Un-Freeing the Will

In today’s Daily Article, features editor R.R. Reno discusses Big Science’s latest attempt to prove determinism right—and free will wrong. If anyone out there isn’t convinced that we’ll start seeing more of these kinds of studies, here’s another example taken straight from today’s headlines:

Researchers at the University of Rochester have shown that the human brain—once thought to be a seriously flawed decision maker—is actually hard-wired to allow us to make the best decisions possible with the information we are given . . . .

Alex Pouget, associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, has shown that people do indeed make optimal decisions—but only when their unconscious brain makes the choice.

“A lot of the early work in this field was on conscious decision making, but most of the decisions you make aren’t based on conscious reasoning,” says Pouget. “You don’t consciously decide to stop at a red light or steer around an obstacle in the road. Once we started looking at the decisions our brains make without our knowledge, we found that they almost always reach the right decision, given the information they had to work with.”

The science behind this study seems solid, and I don’t see why being predisposed to making certain split-second decisions should be surprising or troubling. But notice the narrative that is being woven between the facts: We should let nature control our decisions, because, after all, “people do indeed make optimal decisions—but only when their unconscious brain makes the choice.” But, if nature controls our decisions, how can we be blamed for them? How can we say one decision is right and another wrong?

No, I’m afraid this sort of scientific moralizing won’t go away anytime soon.