Free Will

Free Will is quite a broad phrase. It can cover a vast range of thought and invoke all kinds of emotion. With the literary device lacking book Free Will by Sam Harris your interpretation of the book made the emotion and essentially made the book what you wanted it to be. I would not recommend Free Will for the unexperienced ready of studies and scientific works for this reason. The emotion is not invoked in the literature. The emotion is created by the reader reaction the stand that the author takes in the work.

Harris is very biased on his standpoint of free will and as you would read in my previous post about the book Outliers, he takes a very Gladwell-esq  stance on the topic. People (in Harris’ eyes) are not the masters of their own destiny and do not have choice in the final decision of any of their actions. People’s experiences in life and their backgrounds make the final decision. Felons are not guilty of rape and murder because it is not intentional choice to commit heinous crimes. It is the way the person was brought up combined with their former life experiences that cause the felon to commit the crimes. The Rapist/Murderer may enjoy his work, but he is still innocent in the eyes of Harris. He is a victim of what he born with and what he was destined to be. Harris’ view on this subject infuriated me. He may have a point in saying that past experiences play some part in behavior but no person is forced to harm another. It is irrational and illogical to say that humans have no say in their actions and are therefor not responsible. The author seems to be a fan of victimization because that is what he points every living being out to be. Everyone is a victim of the world around them influencing people to do things that they don’t want to do. Harris is making quite some assumptions. 

With Harris’ strong view toward the notion that humans do not have free will. He continues to discuss the implication of what such would mean legally and socially. The thought that killers should not be hated for killing even if they enjoy it. The killer should, however, be locked up for the safety of other who are deemed normal. Harris states that he is writing the very book of no choice of his own. “If I want to put a rabbit in this sentence, I am free to due so... Why didn’t I put elephant in the sentence? I am free to change rabbit to elephant of course, but if I did this how could I explain it?” (Harris 65) His logic seems irrational. He is making a much more complex issue out of something that is very simple. This is a perfect example of one overanalyzing something that is not meant to be overanalyzed. He made a decision to choose one sentence over another. Without looking into his family history to see what it is that made him say rabbit over elephant we find a much more simple conclusion. Perhaps we are masters of our own will and impulse. Perhaps some people lack self control not because of an imbalance in chemicals in the brain and because their father used to come home drunk and beat them, but because they simply don’t want to exercise self control. Save yourself a few hours and don't read Free Will 

S: The subject of this book is explained in the title. The study was on free will and whether or not people are actually the master of themselves. It was about the deep insight of whether or not we as human beings make our own decisions or do our previous experiences make our decisions. There are many variations of the two explanations above in the book.

O: The occasion of this book is the authors pondering the statement “A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.” He opens with the pondering of recent events of murders and whether or not the accused are actually responsible for their actions. 

A: The study is very well and deeply written. One has to be “in the zone” in order to fully comprehend the full body of what the author is trying to portray. It was not uncommon that a paragraph required rereading. It is a book directed toward the level headed, intelligent man or woman. The subject of free will becomes rather depressing as the book progresses and requires a rational person to continue reading.

P: Enlightenment of the intellectual would be the best way to describe purpose for this book. Much of the information written in the book is not uncommon knowledge but it is the sources and information with which he backs up and re-explains his work that makes it compelling. The purpose was to reinstate commonly known ideas and to broaden on them with great depth. 

S: The style of this book was very much like a study. It was dry with the intention of being dry. The subject matter itself was supposed to hold the interest of the reader. The author used facts and statistics to get the readers attention rather than using litterary devices. It was a rather unique approach to writing, but it was one that worked quite well for retaining the attention of the target audience.