Sam Harris and the Illusion of Free Will: A Critical Analysis

The Illusion of Free Will: Analyzing Sam Harris

Harris sets the foundation for his position by attempting to analyze why so many believe they act freely in the first place. I believe he does this partly because many defenses of free will start with a phenomenological claim: it seems to us that we do, in fact, act freely and are responsible for those acts at times. If Harris can dispense with this experience, or at least explain why these experiences are not what we take them to be, he can cast doubt on an essential Libertarian starting point, which strengthens his case.

Choices, Efforts, and Intentions

In the section titled “Choices, Efforts, and Intentions,” Harris discusses the feeling of freedom and states that this feeling, while not inconsequential, is not relevant to the actual exercise of a free choice. The root of his claim is this: the experience we have of making a free choice is superficial and collapses under analysis.

The feeling of freely choosing 'A' over 'B' appears to be caused by us, but when we examine the underlying processes, we see that no sense can be given to the idea of a first cause. All actions, including those we deem freely caused by us, are actually the result of a series of events—most of which we have no epistemic access to or control over.

The Causal Chain of Thought

At first glance, when I have the thought “turn on the light,” it may appear that I initiated the thought. I “decide” to turn on the light, and it is that act of deciding that “creates” the thought and initiates a causal chain to move my body to flip the switch. However, Harris argues that upon closer analysis, it becomes clear that I have no access to the reasons why that specific thought appears before my mind rather than the thought “leave the light off.”

The Paradox of Freedom

There is a problem with this claim. Harris seems to be toying with the counterfactual: he provides what appear to be the necessary conditions for freedom, effectively offering a coherent definition of freedom before attempting to show that such acts never occur. So, is the idea incoherent or not?

Harris addresses this by stating:

"But there is a paradox there that vitiates the very notion of freedom—for what would influence the influences? More influences? None of these adventitious mental states are the real you. You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm." (p. 24)

Conclusion: The Incoherence of Free Will

It is this paradox that gives credence to his claim that the very notion of free will is incoherent. Any narrative regarding free will must be an event-causal story, and any event-causal story makes the notion of a prime mover impossible. Despite his presentation of what a counterfactual situation involving free acts would look like, it is clear he believes such a situation is fundamentally incoherent.