Determined: The Science of Life Without Free Will

Written by Robert M Sapolsky

Narrated by Kaleo Griffith

Brought to you by Penguin.

One of the world’s greatest scientists of human behaviour, the bestselling author of Behave, shows that free will does not exist - and sets out the disturbing yet liberating implications of accepting this fact.

What if free will is an illusion? As Robert Sapolsky shows in this masterful account of the science of human behaviour, everything we think and do is caused by the luck of our biology and the influence of our environment, and ultimately both are beyond our control. In a world without free will, we must completely rethink what we mean by choice, responsibility, morality and justice. Sapolsky’s extraordinary book does exactly this, guiding us toward a profoundly fairer, more humane way of living together.

‘A joy to read. It's impossible to recommend this book too highly. Reading it could change your life’ LAURENCE REES

‘Outstanding for its breadth of research, the liveliness of the writing and the depth of humanity it conveys’ Wall Street Journal

‘Moving, absorbing, compassionate' OLIVER BURKEMAN, Observer

©2023 Robert M Sapolsky (P)2023 Penguin Audio

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House
• Release date: Oct 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781529198560

Robert M Sapolsky

Robert M. Sapolsky is the author of several works of nonfiction, including A Primate’s Memoir, The Trouble with Testosterone, and Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. His most recent book, Behave, was a New York Times bestseller and named a best book of the year by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant.” He and his wife live in San Francisco.

Reviews for Determined

[booksfordinner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Agree with most everything in here...can be a bit tough-going, but Sapolsky is very funny!

[markm2315 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I don't think I've read anything by the author before. I heard him on Sam Harris' podcast. There doesn't seem to be anything philosophically new here (I wrote the same thing in an Anthropology blue book in 1972 and the TA gave me a D and wrote a vulgar comment.); macroscopic determinism excludes free will. But what I enjoyed so much was the author's careful development of his argument and the huge number of small neuroscientific, behavioral, psychological, and evolutionary facts that he uses. I liked his use of epilepsy, schizophrenia, autism, and obesity as examples of the progression of our understanding of these conditions (and I was reminded that tuberculosis was considered a disease of artists, wayward women, and Jews before the discovery of Mycobacteria, and that gastric ulcers were considered a stress-related illness common in white bankers before the re-discovery of Helicobacter pylori).

The second part of the book is Sapolsky's look at the consequences of living in a world in which the absence of free will was accepted. Although he shows that some changes might be possible, especially in his review of the Norwegian penal system, changing the view of other aspects of our life, e.g. Are we really ready to say that all of our personal achievements are due to chance?, are enormously challenging. To say nothing of the effect on Hollywood if revenge movies were seen as ridiculous.

[annbury_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an amazing book; I don't think I have ever learned as much from one book as I did from this one. As a non-scientist, it was not an easy read, despite an eminently readable (and frequently very funny) prose style. It was well worth the effort, however. So much for the matter of the book, what about the conclusion? That is very challenging, as the author acknowledges. I find myself in the odd position of intellectually accepting his arguments, but emotionally ignoring them. I think the idea of no free will may take quite a while to move from my head to my heart, if it ever does.

[waldhaus1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Thought provoking and mind expanding.
I am reminded on the statement I have heard attributed to Schopenhauer:” you may do as you will but you can’t will as you will. I wonder of rather than full determinism we should compare this to Feynman’s particles that follow a course set by probability. To some extent the author speaks to that idea. Still off one ours fortunate enough to have opportunities perhaps believing in free will incentivizes trying to be one’s best or as the marines say: be all you can be. “