Augustine

Robert Sapolsky’s 2023 Detemined: A Science of Life Without Free Will is a recent major influence on me. Sapolsky, a neuroscientist, argues free will either does not exist or at best, exists at a lower rate than we like to believe. Sapolsky’s previous book, Behave states, “And [human behavior] is indeed a mess, a subject involving brain chemistry, hormones, sensory cues, prenatal environment, early experience, genes, both biological and cultural evolution, and ecological pressures, among other things.” 

Some quick examples:

A child born in 2026 in Sweden will have a different life-path than a child born in the Mesolithic in the same region. Child morality rate, access to the internet, diets, social context. Behaviors will naturally be different. 

We can even be less radical in comparison. A child raised in a fundamentalist Christian home will be reared and internalize ideas differently than one raised in an atheist home. Beliefs literally shape brain development. On the inverse, impacted frontal lobes seem to predispose people to fundamentalist beliefs. 

Have you heard of the “hungry judge effect?” The closer a judge is to lunch or a meal break (ie, hungrier), the less likely a defendant is to receive parole, or otherwise receive harsher penalties when found guilty.

Back to Sapolsky, his Determined and Behavior are extensive explorations of human behavior and how we are not really in “the driver’s seat” to put it some way. Sapolsky speaks about how our unconscious brains make decisions before we are consciously aware of even making it. Get angry and yell? You were going to do that before you knew it. Able to calm down and walk away? Your brain composition, hormone levels, and more, also decided that. Outside factors also play a part. Maybe your friend can calm you before you raise your voice, or maybe they instigated it!

Sapolsky uses his determinist outlook to argue for institutional and ethical reforms. Restorative justice, as one example. He argues: “I am of the stance that the entire criminal justice system, top to bottom, makes no sense whatsoever because it is predicated on 200-year-old biology. We have no control, ultimately, over anything we do. When we say ‘I’ve changed my mind’ about doing this or that, we are in fact saying ‘circumstances have changed my mind.’ We have no agency, and the criminal justice system does not make any sense at all.”

In short, Sapolsky argues our behavior is less rooted in choice than in our internal and external contexts. Social relations, institutions, and ethics should reflect that realization. 

With that said, what does a determinist-anarchist ethic look like? Well, it does away with moral claims of personal responsibility to at least a major degree, if we agree with Sapolsky’s perspective above. It also arms us with a new argument that the State can be seen as superfluous in many regards, because punitive actions, policing, etc, are responding to behaviors derived from non-personal elements. Sure, a punitive advocate could claim the existence of prisons and other aspects of State violence may interact with a person’s composite brain and encourage positive behavior. My response would be this is too much of a reach, compared to other options. Healthy, face-to-face, equitable societies are more likely to produce healthy, sociable, equitable individuals. Societies with States would also encourage those with power-seeking behaviors to, well, seek power. If people are all bad, as the idea goes, do you trust bad people in charge of other bad people? And if the institutions are made by bad people, you can damn well believe bad people will do what it takes to get to the top. 

Questions:

1. If you took an hard determinist (free will and determinism cannot co-exist) position, would you remain an anarchist? Asked another way, does anarchy only work within a framework that accepts free will?

2. How might a determinist view of human behavior enhance our understanding of anarchism, or justice, or personal responsibility?


 

Comments

anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/21/2025 - 11:28

i am helpless, doomed to remain an anarchist in an anarchic world rife with oppressive social hierarchies and institutions, and unjust systems. i love my fate! but i did not choose to love it. salvation is pre-ordained by God.

anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/21/2025 - 21:29

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

See how determinism -a barbaric ideological current that is inherently authoritarian- denies any form of anarchist agency while also supporting complacency. Rite?

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/22/2025 - 07:49

In reply to by determinism is… (not verified)

You're confusing free will with indeterminacy, but that is not how it was understood classically. Free will does not exist in a vacuum. It was always understood as the capacity of rational, embodied persons to act through formed habits, social context, and ordered causes, not as an exemption from them. The trouble with this argument is that if humans are not responsible for their actions, then there is no coherent reason to exempt social institutions, since our responses to crime would be just as determined by external forces as individual behavior, which in turn makes it unintelligible to blame society or demand reform, because the very political conclusion that we should change how we respond to crime presupposes that society is capable of reasoned judgment and voluntary change.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/22/2025 - 07:59

In reply to by determinism is… (not verified)

Another problem here is that your comment implies that someone else should have thought more carefully about his position before saying anything, but chose not to... But how could he have said, or done, or believed anything differently? How bro? How?

