Determined
Robert Sapolsky spent decades studying the biology of behavior, and this book pushes his research to its philosophical endpoint. He argues that every choice a person makes is the product of prior causes reaching back through neurons, hormones, childhood, culture, and evolution, and that there is no unmoved mover inside any of us. Sapolsky walks through the neuroscience of decision-making, the standard philosophical defenses of free will, and the empirical evidence he thinks undermines them, and he takes seriously the objection that this conclusion is dangerous. Much of the book is devoted to what a society without belief in ultimate responsibility would actually look like, especially in criminal justice, medicine, and how we treat ourselves and others when things go wrong. The tone is patient rather than triumphant, and Sapolsky is unusually good at holding the strangeness of his own conclusion in view.
What you might want to know about Determined
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky argues that free will does not exist, and works through what that conclusion should mean for law, punishment, and everyday life.
Williamson has interviewed Sapolsky on Modern Wisdom and treats Determined as the most rigorous treatment he has seen of the free-will question, calling it required reading for anyone taking self-improvement or moral judgment seriously.
No. Determined is self-contained, though readers who want the full biological background will find Behave a natural companion.
Determined was written by Robert Sapolsky, published in 2023 by Penguin Press.
Determined is 528 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Determined takes most readers 8 to 11 hours to finish.
Determined is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
