Believing in Free Will is Better

the question of whether we have free will is an interesting one and the evidence seems to indicate that we do I've argued this elsewhere in other videos however some like Sam Harris have not only argued against free will but argue believing in determinism is better for individuals to accept and can be more beneficial for society he actually argues holding to determinism would produce better results for society and people in general however this is not the case and several scientific studies indicate not only a belief in Free Will is good for us to have but that

a belief in determinism may cause an increased likelihood of unethical behavior in 2008 in the Journal of psychological science a study was published indicating that a belief in determinism can produce unethical Behavior by increasing cheating the researchers had their subjects read statements that encourage the belief in determinism like a belief in Free Will contradicts the known fact that the universe is governed by law principles of Science and ultimately we are biological computers designed by Evolution built through genetics and programmed by the environment they were also made to read passages from Francis Crick that argue that

science has shown that Free Will is Just an Illusion they were then compared with a control group that was only exposed to neutral statements like sugar cane and sugar beats are grown in 112 countries the results of the two groups concluded that discouraging a belief in Free Will would lead to cheating in their own words the present findings raised a genuine concern concern that widespread encouragement of a deterministic worldview may have inadvertent consequences of encouraging cheating Behavior but someone could always respond that this is just one study however in the same year another study went

a step further it was titled pro-social benefits of feeling free disbelief in Free Will increases aggression and reduces helpfulness the study performed three experiments the first was similar to the one we just discussed with the group that read deterministic statements and another that read neutral statements but a third group was added that read statements that encourage free will the first experiment concluded that the group that was exposed to deterministic statements reduce willingness to help others compared to the other two groups which are virtually the same the study said promoting belief in Free Will had no

effect in comparison to the neutral control condition this suggests that promoting belief in Free Will does not change people away from their normal states and attitudes unlike promoting disbelief in Free Will which did cause a change the implication is that most ordinary people believe in Free Will under normal circumstances this pattern likewise speaks against a hypothesis that the Free Will induction specifically gives rise to a personal feeling of active energy or desire to exert control so this also lend support to the idea that Free Will is intuitive in most humans the second experiment went a

step further and showed that those who have a long-term disbelief in Free Will was associated with reduced helping Behavior those who had long-term or chronic disbelief and Free Will results in less charity and volunteer work disbelief and Free Will was ass associated with a lower tendency to volunteer any help at all so long-term disbelief in Free Will is also not beneficial for Society at large the third experiment showed that disbelief in Free Will caused participants to act more aggressively than others subjects are again separated into different groups and read the same statements and then instructed

to make a meal of crackers cheese and salsa for another subject the subject making the meal was made aware of the spice level the person receiving the meal would like however the group exposed to deterministic statements cared less for the amount of hot salsa they added to the meal regardless of whether the person they made the meal for didn't like spicy foods it was revealed that participants who had read the deterministic sentences gave their Partners more of the unwelcome hot sauce thus inducing disbelief in Free Will led to more aggression as compared to inducing belief

in Free Will the conclusion from these three studies was that disbelief in Free Will subtly reduces people's willingness to expend that energy hence disbelief in Free Will serves as a cue to act on impulse a style of response that promotes selfish and impulsive actions such as aggressing and refusing to help some philosophical analysis May conclude that the fatalistic determinism is compatible with highly ethical Behavior but the present results suggest that many lay persons do not yet appreciate that possibility these studies Are Not Alone the results have been replicated in others as well and other studies

Show additional negative effects of determinism such as this one which shows a disbelief in Free Will increases conformity in this study from 2013 showed that exposure to anti-free will messages can lead people to display antisocial Tendencies their findings said observations indicate that weakening the belief in Free Will can impact behavioral adjustments after an error and could be the cause of antisocial and irresponsible Behavior so it seems a disbelief in Free Will caused people to have reduced awareness of the cognitive errors they were committing now to wrap up I want to be clear I'm not personally

saying this the scientific results are saying that a rejection of Free Will has the potential to produce unethical Behavior of course I would point out that there are probably exceptions to this as there are in every study this unethical Behavior will not happen in everyone who believes in determinism but overall the spreading of determinism produces unethical and negative results on Society at Large