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/22/2025 - 10:23

In reply to by determinism is… (not verified)

Always funny when determinist dolts are enforcing their ideology both upon themselves and others like a natural/biological/physical FACC... while ignoring all the performative, arbitrary conflations, generalizations and baseless projections such work demands. Could it be that this all this make-belief is inherently constructs!? 0_0

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/22/2025 - 10:52

We have free will within limits or parameters. Of course, all the things Sapolsky posits "brain chemistry, hormones, sensory cues, prenatal environment, early experience, genes, both biological and cultural evolution, and ecological pressures," as determining behavior exist. But are those not part of a being? We are our experience, are we not? We are our brains are we not?

We live on a planet with a particular gravity, with a certain particular atmosphere, we have bodies of a particular kind, there are limits to what we can do with these. Humans cannot fly with just our bodies, not the way birds do, that is not a failing it is just how humans are.

A judge being hungry affecting their actions now knows that being hungry affects their actions and, if they want to be fair, can take this information into account and choose to act accordingly.

There are things we can choose and things we cannot choose. Figuring out when we have choice and taking or accepting responsibility for our choices is the free will we have.

Alfredo Banano (not verified) Mon, 12/22/2025 - 16:20

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Hurry up, comrade, give the judge a snickers, before the lunch break nears! Always-already be predetermined, before a new cult tries to convince you that you have a choice!

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/22/2025 - 20:40

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Will to power has ended the debate on "free will". It IS the free will.

There's many proofs of its existence but a well-known internet one was the footage of a bird using a jar cap as snowboard to slide down the slope of a snowy roof. The vid should still be available on YT.

It's not even about the bird challenging its own physical capacity, it's the bird either imitating humans or coming up with this idea, creatively. There's absolutely nothing in Evolution and biology that explains the creative insight motivating a bird's intent to do such a thing. This is breaking all deterministic "natural laws". So not only "free will" exists in humans, but among many non-human animals too.

So a human can't fly by themself... yet we developed the means to emulate birds, in a similar way. And yes, that also means you can have a world of relations without money, commodity, bureaucracy, i.e. state. Without even needing a "Community".

The will to power is not a force that appears due to, but despite all the biological and other physical constraints. It seeks to go beyond a condition. That is the will of the "übermensh".

Determinists are just convicts of authoritarian belief systems.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/22/2025 - 15:28

You know you are in the presence of a sheepish moron when they say :- "God willing, we blah blah blah.,,," But I have willed myself to be civil and tolerate freedom of faith to prevent war, even though these morons go on to say "God willing, our soldiers will survive this battle against these foolish sinners"
*sigh* At LeAst HiTleR, MaO aNd StaLiN nEveR uSed tHiS hYpoCriTicAl tRoPe lIkE tRumP dOeS !!! *inhales from bong*

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Mon, 12/22/2025 - 16:32

The writer says, "we are not really in 'the driver’s seat'....We have no agency..." This presents people as alienated from the reality which *really* causes things to happen. But we are part of reality. *We* are not *in* the driver's seat but we *are* the driver's seat. That decisions are made due to lawful behavior, does not deny that there truly are decisions being made.

If I put two weights on the two panniers of a classical scale, it will likely move up and down until the heavier object decisively pulls down one side and the lighter one goes upward. This result was inevitable, but a decision was being made nevertheless. The same is true of humans (and other animals). Faced with a dilemma, the final conclusion our mind reaches may have been "determined" (that is, lawful) but that doesn't mean that the mind did not balance the alternatives and make a choice.

Further, to say that something is determined is not to say that we can know what it is. Not having a God's-eye view of all the determinants, we can, at best, make probabilistic predictions. Even with our modern technology and science, meteorologists cannot be absolutely sure about the weather! This is not because the winds and clouds have "free will." It is because the causes are just too complex for our knowledge. The same is true for humans. They are even more complex in their consciousness and behavior. People's behavior is best treated as lawful but probabilistic.

