Free Will

By: Mark Balaguer

Narrated by: Steven Menasche

The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series

In our daily lives, it really seems as though we have free will, that what we do from moment to moment is determined by conscious decisions that we freely make. You get up from the couch, you go for a walk, you eat chocolate ice cream. It seems that we're in control of actions like these; if we are then we have free will. But in recent years, some have argued that free will is an illusion. The neuroscientist (and best-selling author) Sam Harris and the late Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner, for example, claim that certain scientific findings disprove free will. In this engaging and accessible volume in the Essential Knowledge series, the philosopher Mark Balaguer examines the various arguments and experiments that have been cited to support the claim that human beings don't have free will. He finds them to be overstated and misguided.

Balaguer discusses determinism, the view that every physical event is predetermined, or completely caused by prior events. He describes several philosophical and scientific arguments against free will, including one based on Benjamin Libet's famous neuroscientific experiments, which allegedly show that our conscious decisions are caused by neural events that occur before we choose. He considers various religious and philosophical views, including the philosophical pro-free-will view known as compatibilism. Balaguer concludes that the anti-free-will arguments put forward by philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists simply don't work. They don't provide any good reason to doubt the existence of free will. But, he cautions, this doesn't necessarily mean that we have free will. The question of whether we have free will remains an open one; we simply don't know enough about the brain to answer it definitively.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2014 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (P)2015 Gildan Media LLC

Basic Intro. Could be summed up in a 15min YouTube video.

6/10 book. I don’t even think the author was bad. The book was well written. It was just a scientific perspective in free will, which I would say is a pretty philosophical and metaphysical concept. The book wasn’t very groundbreaking, but I suppose it’s a quick read/listen to get briefed on the topic before going in to do further philosophical study and metaphysical exploration.

Learned what I wanted to know about the arguments for and against Free Will

If you are looking for a relatively brief synopsis of the philosophical and scientific arguments for and against the concept of Free Will, then here you go! I wanted to be caught up to speed on the topic as I have heard it come up in philosophical debates a lot, and now I feel more informed. Occasionally humorous and interesting, though sometimes the author repeats himself quite a bit to drive certain points home. Recommended.

Educational Insight!

Not afraid to educate and illustrate beyond the norm. Well constructed. I would have like to hear more against the spiritual side...

Religious bias

If you want a confirmation bias arguments about free will, look no more, this can be your playbook.

Severely lacking: stay away

This might be the worst philosophy book I’ve ever read (out of dozens). Given that this is a philosophy book by a philosophy professor, I expect a certain level of quality. This book fails to meet that bar. Balaguer’s book is dragged down by numerous flaws:

- Free will involves a fascinating web of ideas, but somehow this book squanders the liveliness of the topic.

- It does not introduce the essential basics of quantum physics. This would form a basis for discussing possible connections between free will and QP. Such an intro could be done in a few paragraphs; I’m dumbstruck at this omission.

- Substantively, I find his explanation of torn decisions to be poorly introduced and argued. It comes out of nowhere, and yet is central to his views. But the logic supporting it is dubious. (Even if you agree with Balaguer’s emphasis on torn decisions, I think you will grant his writing gets in his own way.)

- He makes too many off-hand remarks. For example, Balaguer makes wild claims like (paraphrased) ‘the world would not change at all if everyone agreed that there was no free will’. Such a claim is implausible and no support is given for it.

- The style is painful. This is a widespread complaint among the comments here.

- Nitpick: Calling people that deny free will “enemies of free will” is unnecessary, uncharitable, and distracting. Hopefully we’re all trying to seek the truth; someone who denies free will is not an “enemy” of it. This kind of imprecise and annoying writing should not have gotten past the editors.

- The numerous fascinating implications and questions about free will don’t get discussed at all. For example: if free will doesn’t exist, how does this mesh with most peoples lived experience?

Note: I actually listened to this book via Audible. The narrator is a ham, but that’s probably because he wanted to exude the author’s style. So, well done, Mr. Narrator. (Could you imagine a serious, straight-faced narrator reading this book?)