183. Does Free Will Exist, and Does It Matter?

Do we have free will to make our own choices and decide our own actions? To many of us, it certainly feels like we do. But philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris thinks that we aren’t really in charge of our decisions—and in Free Will, he makes the case that not only is free will an illusion, it’s an illusion that we’re better off abandoning altogether.

Harris argues that all of our thoughts, feelings, desires, and decisions are caused by influences that are outside of our control and, often, even our consciousness. So, he asks, how could our decisions possibly be free? Yet Harris also makes the case that though our choices are predetermined, the effort we put into making decisions and acting according to them still matters. In this guide, we’ll examine Harris’s ideas and put them into the context of what other philosophers, neuroscientists, and psychologists have discovered about the origins of our thoughts and decisions.

Many people suffer from learned helplessness: the belief that they don’t have the power to make positive changes in their own lives or in the world around them. Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism will teach you how to break out of that pessimistic, powerless mindset and replace it with an empowered mindset of optimism and confidence. Seligman is a professional psychologist, teacher, and author. His theories of learned helplessness and learned optimism are based on his own laboratory studies. He began these studies in the 1960s and has continued tweaking and reexamining them to the present day.

Seligman’s theory of learned helplessness has become widespread, both in the field of psychology and among laypeople. However, Learned Optimism was published in 1990, and there have been significant advances in the field of psychology since then. Our commentary will explore those new developments as needed, provide a grounding in core concepts of psychology, and offer actionable advice.

Many successful leaders and businesspeople are lauded as “great geniuses,” but psychologist Angela Duckworth argues that talent and intelligence matter less to success than grit: the personality trait behind perseverance, hard work, and goal-setting. In Grit, she explores what grit is, where it comes from, how it drives success, and how you can develop it.

Duckworth is primarily interested in how to raise gritty kids, and her insights have inspired parents and educators around the globe since the book’s publication in 2016. However, she believes that adults, too, can develop grit, and she lays out specific, measurable ways to do so.

Her work has fueled debates about which matters more—talent or effort. In this guide, we examine these controversies and consider insights from other psychologists who either support Duckworth’s ideas or reveal nuances of them.

The Happiness Hypothesis explores the nature of human happiness, blending the philosophical and theological wisdom of ancient thinkers with insights from the field of positive psychology. Our satisfaction is driven by how our mental filters interpret the events in our lives, with the human brain perpetually divided against itself in the struggle between the desires created by our emotions and the attempts of reason to control them. The key to happiness is to use reason to focus the mind away from desires that will only bring fleeting happiness, while giving in to those desires that will bring lasting fulfillment.

Do we have free will to make our own choices and decide our own actions? To many of us, it certainly feels like we do. But philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris thinks that we aren’t really in charge of our decisions—and in Free Will, he makes the case that not only is free will an illusion, it’s an illusion that we’re better off abandoning altogether.

Harris argues that all of our thoughts, feelings, desires, and decisions are caused by influences that are outside of our control and, often, even our consciousness. So, he asks, how could our decisions possibly be free? Yet Harris also makes the case that though our choices are predetermined, the effort we put into making decisions and acting according to them still matters. In this guide, we’ll examine Harris’s ideas and put them into the context of what other philosophers, neuroscientists, and psychologists have discovered about the origins of our thoughts and decisions.