Bakunin rejected "free will" as a theological concept. But he believed in the possibility of human freedom.

Not a betch (not verified) Wed, 12/24/2025 - 12:51

“Freely determined” by Kennon Sheldon is a well written argument that systematically takes down deterministic assumptions and arguments.

anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/24/2025 - 22:52

All proceeding defenses of Sapolsky are provisional; it's overly academic and positivist. But it deserves defense here before deconstruction.

To the anonymous fool who declares determinism "barbaric" and "inherently authoritarian," claiming it strips anarchists of agency and breeds complacency: This is laughable projection. Determinism doesn't "deny" agency; it explains it as the output of causal processes. Your "agency" isn't some magical spark floating above biology—it's the sum of your neurons firing based on prior states. Sapolsky's work shows how even your rebellious anarchist impulses are determined by factors like testosterone levels, childhood trauma, or cultural exposure to radical ideas. Calling it authoritarian is ironic: Free will myths prop up authoritarian systems by blaming individuals for systemic failures (e.g., "You chose poverty!"). Determinism liberates us by focusing on fixing causes—poverty, inequality—rather than punishing "bad choices." If you're complacent, that's on your determined brain chemistry, not the philosophy.
To the commenter whining that without free will, there's no responsibility and thus no basis for institutional reform: This is a classic non sequitur rooted in ignorance of compatibilism's flaws and determinism's ethical implications. Even if actions are determined, we can still hold people accountable in a forward-looking sense—to deter harm and rehabilitate—without the retributive fantasy of "they could have chosen otherwise." Your argument assumes responsibility requires indeterminacy, but that's begging the question. Neuroscience (e.g., Libet's experiments) shows decisions form unconsciously before awareness; "choice" is an illusion retrofitted by the brain. Reforms happen because they're determined by collective pressures, not because some mythical free agent wills them. If determinism is true, your resistance to it is just as predetermined—and futile. Sapolsky points out: Societies that embrace this (e.g., Norway's restorative justice) see lower recidivism, proving determinism drives positive change, not stagnation.
To the smug one pointing out the "irony" in determinists criticizing others for not thinking carefully, since they "couldn't have done otherwise": Cute gotcha, but it misses the point entirely. Determinism doesn't preclude criticism; it's a determined response to flawed ideas, aimed at influencing future behaviors through social feedback. Your brain couldn't help but post that drivel, but mine is wired to dismantle it, potentially rewiring others' neural pathways via exposure to better arguments. This isn't hypocrisy—it's causality in action. If anything, your quip reveals your own shallow grasp: Determinism explains why bad ideas persist (e.g., cultural reinforcement), but also why education and debate can erode them.
To the vague critic accusing determinists of "enforcing ideology biologically" while ignoring "constructed generalizations": This is word salad masquerading as profundity. Determinism isn't an ideology imposed; it's a conclusion from evidence—fMRI scans showing prefrontal cortex activity predetermined by amygdala responses, twin studies on genetic heritability of traits, etc. Your appeal to "constructions" (social or otherwise) doesn't refute it; those constructions are themselves determined by evolutionary and cultural histories. If you're trying to invoke postmodernism, fine—but even Foucault's power/knowledge dynamics are causally explainable. This is just performative dismissal, not a counterargument.
To the optimist claiming free will exists "within limits," where biology and environment are "part of the self," allowing choices like a hungry judge compensating for bias: This is soft determinism (compatibilism) at its weakest, conceding everything while pretending victory. If all factors are "part of the self," then the self is fully determined—no room for the "could have done otherwise" that's central to true free will. Sapolsky demolishes this with examples like toxoplasmosis parasites altering rat behavior to seek cats, or how a single gene mutation (e.g., MAOA) predicts aggression based on childhood environment. The judge's "awareness" of hunger? That's determined too—by prior education, glucose levels, even gut microbiome. Your view reduces to "we act as we must, but let's call it choice." Pathetic rebranding.
To Alfredo Banano's joke about feeding judges: Harmless, but it unwittingly supports determinism—external interventions (like snacks) alter "decisions," proving no autonomous will.
To the Nietzsche fanboy invoking "will to power" and a bird's "creative" use of a jar cap as proof against determinism: This is anthropomorphic nonsense. The bird's "snowboarding" isn't breaking laws; it's emergent behavior from evolved neural plasticity, determined by genetics, learning history, and environmental cues. Creativity isn't a free-floating essence—it's causal: Einstein's insights trace to his brain's wiring, influenced by education and even prenatal nutrition. Sapolsky cites how prairie voles' monogamy stems from vasopressin receptors, not "will." Your extension to anarchist relations without the state? Determinism explains why hierarchies form (power-seeking via dopamine circuits) and how to dismantle them (by altering social determinants like resource equity). Claiming it's authoritarian ignores how free will myths justify oppression: "Slaves chose submission!"
To the mocker of religious fatalism: Irrelevant red herring. Determinism isn't "God willing"; it's science. Conflating them shows your confusion.
To Wayne Price's compatibilist drivel—that humans "are" the drivers, making "lawful" decisions, with behavior probabilistic due to complexity: More redefinition games. If we're the "drivers," we're still driven by prior causes—quantum probabilities don't save free will; they add randomness, not agency (as Sam Harris argues). Bakunin's rejection of theological free will aligns with determinism, not against it. Your scale analogy (inevitable fall but a "choice" occurs) is absurd: The "choice" is the determined physics. Complexity doesn't imply freedom; it just means we can't predict perfectly, but causality holds.
Finally, to "Not a betch" recommending Freely Determined by Kennon Sheldon: Nice plug, but Sheldon's self-determination theory (autonomy via basic needs) is psychological fluff atop deterministic foundations. It describes how we feel autonomous when needs are met, but doesn't prove metaphysical free will. Sapolsky integrates similar ideas but grounds them in biology—fulfilling needs changes brain states deterministically.
In sum, this thread is a testament to human denial: Clinging to free will props up egos, justifies blame, and avoids the hard work of addressing root causes. Determinism isn't defeatist—it's empowering, urging us to engineer better environments for all. If these commenters feel annihilated, good: Their illusions deserved it. Read Sapolsky, critique, and evolve.

