Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of the Self Teaches Us About How to Live
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3.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A renowned psychologist argues that free will is not only real but essential to our well-being.
It’s become fashionable to argue that free will is a fiction: that we humans are in the thrall of animal urges and unconscious biases and only think that we are choosing freely. In Freely Determined, research psychologist Kennon Sheldon argues that this perception is not only wrong but also dangerous. Drawing on decades of his own groundbreaking empirical research into motivation and goal setting, Sheldon shows us that embracing the ability to choose our path in life makes us happier, healthier, and more fulfilled. He also shows that this insight can help us choose better goals—ones that are concordant with our values and that, critically, we’re more likely to actually see through.
Providing listeners insight into how they can live a more self-directed, satisfying life, Freely Determined offers an essential guide for how we might recognize our freedom and use it wisely.
Customer Reviews
Infuriatingly bankrupt
Heard the author on a podcast giving some well-researched advice. Then began listening to his book only to hear intensely poorly argued stances for free will that literally contradicted themselves. “Students who were exposed to information about determinism acted more aggressively” is… literally an argument for determinism.
Further, arguing that determinism is wrong because Laplace’s Demon would need to have all possible information and science doesn’t currently have the capacity to provide the theoretical demon with such a comprehensive view is intellectually bankrupt. So is the argument that neuroscientists’ belief in determinism invalidates neuroscience because it “reduces” neuroscience to physics. This is the argument of a high-school sophomore insisting that chemistry isn’t worth studying now that we understand chemical reactions are made up of the interactions of atoms.
I would love to believe that free will exists and determinism is false- but as the author’s own father points out this would be akin to “believing” that 4 + 4 isn’t 8. Simply citing studies suggesting that understanding arithmetic leads to amoral behavior would be insufficient to instill doubt in the efficacy of math as a universal truth.