The attacks on one of the fundamental essences of being human — free will — continue apace. The latest example can be found in the BBC’s Science Focus feature, in which Stanford biology professor Robert Sapolsky — a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant for his work on the physiological effects of stress — redefines us as merely robotic biological machines incapable of making truly free decisions.

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We only think we “could have done otherwise” than what we did, claims Sapolsky. From the BBC interview:

Acting on something and knowing you could have done otherwise is often necessary and sufficient to decide that free has just happened. Where I come in pulling my hair out is that doing that misses the key question: how did you turn out to be the sort of person who would tend to do that at that moment? It’s like asking about what happened in a book having only read the final sentence of it. You’ve missed everything that has gone before. . . .

Acting on something and knowing you could have done otherwise is often necessary and sufficient to decide that free has just happened.

Where I come in pulling my hair out is that doing that misses the key question: how did you turn out to be the sort of person who would tend to do that at that moment? It’s like asking about what happened in a book having only read the final sentence of it. You’ve missed everything that has gone before. . . .

Sapolsky claims that we are victims of an illusion that we control our own behavior. Why does the good professor think this (besides having no choice)? Biological determinism:

How did it turn out that........

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