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Thu, 12/25/2025 - 20:38

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Anonymous (22:52) does not seem to have read my brief comments carefully; then again perhaps I did not write clearly enough. I was not denying determinism nor justifying "free will." I was denying that the self is somehow distinct from the world, being moved by "external" forces. Current events (including human mental and behavioral events) are determined by the totality of past events and then determine future events. Yet we *experience* ourselves as making choices and decisions. Why is this? It is because the self is made up of the interacting and clashing determinants, not a completely separate cork floating on a raging sea. We *do* make decisions, even if the outcome is inevitable (if we could know all the factors which go into each decision, that is).

It is a good point to distinguish indeterminacy from "free will." It is impossible to know if everything in the universe is actually determined--since we cannot know everything in the universe. Some things, subatomically or otherwise, may not be determined. But instrumentally, "determinacy" is a commitment to looking for the causes of everything we deal with. We postulate that there are causes (that the universe is everywhere lawful) in order to look for such causes. But again, determinacy and indeterminacy are not the same as a discussion of "free will."

anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/25/2025 - 11:13

Ah... here's you quoting that conservative reactionary ideologue Sam Harris. Attempting to applying quantum physics to the complex sociological questions of development, integration, exclusion, conflict, etc? How piss-poor puerile pseudo-intellectualism of you.

And as others said... free will is not about the choices provided by some conditions, but rather of creating new choices, out of new questions. There are precedents by which individuals may be inclined in seeking to make their *own* choices... like especially when they fail at or are unsatisfied with the options being offered. This is partly deterministic, yes, but as far as social conditions are still fucking collective, intentional constructs.

I've read Lucretius so I know already about the foundations of this positivist determinism that still pretends to explain everything with hyper-reductionist biochem bullshit (turned out to be a very lucrative industry anyways!), and often assumes a self-justifying, inverted causality to justify their own theories.

