to Sam Harris, but not in agreement with Robert Sapolsky, how it is possible to act "voluntarily" in the context of denial of libertarian free will. Hint: it has to do with compatibilism.
Thanks again!
Sometimes people say, “If there’s no free will, then don’t bother calling the doctor when you are sick because whether or not you get better is already determined.” To defend against that, a hard determinist will try to strike a distinction between hard determinism and fatalism. In fatalism it indeed does not matter what you do. But hard determinism is different and does not imply fatalism. You still have to try. If you do not call the doctor then (let us suppose) you won’t get better so you are incentivized to call the doctor. So then you do call the doctor. That action was determined meaning it was caused… caused by what? By the incentive. Or, no need to get meta. Perhaps it was some other chain of causes. But it was caused. As long as you define free will contra-causally as “an ability to do otherwise in the ultimate sense” then if an action is caused then that action is unfree. But all actions are caused. It’s just we do not always know the causes of things and when we do it is still always an incomplete picture. You don’t know and we don’t know enough for every last things to look explicitly determined. If we did know then that starts to get close to fatalism. I did not mention much of this in my essay because it is kind of boring philosophy stuff to some people. And even if it’s not boring, as I write it I feel like I am losing my reader. It is hard to write about academic topics in a non academic way.