Sapolsky-Freedom and Libertarian-Freedom

This paper offers a critique of Robert Sapolsky’s book, Determined. More specifically, this paper argues for the following theses. First, the sort of freedom that Sapolsky argues that humans don’t possess (which we can call Sapolsky-freedom) is (a) not free will (i.e., not the ability picked out by the ordinary-language expression ‘free will’) and (b) not worth wanting. Second, Sapolsky’s arguments don’t give us any good reason to doubt that human beings possess various other kinds of freedom that are worth wanting. More specifically, it is argued in this paper that (i) Sapolsky’s arguments don’t give us any good reason to doubt that human beings possess a compatibilist kind of freedom, and, more importantly, (ii) Sapolsky’s arguments don’t give us any good reason to doubt that human beings possess libertarian freedom.