Free Will Deniers

Neuroscientist Michael Egnor offers a rebuttal to those who wish to maintain that human beings do not have free will. He begins the rebuttal with a question: “What does it mean to believe we don’t have free will?”

He then adds the following:

Belief is behavior....Belief is what you do, not merely what you say. Consider the statement by a serial adulterer “I believe in fidelity and chastity.” Of course, such a claim is not credible, because his behavior makes a mockery of that belief.

Serial adulterers believe in serial adultery (otherwise, they wouldn’t do it), just as embezzlers believe in embezzlement and philanthropists believe in philanthropy. Belief is much more than words ....Belief is a way of living.

In other words, we can tell what a person believes not by what they say but by the way they live.

If you want to know what a free will denier really believes, steal his laptop or dent his fender and see if he holds you morally accountable.

The fact that people who claim to be determinists blame others for their behavior is an indication that the determinist does in fact believe that the other person is responsible and blameworthy, but if determinism is true there really is no responsibility and no one is really blameworthy.

No one can be responsible or blameworthy unless they made a genuine choice to do what they did, but a genuine choice is precisely what determinists believe we can't make.

So what are free will deniers really doing when they say that they don’t believe in free will, but never act like free will isn’t real? Free will denial is determinist signaling, in which materialists flaunt their bona fides. It is analogous to a political yard sign or a cross worn around the neck.

It’s a way of announcing to the world who you are — whether or not you really believe (i.e., behave in accordance with) your politics or your faith. The difference between a political belief expressed on a sign or faith expressed via a pendant and free will denial is that sometimes the sign or cross do correspond to a way of life, and thus are real expressions of belief. Free will denial, on the other hand, never constitutes genuine belief, because it is not possible to live as if free will isn’t real.

There's much more to Egnor's argument at the link. He closes by noting that "What you do is immeasurably louder than what you say. You don’t really believe that free will isn’t real unless you live like it isn’t real.”

To live as if free will isn't real, though, is to live as a complete and utter nihilist, and no one can pull that off.