“The idea that we can label others as bad people springs from the doctrine of free will. Although we cannot say that humans have no free choice whatsoever . . . they still have relatively little free will. As many studies have shown, humans have genetic or inborn tendencies to behave in certain ways – including tendencies to learn and to develop conditioned responses. …Consequently, condemning them for their wrongdoings can unfairly attribute to them a complete freedom of choice of behavior that they simply do not have.”
– Dr. Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper (1961)
Is free will an illusion?
The concept of free will is at the heart of society itself. We assume that people who do bad things have made a conscious decision to be hurtful, and that they did so after having had equal access to the same information, the same viewpoints, the same opportunities, the same internal motivations, and the same degree of willpower that we might muster in this particular situation. It’s a wonderful idea . . . just like Santa Claus. In truth, however, the concept of free will is more illusion than fact, and recognizing the limits of free will can help us mute the pain we feel when others around us do hurtful things. It will also give you a healthier perspective on dealing with others in your everyday life, so that you can approach the world with a much more practical level of social intelligence.
As we’ll explain throughout this area, free will is largely an illusion. But we’ll also help you understand why this revelation needn’t be as threatening as most people first think it to be, and discuss why it also doesn’t imply that we are powerless vessels with no control over our own actions and our own future. You’ll come away with a healthier understanding of the limits of free will that will help you deal with others in a more productive and realistic way.
Why Questioning the Idea of Free Will Seems Threatening, and Why It Shouldn’t Be
Most of us are extremely reluctant to give up or even budge from the doctrine of free will. In fact, some are downright hostile towards the idea that our thoughts or actions could arise out of anything but our own conscious volition. We think, therefore we do. Unfortunately, this simplified explanation glosses right over the more complex matter of precisely how people come upon their thoughts.
Questioning free will can be threatening to one’s ego. After all, if free will is an illusion, then it means we are not in total control. Humans hate feeling as though they are not in control. It also raises conflicts in terms of attribution: Does this also imply that the success we achieve is the product of random chance? That the good deeds we do are not of our own making? That they spring forth because of our enriched history and not because we choose to be good? The human ego is tasked with weaving together a self-representation, and it doesn’t much like such questions.
Making matters worse, the doctrine of free will is also at the heart of many religions, which for millennia have fought fiercely against knowledge of how the world works in favor of promoting a simplified, black and white view of the world. It’s a simple matter of good versus evil, they say, where people simply choose whether they want to be good or evil. This flawed concept is also at the heart of “justice” systems the world around, whose moral authority would lay crippled and in shambles if subjected to any type of scientific rigor. So there are many powerful forces that have a vested interest in promoting this lie. After all, judges and prosecutors go to work day after day with a mission to destroy people on the taxpayer’s dime. They take away lives, they tear families apart, research shows that they routinely hurt children 10-times as much or 20-times as much as any child abuser who comes through their courtroom, all on account of their punitive responses to undesirable situations. (See our book Child Maltreatment: A Cross-Comparison for studies and more information on this topic.) The only way they can pass off such willfully atrocious actions as good and continue playing the role of hero is if those they destroy are labeled as “evil.” This lie works for the public, too.
It’s much easier to dismiss others as evil or bad people than it is to confront the harsh realities that we live in an unfair, unequal, unjust society where not everyone enjoys the same privileges or opportunities in life. It’s much easier to call the impoverished, downtrodden drug dealer who had a horrible childhood with absent parents “evil” while sitting comfortably from our middle-class home in a low-violence neighborhood, using the brain that enjoyed a quality education surrounded by loving family members. It’s easy for a “normal” heterosexual, blessed with urges that fall into the category of those socially sanctioned, to label anyone whose orientation is different as evil. This type of thinking is great for egos, but not so great in terms of deciphering the truth about how and why other people act in the ways they do.
Finally, questioning the idea of free will goes against what we perceive to be common sense. As we go about navigating of the world, it certainly feels as though we are freely choosing the things we choose to do. We think it, then we do it, and so it feels as though we have complete freedom of choice. But much like ancient ideas about the earth’s place in the Universe, this is only because our perspective disguises the underlying complexity at work. It certainly seemed like common sense for people 500 years ago to believe that the sun circled the earth. After all, they could watch it rise up from the horizon, race across the sky and disappear on the opposite side. Yet what seemed like common sense was only an illusion – an illusion brought forth because our vantage point disguised the hidden complexity at work in the solar system. Likewise, the doctrine of free will that assumes everyone has complete freedom of choice persists only because we can’t always discern the numerous factors that go into determining a person’s pattern of behavior.
More information on free will: