R.T. Oerton

The Cruelty of Free Will is Richard Oerton's follow-up to The Nonsense of Free Will. The discussion of free will is often convoluted and frequently full of hostility. It does not need to be and Oerton does a great job of explaining the problems with free will as it is generally accepted in the west.

I'm hesitant to try my hand at distilling his already streamlined explanations so I won't give it much effort. Basically free will says in response to any given situation, event, whatever we are completely free to make any choice. Yet in every aspect of our daily lives we rely on determinism to get us through. We know, for instance, that a friend's history and preferences will make her pick a certain restaurant over another if given a choice. It isn't that she cannot choose the other but who she is determines what choice she will make. If we were to go through a day thinking that any given action another person took was not determined by their make-up and their history then we would be in a completely random and chaotic world. Any field that looks for reasons behind a person's actions rely on determinism, not free will, being the driving force. A poor explanation by comparison so read the first book for a better explanation or the first chapter of this one.

Free will is what stands behind many of society's cruelest and least compassionate norms and laws. If that poor person had chosen better they would not be poor, so they are to blame. Not the dirt poor environment into which they were born or the institutional racism or sexism they have faced. Criminals should be punished because they freely chose their path, not some of the same factors I just mentioned above. This isn't to say criminals should not be held accountable, they should. But retribution rather than rehabilitation is preferred because people believe the criminal chose freely to follow the path they took.

Basically, free will plays a large role in the way society keeps the poor and the disadvantaged down because, through the lense of free will, they deserve what they get.

Those of you intrigued by the ideas should read the book(s) to better understand. Those of you vehemently opposed to what I am saying should also read the book since I acknowledge my explanation is weak and certainly if there is any chance that the concept of free will is behind our cruelty to one another it is worth the time to read a better explanation before throwing the idea out.

I want to include this extended quote from Oerton in a piece on Female First (http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/books/the-cruelty-of-free-will-richard-oerton-1013031.html): "We cling to the idea of free will because we're still a savage species. You won't have liked some of my earlier assertions and you certainly won't like this one - but surely it's true. Evolution has not (yet) produced in us a species dedicated to the general welfare of its own members or with any strong inhibitions against killing, harming or exploiting them. (If you doubt this, pick up a newspaper.) We are still a savage species, and free will belief lets some of it out of the cage in which, most of the time, civilisation confines it."

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (altro)

What Richard Dawkins did for atheism, Richard Oerton has here done for determinism: he has taken those doubts about the existence of free will – all those unspoken blasphemous thoughts so many of us secretly harbour – and distilled them into an intelligent, accessible and highly engaging polemic. I would urge anyone with any doubts about free will to read this book; to read one's own inchoate ideas expressed in such a clear and concise manner is simply exhilarating. After many years of contemplation, The Nonsense of Free Will has provided the encouragement I needed to finally accept determinism and its implications, and I suspect that there will be many others for whom this book will have had a similar effect.… (altro)