A five-part descent into the illusion of autonomy, where biology writes the script, reason provides the excuse, and the self is merely the echo of its own conditioning.This is a follow-up to a recent post on the implausibility of free will.
You Cannot Originate Yourself
The causa sui argument, and the final collapse of moral responsibility
“If you cannot cause yourself, you cannot cause your choices. And if you cannot cause your choices, you cannot own them.”
Audio: NotenookLM podcast on this topic.
Everything until now has pointed to erosion:
Your choices are state-dependent.
Your identity is cumulative, not authored.
Your evaluations are judged by compromised observers.
But here, finally, we strike at the bedrock.
It isn’t merely that you are manipulated. It isn’t merely that you are misperceived. It’s that you never could have been free, even in theory.
Because you did not make yourself.
The Causa Sui Problem
To be ultimately morally responsible, you must be the origin of who you are.
You must have chosen your disposition.
You must have selected your values.
You must have designed your will.
But you didn’t.
You emerged:
With a particular genetic cocktail.
Into a particular historical moment.
Through particular developmental experiences.
With particular neurological quirks and vulnerabilities.
And at no point did you step outside yourself to say:
“I would like to be this kind of agent, with this kind of character.”
You were thrown — as Heidegger might say — into a situation not of your choosing, with equipment you didn’t request, subject to pressures you couldn’t anticipate.
And everything you think of as “yours” — your courage, your laziness, your generosity, your rage — is the unfolding of that original unchosen situation.
No Escape via Reflexivity
Some will protest:
“But I can reflect! I can change myself!”
But this, too, is a mirage.
Because:
The desire to reflect is conditioned.
The capacity to reflect is conditioned.
The courage to act on reflection is conditioned.
You didn’t author your ability to self-correct. You simply inherited it — like a river inheriting a particular gradient.
Even your rebellion is written in your blueprint.
Freedom by Degrees Is Not Freedom
The compatibilist fallback — that freedom is just “acting according to oneself” — collapses under causa sui.
Because the self that acts was never authored. It was configured by prior causes.
If you cannot be the cause of yourself, then you cannot be the cause of your actions in any ultimate sense.
Thus:
No ultimate credit for your virtues.
No ultimate blame for your vices.
Only causal flow, chemical procession, narrative stitching after the fact.
The criminal and the saint are both unlucky configurations of biology and circumstance.
TL;DR: No Self, No Sovereignty
To be responsible, you must be causa sui — the cause of yourself.
You are not.
Therefore, you are not ultimately responsible for your actions.
Therefore, free will — as traditionally imagined — does not exist.
There is choice. But there is no chooser behind the choice. Only the momentum of prior conditions, impersonating agency.
A five-part descent into the illusion of autonomy, where biology writes the script, reason provides the excuse, and the self is merely the echo of its own conditioning.This is a follow-up to a recent post on the implausibility of free will.
Audio: NotebookLM podcast on the topic.
“It’s not just that you’re a hallucination of yourself. It’s that everyone else is hallucinating you, too — through their own fog.”
The Feedback Loop of False Selves
You are being judged — by others who are also compromised
If you are a chemically modulated, state-dependent, narrativising automaton, then so is everyone who evaluates you. The moral courtroom — society, the law, the dinner table — is just a gathering of biased systems confidently misreading each other.
We are taught to believe in things like:
“Good character”
“Knowing someone”
“Getting a read on people”
But these are myths of stability, rituals of judgment, and cognitive vanity projects. There is no fixed you — and there is no fixed them to do the judging.
Judging the Snapshot, Not the Self
Let’s say you act irritable. Or generous. Or quiet. An observer sees this and says:
“That’s who you are.”
But which version of you are they observing?
The you on two hours of sleep?
The you on SSRIs?
The you grieving, healing, adjusting, masking?
They don’t know. They don’t ask. They just flatten the moment into character.
One gesture becomes identity. One expression becomes essence.
This isn’t judgment. It’s snapshot essentialism — moral conclusion by convenience.
The Observer Is No Less Biased
Here’s the darker truth: they’re compromised, too.
If they’re stressed, you’re rude.
If they’re lonely, you’re charming.
If they’re hungry, you’re annoying.
What they’re perceiving is not you — it’s their current chemistry’s reaction to your presentation, filtered through their history, memory, mood, and assumptions.
It’s not a moral lens. It’s a funhouse mirror, polished with certainty.
Mutual Delusion in a Moral Marketplace
The tragedy is recursive:
You act based on internal constraints.
They judge based on theirs.
