Robert M. Sapolsky
Do you really make your own choices, or are your actions shaped by biology and environment in ways that leave less room for freedom than we assume? The debate over free will turns on how far that causal story reaches.
Determinism argues that human behavior is the inevitable result of biological factors and environmental circumstances stretching back to before birth.
Proponents of a world without free will suggest that because individuals cannot control their pasts, no one truly deserves praise or punishment in the retributive sense.
Critics argue that abandoning free will relies on a flawed understanding of complex systems and too readily dismisses the human capacity for self-regulation.