The dark side of free will | Gregg Caruso | TEDxChemungRiver

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

What would happen if we all believed free will didn't exist? As a free will skeptic, Dr. Gregg Caruso contends our society would be better off believing there is no such thing as free will.

I have been thinking a lot lately
about the following question:

what would happen
if we came to disbelieve in free will?

What would this mean
for our interpersonal relationships,

society, morality, meaning in the law?

For example, would giving up the belief
in free will have dire consequences

for society or something?

Or would it rather have
a humanizing effect

on our practices and polices,

freeing us from the negative effects
of belief in free will?

What I would like to propose today

is that the belief in free will
rather than being a good thing

actually has a dark side
and that we'd be better off without it.

I know this is counterintuitive.

Many people fear that life
without free will lead to nihilism,

there'd be no reason to go on,
or that it would undermine morality.

Or that we will just let
criminals run free

since there'd be no moral responsibility.

But I would like to paint
a different picture for you today.

It begins with the idea
of free will skepticism.

So I am a free will skeptic.
I deny the existence of free will.

Free will skeptics maintain
that who we are, what we do,

is ultimately the result of factors
beyond our control,

and because of this,

we are never morally responsible for
our actions in the basic desert sense

that is the sense that would make us
truly deserving of praise and blame.

Historically, there have been a number
of philosophical and scientific arguments

for free will skepticism,

and I've promoted
these arguments in my own work,

but I'm not here today to try
to convince you that you lack free will.

It's not my goal.

I'm actually interested
in a slightly different question:

what would happen if we came
to accept this perspective?

What would happen, practically speaking,
if we came to disbelieve in free will?

Would it be, on the whole,
a good thing or a bad thing?

And it's here that I'm an optimist.

I am optimistic about the prospects
of life without free will.

I call myself an optimistic skeptic.

As an optimistic skeptic,

I maintain that life without free will

is not only possible
but that it's preferable.

Prospects of finding meaning in life

and sustaining good interpersonal
relationships, for example,

would not be threatened.

Although certain systems of punishment

like those based on the model
of retribution or just deserts

would be ruled out;

preventive detention and rehabilitation
programs would still be justified.

I will say a little bit more
about these in a moment.

So as an optimistic skeptic,

I maintain that life without free will
may actually be good for our well being,

and our relationships with others,

since it could tend to eradicate
an often destructive form of moral anger,

a kind of moral anger

that's corrosive to our relationships
and to our social policies.

So to better understand
the dark side of free will,

what I want to do is just talk about

some recent empirical work
in moral political physiology.

What this work has done has actually shown

that there is a number of interesting
and potentially troubling correlations

between the belief in free will

and people's other moral religious
and political beliefs.

In particular, what they found is
that free will beliefs are correlated

with higher levels
of religiosity, punitiveness,

and a number of conservative
beliefs in attitude,

such as just world belief
and right wing authoritarianism.

I am only going to focus on
two of these today,

that is the connection between the belief
in free will and punitiveness,

and that between the belief in free will
and what's called just world belief.

So we take punitiveness for example.

What this research has shown is
that where believe in free will is strong,

as we see increased punitiveness,

that is people are more likely to call
for harsher forms of punishment

in a number of different scenarios.

And this makes sense:
if you think people possess free will,

then you believe they justly deserve to
be praised and blamed for their actions.

if they engage in an immoral act, you want
to see them get their just deserts, right?

It's very close
to a notion of retribution:

you want to inflict harm on them
for the harm they've inflicted on others.

But the downside of this is, again,
you can create a moral anger

that's destructive to our relationships
with others and to our social policies.

So consider this on a macro level,

belief in free will is relatively strong
in the United States.

In fact, it's built right
into the mythology

of the rugged individual,
the self-made man, the causa Sui,

the person that can pull themselves up
from the bootstraps

and overcome all
of their life circumstances.

But because we are
so committed to this belief,

we are also a relatively punitive society.

Consider this one simple fact:

the United States makes up about 5%
of the world's population,

yet it incarcerates
25% of the world's prisoners.

I will say that again
because it's a rather startling statistic:

we make up a relatively small sliver
of the world's population, about 5%,

but we house and imprison
25% of the world's prisoners.

I don't think it's controversial to say
our criminal justice system is broken.

It is not working, not making us safer,
it's not reducing crime,

it's, by no means, achieving
our desired social goals,

and it is not reducing the rate
of recidivism, that is repeat crime.

But just perhaps, if we adopt
the skeptical perspective,

we might be able to adopt more effective,
and more humane policies.

So let me just briefly sketch quickly

how a free will skeptic
might address criminal behavior.

There's a professor
- not too far from here,

his name is Derek Pereboom,
he teaches at Cornell University;

he's a free will skeptic, like myself -

and he proposes a model
for dealing with dangerous criminals

based on analogy with quarantine.

