Free Will Forever

Continuing the grand tradition begun by the behaviourists of attempting to use the science of the mind to banish free will is Sam Harris’ opinion piece Free will is an illusion – and must be exposed (he also develops this theme in a recent book on the topic).

No doubt it will find a ready audience in those who like controlling other people, because making people question the efficacy of their own minds is a quick way to make them surrender their souls. Thus it is one long fallacy of self-exclusion: nowhere does Harris confess that he has no free will, that his opinions are the result of unconscious processes he cannot control, and that he doesn’t really know why he’s saying this stuff to other equally enslaved objects, except that I suppose he can’t help himself. Or perhaps he can’t help himself there, either.

Indeed, the whole exercise relies on free will – for example the ability for people to change their minds. He even notes that one of his motives is he doesn’t think justice should include vengeance, and other such things he considers (?) to be primitive (?). What meaning does any of that have, in the absence of free will? He thinks that we should not seek vengeance because vicious criminals “aren’t responsible for it” – yet in that case why should we not seek vengeance: if they aren’t responsible for their criminal acts, why is he trying to make us guilty and responsible for how we respond?

I have shown elsewhere that free will, in every sense that matters – the sense to choose your values, choose how to pursue them, and act accordingly – is inherent in having a thinking mind. And despite his surface words, Harris agrees: for the whole purpose of his writings are to convince people to change their minds and change their attitudes and actions accordingly.