Free Will

by Sam Harris

The man does live on light—we all do—because when you trace the origin of any food, you arrive at something that depends on photosynthesis. By eating beef, we consume the grass the cow ate, and the grass ate sunlight. So the yogi is no liar after all. But that’s not the ability the yogi was advertising, and his actual claim remains dishonest (or delusional). This is the trouble with compatibilism. It solves the problem of “free will” by ignoring it.

If determinism is true, the future is set—and this includes all our future states of mind and our subsequent behavior. And to the extent that the law of cause and effect is subject to indeterminism—quantum or otherwise—we can take no credit for what happens. There is no combination of these truths that seems compatible with the popular notion of free will.

Did I, the conscious person, create my pain? No. It simply appeared. Did I create the thoughts about it that led me to consider physical therapy? No. They, too, simply appeared. This process of conscious deliberation, while different from unconscious reflex, offers no foundation for freedom of will.