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Fully Caused and Flourishing? Incompatibilist Free Will Skepticism and Its Implications for Personal Well-Being

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Abstract

Previous research associates free will skepticism with adverse well-being effects. However, it is doubtful that skeptical participants in these studies disbelieved in the incompatibilist notion of what it means to have free will. This is one of the first studies to exclusively examine such skeptics. A sample of 167 participants who claimed to believe that there is no free will responded to an online survey. After examining whether participants in fact disbelieved in the incompatibilist concept, they were asked to describe how their skepticism is affecting their personal life and well-being. Reoccurring themes were identified through thematic analysis. Positive consequences were most commonly reported, including increased compassion for others and oneself, being less controlling and more relaxed, as well as having more control through environmental awareness. Other participants felt unaffected by their disbelief and most frequently mentioned the persisting feeling of having free will as a reason. The most common negative implications were to feel less effective as an agent and to miss a sense of purpose. These findings may shed new light on how to handle the issue of free will in the public sphere as well as inform future research investigating incompatibilist free will skepticism.

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Notes

  1. Although philosophers may disagree about the difference and significance of defining free will as alternative possibilities or ultimate sourcehood, this text assumes that both result in the same incompatibilist notion.

  2. Some studies indicate that the exposure to anti-free will messages leads to anti-social behaviour like increased cheating, aggression, or selfishness (Baumeister, Masicampo, & DeWall, 2009; Vohs & Schooler, 2008; Protzko, Ouimette, & Schooler, 2016). However, conflicting research also finds pro-social effects or no effect at all (Caspar, Vuillaume, Magalhães De Saldanha da Gama, & Cleeremans, 2017; Earp et al. 2018; Crone & Levy, 2019; Monroe, Brady, & Malle, 2017).

  3. People’s degree of belief in this compatibilist ability may not be of much philosophical interest. It is relatively uncontroversial to claim that people have some capacity to make choices based on conscious deliberation.

  4. It seems unsurprising that such a belief is associated with adverse well-being effects.

  5. If these manipulations convinced people to disbelieve in the incompatibilist notion, the illustrative capacity of their immediate reactions would also be questionable.

  6. Excerpts used in manipulations usually deny free will in the incompatibilist sense and do not claim that people’s desires are less consequential (e.g., Crick, 1994). It can, therefore, be argued that participants initially misunderstand these authors (Nahmias, 2011).

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  1. School of Psychology, University of East London, London, England

    Stephan Tegtmeier

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Tegtmeier, S. Fully Caused and Flourishing? Incompatibilist Free Will Skepticism and Its Implications for Personal Well-Being. Rev.Phil.Psych. 15, 149–166 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-022-00667-5

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