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Overview
A BELIEF IN FREE WILL touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion.
In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth 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.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"In this elegant and provocative book, Sam Harris demonstrates—with great intellectual ferocity and panache—that free will is an inherently flawed and incoherent concept, even in subjective terms. If he is right, the book will radically change the way we view ourselves as human beings."
—V. S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, UCSD, and author of The Tell-Tale Brain
"Brilliant and witty—and never less than incisive—Free Will shows that Sam Harris can say more in 13,000 words than most people do in 100,000."
—Oliver Sacks
"Free will is an illusion so convincing that people simply refuse to believe that we don’t have it. In Free Will, Sam Harris combines neuroscience and psychology to lay this illusion to rest at last. Like all of Harris’s books, this one will not only unsettle you but make you think deeply. Read it: you have no choice."—Jerry A. Coyne, Professor of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, and author of Why Evolution Is True
"Many say that believing that there is no free will is impossible—or, if possible, will cause nihilism and despair. In this feisty and personal essay, Harris offers himself as an example of a heart made less self-absorbed, and more morally sensitive and creative, because this particular wicked witch is dead."
—Owen Flanagan, Professor of Philosophy, Duke University, and author of The Really Hard Problem
"If you believe in free will, or know someone who does, here is the perfect antidote. In this smart, engaging, and extremely readable little book, Sam Harris argues that free will doesn’t exist, that we’re better off knowing that it doesn’t exist, and that—once we think about it in the right way—we can appreciate from our own experience that it doesn’t exist. This is a delightful discussion by one of the sharpest scholars around.”
—Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology, Yale University, and author of How Pleasure Works
Kirkus Reviews
In a brilliant and concise book, the co-founder of Project Reason argues that free will is an illusion. Harris (The Moral Landscape, 2010, etc.) contends that while most of us feel like we have free will, everything that we seem to choose to do is the result of a chain of causes over which we have no ultimate control--synapses, neural chemistry and genetic predispositions, as well as past events and our environment. Harris, who has a background in neuroscience, relies on that discipline and personal introspection. The neuroscience is impressive. In lab experiments in which subjects were asked to make decisions as regions of their brains were monitored, scientists could see that a decision had been made 7 to 10 seconds before the subject was consciously aware of it. The introspection argument is equally powerful, and Harris points out that much of our life is based on luck and that any of us could have been dealt a very different hand. He argues that accepting that free will is an illusion will help us to create a more ethical society. Currently, our justice system presumes free will, punishing under the assumption that given the same circumstances, an individual could have chosen differently. Exceptions are made for insanity, brain tumors, etc., all of which presume that the individual's free will has been compromised. However, if we assume that free will is illusory--i.e., that criminals are acting outside of their own volition--the question becomes how to deal with offenders and how to protect society. Harris also asks what this conception means for an individual's sense of self. Short enough to be read in a single sitting and provocative enough to arouse outrage and rebuttals.The Washington Post
…fascinating…Harris explores the notion that free will is an illusion in this nimble book…amiably and conversationally jumping from point to point. The book's length is one of its charms: He never belabors any one topic or idea, sticking around exactly as long as he needs to in order to lay out his argument (and tackle the rebuttals that it will inevitably provoke) and not a page longer.—Mark Berman
The New York Times Book Review
…if you want to acquaint yourself with the chapbook basics of this essential argument, Free Will is a good, cogent and readable…um, choice.—Daniel Menaker