Free Will

by Sam Harris

But a neurological disorder appears to be just a special case of physical events giving rise to thoughts and actions.

How can we make sense of our lives, and hold people accountable for their choices, given the unconscious origins of our conscious minds?

The choice was made for me by events in my brain that I, as the conscious witness of my thoughts and actions, could not inspect or influence.

One fact now seems indisputable: Some moments before you are aware of what you will do next—a time in which you subjectively appear to have complete freedom to behave however you please—your brain has already determined what you will do. You then become conscious of this “decision” and believe that you are in the process of making it.

If the laws of nature do not strike most of us as incompatible with free will, that is because we have not imagined how human behavior would appear if all cause-and-effect relationships were understood.

The unconscious operations of a soul would grant you no more freedom than the unconscious physiology of your brain does.

A voluntary action is accompanied by the felt intention to carry it out, whereas an involuntary action isn’t.

We do not know what we intend to do until the intention itself arises. To understand this is to realize that we are not the authors of our thoughts and actions in the way that people generally suppose.

Consider what it would take to actually have free will. You would need to be aware of all the factors that determine your thoughts and actions, and you would need to have complete control over those factors. But there is a paradox here that vitiates the very notion of freedom—for what would influence the influences? More influences? None of these adventitious mental states are the real you. You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.

Compatibilism amounts to nothing more than an assertion of the following creed: A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.

You might have a story to tell about why things were different this time around, but it would be nothing more than a post hoc description of events that you did not control.

Yes, you can do what you want—but you cannot account for the fact that your wants are effective in one case and not in another (and you certainly can’t choose your wants in advance). You wanted to lose weight for years. Then you really wanted to. What’s the difference? Whatever it is, it’s not a difference that you brought into being.

You are not in control of your mind—because you, as a conscious agent, are only part of your mind, living at the mercy of other parts.15 You can do what you decide to do—bu...

Getting behind our conscious thoughts and feelings can allow us to steer a more intelligent course through our lives (while knowing, of course, that we are ultimately being steered).

The great worry, of course, is that an honest discussion of the underlying causes of human behavior appears to leave no room for moral responsibility.