Then you interpret their reaction… and adjust accordingly.
And they, in turn, react to your adjustment…
And on it goes — chemical systems calibrating against each other, mistaking interaction for insight, familiarity for truth, coherence for character.
Identity isn’t formed. It’s inferred, then reinforced. By people who have no access to your internal states and no awareness of their own.
The Myth of the Moral Evaluator
This has massive implications:
Justice assumes objectivity.
Culture assumes shared moral standards.
Relationships assume “knowing” someone.
But all of these are built on the fantasy that moral evaluation is accurate, stable, and earned.
It is not.
It is probabilistic, state-sensitive, and mutually confabulatory.
You are being judged by the weather inside someone else’s skull.
TL;DR: Everyone’s Lying to Themselves About You
You behave according to contingent states.
Others judge you based on their own contingent states.
Both of you invent reasons to justify your interpretations.
Neither of you has access to the full picture.
The result is a hall of mirrors with no ground floor.
So no — you’re not “being seen.” You’re being misread, reinterpreted, and categorised — by people who are also misreading themselves.
In The Death Lottery, Johnny Thompson of PhilosophyMinis poses this question:
In 1975 the philosopher John Harris gave us one of the most interesting and challenging thought experiments in moral philosophy it’s inspired lots of science fiction since and it’s a great intuition pump to test how you feel about the value of human life it goes like this imagine at the hospital down the road three people are dying from organ failure and there are no organs to donate and so everybody is given a lottery ticket and if your ticket is chosen then you are killed your organs are harvested they’re given to the dying and your one life will save three and as harris puts it no doubt a suitable euphemism for killed could be employed perhaps we would begin to talk about citizens being called upon to give life to others Harris is keen to add that everybody in this scenario is as innocent as each other so none of the patients did anything in their lives to merit their organ failure and so what is wrong with this system or this world if we say that we value human life then surely saving three lives is three times better than saving just one it might be said that death shouldn’t be determined by the luck of a draw but surely this is what happens anyway one person gets cancer another does not one person is in a car crash another is not luck is the biggest single killer of humanity so what do you think is wrong with harris’s thought experiment and is one life ever more valuable than three?
Video: YouTube inspiration for this post.
This fits rather nicely into a recent theme I’ve been dissecting — The Dubious Art of Reasoning: Why Thinking Is Harder Than It Looks — particularly regarding the limitations of deductive logic built upon premises that are, shall we say, a tad suspect. So what’s actually happening in Harris’s tidy moral meat grinder?
Audio: NotebookLM podcast on this topic.
Let us begin at the root, the hallowed dogma no one dares blaspheme: the belief that life has value. Not just any value, mind you, but a sacred, irrefutable, axiomatic kind of value — the sort of thing whispered in holy tones and enshrined in constitutions, as though handed down by divine courier.
But let’s not genuflect just yet. “Value” is not some transcendent essence; it’s an economic artefact. Value, properly speaking, is something tested in a marketplace. So, is there a market for human life?
Historically, yes — but one doubts Harris is invoking the Atlantic slave trade or Victorian child labour auctions. No, what he’s tapping into is a peculiarly modern, unexamined metaphysical presumption: that human beings possess inherent worth because, well, they simply must. We’ve sentimentalised supply and demand.
Now, this notion of worth — where does it come from? Let us not mince words: it’s theological. It is the residue of religious metaphysics, the spiritual afterbirth of the soul. We’re told that all souls are precious. All life is sacred. Cue the soft lighting and trembling organ chords. But if you strip away the divine scaffolding — and I suggest we do — then this “value” collapses like a soufflé in a thunderstorm. Without God, there is no soul; without soul, there is no sacredness. Without sacredness? Just meat. Glorified offal.
So what are we left with?
Null values. A society of blank spreadsheets, human lives as rows with no data in the ‘Value’ column. A radical equality of the meaningless.
Now let’s take a darker turn — because why not, since we’re already plumbing the ethical abyss. The anti-natalists, those morose prophets of philosophical pessimism, tell us not only that life lacks positive value, but that it is intrinsically a burden. A cosmic mistake. A raw deal. The moment one is born, the suffering clock starts ticking.
Flip the moral equation in The Death Lottery, and what you get is this: saving three lives is not a moral victory — it’s a net increase in sentient suffering. If you kill one to save three, you’ve multiplied misery. Congratulations. You’ve created more anguish with surgical efficiency. And yet we call this a triumph of compassion?
According to this formulation, the ethical choice is not to preserve the many at the cost of the few. It is to accelerate the great forgetting. Reduce the volume of suffering, not its distribution.
