Illustration by Pat Linse
SKEPTIC MAGAZINE HAS FEATURED SOME INTERESTING articles recently on the issue of “free will.” Similar articles in the past have appeared in Free Inquiry and The Humanist. What I have long found interesting is the tendency of writers who claim there is no such thing as free will to act as though that they themselves and the readers of their articles they are hoping to convince are possessed of free will, and are free to take corrective, humane measures to improve society. Their deterministic arguments are usually intended to justify lax criminal codes and/or call for judicial reform based on their conclusion that the perpetrators had “no choice” but to act as they did.