Free will is the long-standing philosophical issue about whether humans genuinely make choices, and if so, in what sense those choices can be called “free.” At its broadest, free will is the capacity to select among alternative possible actions, exercise control over one’s behavior, and serve as the source or originator of actions rather than merely being pushed by prior causes.
After Sam Harris published his 2012 book arguing that free will is an illusion, he engaged in a follow-up exchange with Daniel Dennett, one of the most prominent contemporary defenders of compatibilism — the view that free will is compatible with deterministic causation. That exchange, and the manner in which it unfolded, left me with a number of questions and observations. Harris’s stance is that human decisions are fully caused by antecedent neural processes and background factors beyond conscious control, rendering the traditional idea of free will untenable. Dennett, by contrast, argues that free will should be understood in terms of control, responsiveness to reasons, and self-regulation rather than as a mysterious contra-causal power. Harris has stated that he thinks Dennett is “changing the subject,” because Dennett defines free will down to a compatibilist sense that sidesteps the deeper issue of ultimate authorship.
Incidentally, I was disappointed by how Daniel Dennett conducted himself during the exchange. One may strongly disagree with Sam Harris’s conclusions, but Harris consistently models a disciplined, good-faith approach to rational discourse. In other, unrelated contexts, similar lapses in decorum can be seen in how figures such as Noam Chomsky, Ben Affleck, and others have engaged him. Whatever the merits of their objections, Harris is often the only participant who remains focused on careful argument rather than rhetorical dismissal. At a time when public discourse is already saturated with misinformation and tribalism, it is a genuine disservice when respected thinkers abandon standards of charitable engagement. The free will exchange between Harris and Dennett was particularly uncomfortable in this regard and directly motivated the Discourse tip: disagreement is inevitable, but progress depends on how it is conducted.
Coming back to the free will disagreement itself, a useful way to frame the debate is to distinguish three layers of the question. First is the metaphysical issue: are our choices causally determined by prior states of the world, including neural events? Second is the psychological issue: how do thought, deliberation, and decision-making actually occur in human cognition? Third is the normative issue: if our actions are determined by prior causes, should we hold people morally accountable? Much of the Harris–Dennett discussion revolves around these layered questions, with concrete focus on experiments like Benjamin Libet’s work on readiness potentials and voluntary acts.
Harris emphasizes the Libet-style findings to argue that human decisions are fully caused by antecedent neural processes, leaving little room for traditional free will. Dennett, along with other critics of the classic interpretation — Jonathan Cohen, Joshua Greene, Aaron Schurger, Jacobo D. Sitt, and Stanislas Dehaene — notes that these results do not decisively determine authorship of actions. Schurger and collaborators, for example, show that the readiness potential (RP) preceding voluntary movements is not necessarily causal. Dennett also emphasizes that the conscious “author” of a thought or action does not need direct access to how the brain produces it: the 0.5-second predictive signal does not invalidate human control, much as a sailor can still guide a boat despite not controlling the wind or current.
A key divergence between Harris and Dennett is how they treat degrees of free will. Dennett sees freedom as a matter of control, responsiveness to reasons, and self-regulation, even if deterministic processes are at play. Harris tends to treat free will as all-or-nothing, concluding that “no one can control anything.” Similarly, Dennett’s account of consciousness as integral to agency is more nuanced than Harris’s, who underplays its role in deliberation and reasons-responsive control. Dennett frames this position as compatibilist: one can accept both determinism and meaningful human agency, without invoking indeterministic quantum events to save free will.
Other philosophers and public intellectuals have independently pressed Dennett-style compatibilist arguments against Harris, including Alfred Mele, Eddy Nahmias, Tamler Sommers, Patricia Churchland, and Sean Carroll, generally emphasizing that causation does not preclude reasons-responsive control or moral responsibility.
The debate also highlights why definitions matter. Some traditions emphasize the ability to do otherwise under identical circumstances; others focus on being guided by one’s values and reasons, even if those reasons are determined. When these frameworks are conflated, positions that are technically compatible can appear opposed. Productive discussion benefits from defining terms, distinguishing empirical claims from conceptual ones, and recognizing the difference between metaphysical, psychological, and normative levels of the free will question.
Finally, reflecting on the debate’s persistence: free will is not just an abstract puzzle; it underpins ethical responsibility, law, and human self-conception. How we interpret experimental data, philosophical arguments, and the degrees of agency we possess directly affects how we assign praise, blame, and accountability.
Is Harris’s demand for “ultimate authorship” a legitimate requirement—or a conceptual error?