But here’s the deeper problem — and it’s a trick of philosophical stagecraft: this entire thought experiment only becomes a “dilemma” if you first accept the premises. That life has value. That death is bad. That ethics is a numbers game. That morality can be conducted like a cost-benefit spreadsheet in a celestial boardroom.
Yet why do we accept these assumptions? Tradition? Indoctrination? Because they sound nice on a Hallmark card? These axioms go unexamined not because they are true, but because they are emotionally convenient. They cradle us in the illusion that we are important, that our lives are imbued with cosmic significance, that our deaths are tragedies rather than banal statistical certainties.
But the truth — the unvarnished, unmarketable truth — is that The Death Lottery is not a test of morality, but a test of credulity. A rigged game. An illusion dressed in the solemn robes of logic.
And like all illusions, it vanishes the moment you stop believing in it.Let’s deconstruct the metanarratives in play. First, we are told uncritically that life has value. Moreover, this value is generally positive. But all of this is a human construct. Value is an economic concept that can be tested in a marketplace. Is there a marketplace for humans? There have been slave marketplaces, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what this aims for. There are wage and salary proxies. Again, I don’t think this is what they are targeting.
This worth is metaphysical. But allow me to cut to the chase. This concept of worth has religious roots, the value of the soul, and all souls are precious, sacred, actually. One might argue that the body is expendable, but let’s not go there. If we ignore the soul nonsense and dispense of the notion that humans have any inherent value not merely conjured, we are left with an empty set, all null values.
But let’s go further. Given anti-natalist philosophy, conscious life not only has value but is inherently negative, at least ex ante. This reverses the maths – or flips the inequality sign – to render one greater than three. It’s better to have only one suffering than three.
Ultimately, this is only a dilemma if one accepts the premises, and the only reason to do so is out of indoctrinated habit.
Postscript: Notes from the Abyss
David Benatar, in Better Never to Have Been, argues with pitiless logic that coming into existence is always a harm — that birth is a curse disguised as celebration. He offers no anaesthetic. Existence is pain; non-existence, the balm.
Peter Wessel Zapffe, the Norwegian prophet of philosophical despair, likened consciousness to a tragic evolutionary overreach — a cosmic misfire that left humanity acutely aware of its own absurdity, scrambling to muffle it with distraction, denial, and delusion. For him, the solution was elegant in its simplicity: do not reproduce. Shut the trapdoor before more souls tumble in.
And then there is Cioran, who did not so much argue as exhale. “It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.” He understood what the rest of us politely ignore — that life is a fever dream from which only death delivers.
So if the question is whether one life is worth more than three, we must first ask whether any of them were worth having in the first place.
The answer, for the brave few staring into the black, may be a shrug — or silence.
A five-part descent into the illusion of autonomy, where biology writes the script, reason provides the excuse, and the self is merely the echo of its own conditioning.This is a follow-up to a recent post on the implausibility of free will.
Audio: NotebookLM podcast discussing this topic.
Constraint Is Not Freedom
The ergonomic cage of compatibilist comfort
“You are not playing the piano. You are the piano, playing itself — then applauding.”
Compatibilists — those philosophical locksmiths determined to keep the myth of free will intact — love to say that constraint doesn’t contradict freedom. That a system can still be “free” so long as it is coherent, self-reflective, and capable of recursive evaluation.
In this view, freedom doesn’t require being uncaused — it only requires being causally integrated. You don’t need to be sovereign. You just need to be responsive.
“The pianist may not have built the piano — but she still plays it.”
It sounds lovely.
It’s also false.
You Are the Piano
This analogy fails for a simple reason: there is no pianist. No ghost in the gears. No homunculus seated behind the cortex, pulling levers and composing virtue. There is only the piano — complex, self-modulating, exquisitely tuned — but self-playing nonetheless.
The illusion of choice is merely the instrument responding to its state: to its internal wiring, environmental inputs, and the accumulated sediment of prior events. What feels like deliberation is often delay. What feels like freedom is often latency.
Recursive ≠ Free
Ah, but what about reflection? Don’t we revise ourselves over time?
We do. But that revision is itself conditioned. You didn’t choose the capacity to reflect. You didn’t choose your threshold for introspection. If you resist a bias, it’s because you were predisposed — by some cocktail of education, temperament, or trauma — to resist it.
A thermostat that updates its own algorithm is still a thermostat.
It doesn’t become “free” by being self-correcting. It becomes better adapted. Likewise, human introspection is just adaptive determinism wearing a philosophical hat.
