Is Free Will a Myth or Reality?
The ability of a person to make choices without coercion is called free will. Since we are constantly making decisions and choosing our life paths, discussions about the absence of free will may seem absurd. However, some philosophers and scientists insist that no one ever consciously chooses what they do. Among them is Stanford University professor and neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky. He is convinced that all our actions come down to biology, upbringing, circumstances, and the random events life throws at us. “We, like any living organism, are just ‘biological machines.’ We have no free will,” the scientist claims. Sapolsky reached this conclusion after four decades of intensive study of human and primate behavior.
Free will is expressed in the idea that a person can achieve peace of mind by freeing themselves from unreasonable desires and false hopes, if they follow the traditional Greek ideal of “moderation.”
What Is Free Will?
In philosophy and science, free will is traditionally understood as the supposed power or ability of a person to make decisions or take actions independently of any prior events. Arguments in favor of the existence of free will include the subjective experience of freedom, feelings of guilt, religious beliefs, and widely accepted assumptions about individual moral responsibility, which underlie concepts of law, reward, and punishment.
The concept of radical, eternal, and often agonizing freedom of choice is a hallmark of existentialism. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), for example, spoke of the individual as “condemned to be free.”
The term “free will” has emerged over the past two millennia to describe a significant kind of control over one’s own actions. Questions about the nature and existence of this kind of control, and its true meaning, have been considered by Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, and Kant. Thus, any discussion of free will inevitably leads to debates about metaphysics and ethics.
To understand what kind of control is being discussed, one must consider questions about causality, the laws of nature, time, motivation, and, more broadly, human personality. When it comes to the significance of free will for us, it’s impossible to avoid thinking about good and evil, virtue and vice, blame and praise, reward and punishment.
Although the topic of free will has traditionally belonged to philosophy and ethics, more and more scientists—especially neurobiologists and behaviorists—are examining this strange control from a purely scientific perspective. But before turning to how modern science understands free will, let’s look at the reasons why many doubt its existence.
Determinism and Free Will
To begin with, the existence of free will is denied by some supporters of determinism—the thesis that every event in the universe is causally inevitable. Determinism implies that in any situation where people make a certain decision or take a certain action, it is impossible to make any other decision or take any other action. In other words, the claim that people could have chosen differently or acted otherwise than they actually did is false.
Philosophers and scientists who believe that determinism in this sense is incompatible with free will are called “hard determinists.” Their opponents, the so-called “soft determinists,” believe that determinism and free will are ultimately compatible. In most cases, soft determinists try to achieve this reconciliation by revising the commonly accepted concept of free will.
The extreme alternative to determinism is indeterminism—the view that at least some events have no determined cause and occur randomly. Indeterminism is supported to some extent by research in quantum mechanics, which suggests that some events at the quantum level are fundamentally unpredictable (and therefore random).
Philosophers and scientists who believe that the universe is indeterministic and that people possess free will are known as “libertarians” (libertarianism in this sense should not be confused with the school of political philosophy called libertarianism). While it is possible to argue that the universe is indeterministic and that human actions are nevertheless determined, few modern philosophers defend this view.
Robert Sapolsky and Human Behavior
The renowned behavioral scientist Robert Sapolsky is determined to do away with free will once and for all and show that confronting its nonexistence does not necessarily doom us to immorality or despair.
His strategy is ambitious: to trace every link in the causal chain culminating in human behavior, starting with what happens in the brain in the last few milliseconds before we act, all the way back to how our brains are shaped by early experiences, and even before that. Sapolsky examines all these factors at the level of neurotransmitters and genes.
It’s worth noting that Sapolsky is one of the world’s leading scientists in the biology of human behavior. A MacArthur Fellow at age 30, he has spent over four decades studying human and primate behavior, especially stress and the social behavior of baboons.
The scientist spent eight to ten hours a day with baboons. For more than thirty years, every summer, Sapolsky returned to Africa to the same group of animals. These studies later formed the basis of his book “A Primate’s Memoir: A Neuroscientist’s Unconventional Life Among the Baboons.” Sapolsky became especially well-known in Russia thanks to the translation of his lecture series “The Biology of Human Behavior,” which is highly recommended for anyone interested in the topic.
His books have also been translated into Russian, and a good place to start is with “Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst” and “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.” Incidentally, in a previously published article, it was mentioned that since 2020, the 66-year-old professor has been working on a book dedicated to free will—or rather, the reasons why it doesn’t exist.
As for his new work, the book titled “Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will” was released in mid-October, so Russian readers will have to wait a bit for the translation.
Sapolsky Against Free Will
Even before the release of his new book, the professor regularly expressed doubts about the existence of free will. His verdict is as follows: “The world is broken and has become much, much more unjust because we reward people and punish them for things they cannot control. We have no free will. Stop attributing to us what doesn’t actually exist,” Sapolsky said in an interview with the LA Times.
Sapolsky is convinced that if free will existed, it would have to function at the biological level completely independently of the organism, meaning scientists would be able to identify neurons that cause specific behaviors. Moreover, the activity of any neuron in the brain would be irrelevant, as would the environment, hormone levels, and cultural norms. However, all these aspects are incredibly important.
At any significant moment, we make decisions based on our tastes and preferences, values, and character. All of this comes from somewhere, and our minds do not act independently. We spend our whole lives learning to respond to various stimuli—for example, to an unpleasant smell. How we react to a smell is determined by our genes, which program both our olfactory receptors and our behavior, notes the Stanford professor in an interview with the New York Times.
He also argues against ideas like willpower. Yes, there are people who “overcame misfortune with remarkable perseverance and endurance,” but their ability to persevere and endure was granted by luck—and by certain character traits.
Among Sapolsky’s critics, many point out something curious: if free will does not exist, then neither does moral responsibility. In response, the professor says that “the very idea that we are responsible for our actions is a ‘completely useless definition.’” Fortunately, Sapolsky wants people to be happy, not to suffer—which, he admits, somewhat contradicts the context of his main argument.
How to Live Without Free Will?
Journalists who have read Sapolsky’s new book note that when the author addresses the question of how we should live in the absence of free will, his humane worldview comes to the forefront.
Some argue that realizing we lack freedom could turn us into moral monsters. Sapolsky, however, offers touching arguments that, in fact, this is a reason to live with deep forgiveness and understanding—for seeing “the absurdity of hating anyone for anything they’ve done,” as journalists conclude.
Here, however, lies a familiar paradox, as with any discussion of how we should respond to the absence of free will: if there is no free will, then of course we will simply react as we do. But does this mean that Sapolsky’s fascinating and compassionate book won’t change what people think or how they treat each other? It simply means they have no choice or ability to change anything.
Undoubtedly, Sapolsky’s arguments and ideas may upset many. However, there is always the possibility that free will is hidden in some part of the brain not yet studied by scientists. But even if that’s not the case, philosophy still stands up for the existence of free will.