{"id":114883,"date":"2023-10-14T15:14:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-14T19:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=114883"},"modified":"2026-04-26T16:29:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T20:29:24","slug":"sam-harris-determinism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/sam-harris-determinism\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Harris on Determinism: Every Event Is Caused by Other Events"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What&#8217;s determinism? Why does Sam Harris adopt this philosophy? Does it necessarily imply fatalism?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Sam Harris, determinism is the way the world works: We don&#8217;t (and can\u2019t) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/there-is-no-free-will\/\">have free will<\/a>. Like other determinists, he believes that what we feel about our agency misleads us; what we experience when we\u2019re thinking about a decision doesn\u2019t indicate the true causes of our thoughts and actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more for Harris&#8217;s explanation of the determinist perspective in the debate over free will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-sam-harris-on-determinism\">Sam Harris on Determinism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Determinists believe that we don\u2019t have free will and that our thoughts, desires, intentions, and choices are determined by events outside our control. According to Sam Harris, determinism means that every event in the universe\u2014including each of our thoughts, decisions, and actions\u2014is caused by a long chain of events. We could theoretically trace this chain back to the beginning of our lives (or even back to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-beginning-of-the-universe\/\">the beginning of the universe<\/a>) to find an explanation for any decision we make. Determinists argue that, if a decision is <em>caused <\/em>in this way by events that came before it, then it\u2019s not made freely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Complicating Harris\u2019s Views on Determinism<\/strong><br><br>Harris presents a succinct overview of determinist free will, but some experts view this theory in ways that differ substantially from Harris\u2019s interpretation. Philosopher Mark Balaguer writes in his book (which is also titled <a href=\"https:\/\/mitpress.mit.edu\/9780262525794\/free-will\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Free Will<\/em><\/a>)that the <em>philosophy<\/em> of determinism <a href=\"https:\/\/thereader.mitpress.mit.edu\/determinism-classical-argument-against-free-will-failure\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">rests on the assumption<\/a> that the <em>science<\/em> of determinism is true\u2014but that\u2019s still up for debate. Classical physics posits that determinism is true. Yet, as Stephen Hawking explains in <a href=\"https:\/\/shortform.com\/app\/book\/a-brief-history-of-time\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>A Brief History of Time<\/em><\/a>, modern <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/quantum-mechanics-theory\/\">quantum mechanics<\/a> is probabilistic, not deterministic: It explains what will <em>probably<\/em> happen next, not what <em>will <\/em>happen next. This means that at least some things aren\u2019t caused by prior events but just happen. Balaguer characterizes a determinist argument (like Harris\u2019s) as fatally flawed because determinism is still unproven and thus can\u2019t provide proof that free will doesn\u2019t exist.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Harris adopts a determinist point of view. He writes that an array of external factors\u2014events and influences that are <em>outside of our control<\/em> (like what our parents taught us when we were children) or even <em>outside of our consciousness<\/em> (like the subtle messages we\u2019ve received from books, TV, and movies)\u2014have conditioned our brains in precisely the right ways for it to make the decisions that we feel we\u2019ve made freely. Because he contends that our thoughts and intentions are fully caused by these past events and by the systematic way that our brains respond to them, through processes that we can\u2019t consciously access, Harris concludes that we don\u2019t have free will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: Harris is one of many experts who argue that what we\u2019ve discovered about the brain rules out the possibility that we have free will. In <a href=\"https:\/\/shortform.com\/app\/book\/homo-deus\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Homo Deus<\/em><\/a>, Yuval Noah Harari writes that neuroscientists have discovered that electrochemical processes in the brain create our thoughts and actions as a reaction to external stimuli. According to Harari, these reactions can be either predetermined, as in a direct response to a stimulus, or completely random\u2014the result of something unpredictable. But whether these reactions are predetermined or random, they can\u2019t be free, according to Harari, because we\u2019re not conscious of them and can\u2019t control them.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Determinism vs. Libertarianism<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As a determinist, Harris agrees with libertarians on <em>incompatibilism<\/em>: the idea that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/determinism-psychology\/\">free will and determinism<\/a> are inherently contradictory. But he disagrees with them on <em>indeterminism<\/em>: the idea that not everything is predetermined. Harris also rejects the libertarian idea that human behavior isn\u2019t fully explained by the physical cause and effect that occurs when our brains respond to influences outside of our consciousness or to stimuli outside our bodies. He also objects to the way that some libertarians account for this complexity by arguing that we aren\u2019t just physical entities and may even have something like a mind or a soul in addition to our physical matter. Harris rejects this possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Determinism vs. Fatalism<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Harris contends that, even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/no-free-will\/\">without free will<\/a>, our efforts still matter. He differentiates between determinism, or the idea that our thoughts and actions have a cause, and fatalism\u2014the idea that whatever will happen will happen, whether we take action or just watch things play out. Harris writes that sitting back and doing nothing isn\u2019t the answer: He says that, even though our decisions are caused, these decisions still matter, as does the effort we put into engaging in conscious thought and deliberation. This is because even though <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/is-free-will-an-illusion\/\">free will is an illusion<\/a>, our choices and efforts still determine what kind of people we are and what kind of lives we live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s determinism? Why does Sam Harris adopt this philosophy? Does it necessarily imply fatalism? According to Sam Harris, determinism is the way the world works: We don&#8217;t (and can\u2019t) have free will. Like other determinists, he believes that what we feel about our agency misleads us; what we experience when we\u2019re thinking about a decision doesn\u2019t indicate the true causes of our thoughts and actions. Read more for Harris&#8217;s explanation of the determinist perspective in the debate over free will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,21],"tags":[1287],"class_list":["post-114883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","category-philosophy","tag-free-will","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sam Harris on Determinism: Every Event Is Caused by Other Events - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Determinism means that every event in the universe is caused by a long chain of events. 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