The Evolution of Free Will

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I endorse a sort of hierarchical conception of the organization of matter in which each new level evolved on top of the one below. And it goes all the way up to these high level brain processes that I'm talking about, which are the human brain's evolved capacity to think about what it wants and make choices. But as a research psychologist, I can tell you there's nobody that can even begin to really predict human behavior. Our statistical models are always woefully short.

It’s become fashionable to argue that free will is a fiction: that we humans are in the thrall of animal urges and unconscious biases and only think that we are choosing freely. In Freely Determined, research psychologist Kennon Sheldon argues that this perception is not only wrong but also dangerous.

Shermer and Sheldon discuss: definitions of free will, determinism, compatibilism, libertarian free will • dualism • reductionism, materialism, predetermination, and epiphenomenalism • Christian List’s three capacities for free will • AI, Star Trek’s Data, sentience and consciousness, ChatGPT, GPT-4 • how what people believe about free will and determinism influences their behaviors • the case for hard determinism • brain injuries, tumors, addictions, and other “determiners” of behavior • emergence • symbolic self • System 1 vs. System 2 thinking • Experiencing Self vs. Remembered Self • subjective well-being and happiness.

Kennon M. Sheldon is professor of psychology at the University of Missouri. He is one of the founding researchers of positive psychology, a fellow of the American Psychological Association, and a recipient of the Templeton Foundation Positive Psychology Prize. He lives in Columbia, Missouri. He is the author of numerous scientific papers and scholarly books, including Stability of Happiness: Theories and Evidence on Whether Happiness Can Change; Designing the Future of Positive Psychology: Taking Stock and Moving Forward; Current Directions in Psychological Science; and Self-Determination Theory in the Clinic. His new book integrates all this research into a popular trade book Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of the Self Teaches Us About How to Live.