Like, development of neurons is not only affecting, but *is affected by* our thoughts, morals, beliefs systems and collective consciousness. If you create radically different social dynamics of intercourse and interplay, you get to affect people's brains differently. And *then* they can collectively think differently. That is called "culture", and yes it does exists.

anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/25/2025 - 11:38

Most of the arguments I have seen for a completely deterministic view of human behavior narrowly focus on short-term decision making. From what I have seen, Sapolsky is a good example; but, I only know some of his lecture series and not the books you cited. If you focus soley on the short-term, you leave out the whole domain of planning, which is something that human beings do a lot of. There is planning in the form of having an ideal self-image people try to live up to, or in the more procedural sense of something like a 5-year plan. Both of which rely on imagination, which is a way that human beings mentally step outside of time and therefore outside the completely external relations of cause-and-effect. The interior world of the human imagination is a place where different rules apply and that is where something like "free will" can be found.

The real issue with the above is that those ideal self-images and ideal (sometimes utopian) situations are often prefabricated. But how does that happen? Well, that is what so many social theorists turn to studies of culture to figure out ...and it doesn't look like there is much consensus on that. Even so, not ALL ideals or goals are prefabricated. People come up with goals by doing their own thinking about life and self-reflection all the time. And because that involves a ton of multi-causal, high complexity stuff, there is not a linear cause-and-effect way to go from biology+environmental/social conditioning to predictable goals and ideals. A lot of people have tried and failed looking for such a thing.

So I think the evidence suggests that there is something like individual decision-making that is pretty much unique in some way to each individual and not only because each individual occupies a unique spot in space-time. That isn't "free will" in the philosophical sense of the universe having two subtances, one material and one spiritual... with the Will being from the spiritual substance and free because of it. But it is n't really determinism either. If each individual is making their own unique decisions, with awareness and intent, then that is meaningfully free in way that allows for anarchism to make sense. And this "meaningfully free" ability is something that I think anarchism helps to optimize with all its iconoclasm (smashing those prefabricated ideals and goals) and emphasis on individual and collective direct action.

anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/25/2025 - 12:56

I used to fall for this, but it's really a category error. "Free will" is just how we describe what's entailed by our existence; the putative metaphysical underpinnings are just a lower level of abstraction. And anyway, so is the universe's determinism --- that emerges from a lower level, the realm of quantum effects, which are probabilistic rather than deterministic.

lins (not verified) Fri, 12/26/2025 - 17:17

A; This seems a largly needless red herring of a debate to be having, considering y'know, the multiple far more important factors in play. 'determinism' or not only one set of methods is going to help save as much life as possible, mathematically if nothing else. And whatever your ideology if that isn't your goal then your goals are pointless and will lead nowhere. like yeah, in that case settle for capitalism if you want, but why the fuck are you writing here then?
B; remember indigenous cultures and peoples are whom anarchism first originated from, many of whom identify anarchism as theirs as a result. And in that tradition there are multiple different perspectives. Many of them include animism and/or respect for all life. Perhaps you should consider looking into those perspectives before speaking so brazenly on them.
C; Our own experience of conciousness is multifaceted , plural, body-wide, and extremely complex. We are capable of extreme levels of dual-concious thought, and observing eachothers thought-patterns, meaning on an intuitive level we see as both being true. Additionally I will point out quantum science is very much real, and there is no reason to suggest it couldn't play a part in conciousness, thus making any certainty moot.
Finally D; Making this point could cause problems for some with more maleable minds, prone to certain forms of psychosis, etc.

All together, why the hell make this the feutured post on this site? How, exactly, does it serve anarchism in any way to make this a priority topic of debate? You could've just posted it as a normal post, or even better, asked some anarchist friends for advice. Assuming any are inclusive and interested in more than needless theory, that is.
Now if you'll excuse us, we'd like to get to actually helping people and saving the world. Perhaps we'll water a plant little and care about it.
You should try it.

anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/27/2025 - 13:25

Determinism attempts to abolish the present with wave of the hand, and impose a tyranny of the known past with the logic of "hindsight is 20/20". It forecloses imagination and possibility in the name of "wait and see". Fancy concepts like protopanpsychism, sympoiesis, and enactivism can provide alternatives to the philosophically inclined to waste their time without willfully denying their agency merely because it makes for a neat, convenient, and compelling argument. The page can bear anything, and anything can easily be justified with words.

anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/31/2025 - 21:38

Curious how when I apply nihilism to determinism it just disappears without a smudge. Huh. Crazy. It vanished, just like smoke in the air. It does tend to do that to every idea I apply it to.

But when I apply determinism to nihilism, it leaves it unchanged. Weird. It does tend to do that to every idea I apply it to.

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