Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

by Robert M. Sapolsky

Studies of quality of life and of health show that Scandinavians fare better (on measures such as happiness and well-being, life expectancy, infant mortality rates, and rates of death in childbirth); moreover, poverty rates are lower, and income inequality is tiny in comparison. And measures of the prevalence of antisocial behavior, crime rates, and rates of violence and damaging aggression—from warfare to criminal violence to school bullying to corporal punishment—are lower. And as for some indices of prosociality, Scandinavian countries’ per-capita expenditures on social services for their own citizens[*] and as aid for poor countries are greater.[28] Furthermore, these differences are not merely Scandinavians feasting on lutefisk versus sweaty, capitalistic Americans. Across a broad range of countries, lower average rates of religiosity predict higher rates of all these salubrious outcomes. Moreover, cross-nationally, lower average rates of religiosity in a country predict lower levels of corruption, more tolerance of racial and ethnic minorities, higher literacy rates, lower rates of overall crime and of homicide, and less frequent warfare.