Free Will (book)

Harris says the idea of free will "cannot be mapped on to any conceivable reality" and is incoherent.[5][6] According to Harris, science "reveals you to be a biochemical puppet."[7] People's thoughts and intentions, Harris says, "emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control." Every choice we make is made as a result of preceding causes. These choices we make are determined by those causes, and are therefore not really choices at all. Harris also draws a distinction between conscious and unconscious reactions to the world. Even without free will, consciousness has an important role to play in the choices we make. Harris argues that this realization about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.

The book has been the subject of criticism.[8][9][10][11][12]

The author uses the Libet argument, which has been challenged by Adrian G. Guggisberg and Annaïs Mottaz.[13] A study by Aaron Schurger and colleagues published in PNAS[14] challenged assumptions about the causal nature of the readiness potential itself (and the "pre-movement buildup" of neural activity in general), thus denying the conclusions drawn from studies such as Libet's[15] and Fried's.[16]

In response to this, Harris has noted in his numerous talks and on his podcast that his argument against free will does not rely on the findings from neuroscience, but is instead focused mainly on the logical incoherency of the possibility of free will. In one of his guest appearances on the Joe Rogan Podcast, Harris says, "Nothing hinges on [the recent experiments in neuroscience]. Even if..the decision of neural activity in the brain that gave you the decision and your subjective feeling of having decided...were coincident, even if there was no time lag...it still is coming out of nowhere in a sense for you subjectively. You're still not in control of it. It's still being caused by events that you didn't cause."[17]

• Immanuel Kant
• Neuroscience of free will