So people who contract contagious diseases
do so for no fault of their own,

they're not morally responsible
for having done so;

we don't think they
deserve to be punished.

But we do feel justified

in quarantining those individuals
for the safety of society.

Well, we can say the same thing
for dangerous criminals

that is even you adopted
the perspective that I am advocating,

and you believe that individuals
are not ultimately responsible

for becoming who they are,

we could still justify detaining those
individuals for the safety of society.

But if we did this, this would entail
a number of major reforms,

all of which I think are actually
really important and good.

For one, we'd have the duty

to the well-being
and rehabilitation of criminals,

just like you would have a duty

to treat the person
in quarantine for their disease.

Secondly,

you couldn't treat those individuals
cruelly while being detained,

just like you couldn't treat cruelly
the people we are holding in quarantine.

Thirdly, if there are less severe
forms of punishment available,

we'd have to opt for
those less severe forms of punishment

and that might entail rethinking
some of our harsher sentencing laws,

and some of our crueler forms
of punishment in super max prisons.

And lastly,

if you are someone like myself,
you think it's the causal circumstances

that drive these behaviors
in the first place,

then free will skeptics would put
their money, resources and focus

on addressing the systemic causes
that lead to criminality:

wealth, inequality, educational inequity.

So instead of blaming people
and punishing them,

on the tail-end, you'd try to prevent
the criminal behavior in the first place.

(Applause)

Thank you.

Not only do I think free will skeptics can
deal successfully with criminal behaviors,

I think they could do so
more humanely and more effectively.

So let me switch over
to the other belief I mentioned:

belief in free will has also been shown
through this research

to correlate with what is known
as just world belief.

So what is it?

Fundamentally, it is the belief
that the world is just,

good things happen to good people,
and bad things happen to bad people.

But also, fundamentally,
it's a blame-the-victim approach

since it maintains that individuals
justly deserve what they get,

and that those who meet misfortune
have often brought it them on themselves.

In the 1960s, psychologists developed
what is known as just world belief scale.

It was meant to design people's commitment
to this type of belief,

but it was also particularly designed to
capture the natural tendency people have

to blame those who meet misfortune
for their own circumstances.

Over the years, what they found
is that high scores on this belief,

correlate with the likelihood
of derogating innocent victims,

trusting current institutions
and authorities,

and blaming the poor and praising
the rich for their respective faiths.

As I said, this is essentially
a blame-the-victim approach;

you can see manifestations
of it all throughout society.

One of the more pernicious

is the tendency, both among
ordinary folk and the legal system,

to blame rape victims
for their own circumstances.

So if the world is just,

and good things happen to good people,
and bad things happen to bad people,

to try to reconcile
such a horrific act as rape

while preserving the belief
that the world is just,

you turn that innocent victim
into somebody that's guilty.

They were dressed provocatively,

they were walking
where they shouldn't had been walking.

Another manifestation
of this blame-the-victim approach

could be seen throughout society.

For example, blaming those in poverty
for their own circumstances.

Claiming that those on welfare
are lazy or mooches.

Or blaming educational inequity on
the children and the parents themselves.

But we all know, at least on a more
rational deliberate moment,

that the world is not just,

and that the lottery of life
is not always fair.

We need to acknowledge the role
that luck plays in our lives,

who we are, and how we turn out, right?

We don't all have equal starting points.

As I said in the beginning,
I'm an optimist,

I am optimistic that if we could adopt
this skeptical perspective,

we may be able to free ourselves

from some of these beliefs
and harmful tendencies.

In fact, there was
a recent study that came out

in the Journal of Psychological Science

that found that by reducing
people's beliefs in free will,

it actually made them less punitive,

and call for less harsh forms of treatment
in a number of hypothetical scenarios.

This tells me two things: one,
it reaffirms what I was saying earlier,

that where believe in free will is strong
as we see increased punitiveness,

but it also provides hopes to me

that we can perhaps relinquish ourselves
on some of these more harmful beliefs

and by doing so, loose some
of that moral anger I've been discussing.

So my proposal is rather simple.

Let's not fear free will skepticism.
Let's embrace it.

Let's give up the belief
in free will, and with it,

the pernicious belief in just-deserts,
that people justly deserve what they get.

Let's leave this adequate notion behind,

lose our moral anger
and stop blaming the victim.

Instead, let's turn our attention
to the difficult task

of addressing the causes that lead

to criminality, to wealth inequity,
and educational inequity.

Once we relinquish the belief
in free will, this will allow us

to look more clearly at the causes
and more deeply at the systems

that shape individuals and their behavior,

and this will allow us to adopt
more humane and more effective policies

in education, criminal justice,
and social policies.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)