Why the cherished myth of human autonomy dissolves under the weight of our own biology
We cling to free will like a comfort blanket—the reassuring belief that our actions spring from deliberation, character, and autonomous choice. This narrative has powered everything from our justice systems to our sense of personal achievement. It feels good, even necessary, to believe we author our own stories.
But what if this cornerstone of human self-conception is merely a useful fiction? What if, with each advance in neuroscience, our cherished notion of autonomy becomes increasingly untenable?
Audio: NotebookLM podcast on this topic.
I. The Myth of Autonomy: A Beautiful Delusion
Free will requires that we—some essential, decision-making “self”—stand somehow separate from the causal chains of biology and physics. But where exactly would this magical pocket of causation exist? And what evidence do we have for it?
Your preferences, values, and impulses emerge from a complex interplay of factors you never chose:
The genetic lottery determined your baseline neurochemistry and cognitive architecture before your first breath. You didn’t select your dopamine sensitivity, your amygdala reactivity, or your executive function capacity.
The hormonal symphony that controls your emotional responses operates largely beneath conscious awareness. These chemical messengers—testosterone, oxytocin, and cortisol—don’t ask permission before altering your perceptions and priorities.
Environmental exposures—from lead in your childhood drinking water to the specific traumas of your upbringing—have sculpted neural pathways you didn’t design and can’t easily rewire.
Developmental contingencies have shaped your moral reasoning, impulse control, and capacity for empathy through processes invisible to conscious inspection.
Your prized ability to weigh options, inhibit impulses, and make “rational” choices depends entirely on specific brain structures—particularly the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)—operating within a neurochemical environment you inherited rather than created.
You occupy this biological machinery; you do not transcend it. Yet, society holds you responsible for its outputs as if you stood separate from these deterministic processes.
transcranial direct current stimulation over the DLPFC alters moral reasoning, especially regarding personal moral dilemmas. The subject experiences these externally induced judgments as entirely their own, with no sense that their moral compass has been hijacked
II. The DLPFC: Puppet Master of Moral Choice
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex serves as command central for what we proudly call executive function—our capacity to plan, inhibit, decide, and morally judge. We experience its operations as deliberation, as the weighing of options, as the essence of choice itself.
And yet this supposed seat of autonomy can be manipulated with disturbing ease.
When researchers apply transcranial magnetic stimulation to inhibit DLPFC function, test subjects make dramatically different moral judgments about identical scenarios. Under different stimulation protocols, the same person arrives at contradictory conclusions about right and wrong without any awareness of the external influence.
Similarly, transcranial direct current stimulation over the DLPFC alters moral reasoning, especially regarding personal moral dilemmas. The subject experiences these externally induced judgments as entirely their own, with no sense that their moral compass has been hijacked.
If our most cherished moral deliberations can be redirected through simple electromagnetic manipulation, what does this reveal about the nature of “choice”? If will can be so easily influenced, how free could it possibly be?
III. Hormonal Puppetmasters: The Will in Your Bloodstream
Your decision-making machinery doesn’t stop at neural architecture. Your hormonal profile actively shapes what you perceive as your autonomous choices.
Consider oxytocin, popularly known as the “love hormone.” Research demonstrates that elevated oxytocin levels enhance feelings of guilt and shame while reducing willingness to harm others. This isn’t a subtle effect—it’s a direct biological override of what you might otherwise “choose.”
Testosterone tells an equally compelling story. Administration of this hormone increases utilitarian moral judgments, particularly when such decisions involve aggression or social dominance. The subject doesn’t experience this as a foreign influence but as their own authentic reasoning.
These aren’t anomalies or edge cases. They represent the normal operation of the biological systems governing what we experience as choice. You aren’t choosing so much as regulating, responding, and rebalancing a biochemical economy you inherited rather than designed.
IV. The Accident of Will: Uncomfortable Conclusions
If the will can be manipulated through such straightforward biological interventions, was it ever truly “yours” to begin with?
Philosopher Galen Strawson’s causa sui argument becomes unavoidable here: To be morally responsible, one must be the cause of oneself, but no one creates their own neural and hormonal architecture. By extension, no one can be ultimately responsible for actions emerging from that architecture.
What we dignify as “will” may be nothing more than a fortunate (or unfortunate) biochemical accident—the particular configuration of neurons and neurochemicals you happened to inherit and develop.
This lens forces unsettling questions:
How many behaviours we praise or condemn are merely phenotypic expressions masquerading as choices? How many acts of cruelty or compassion reflect neurochemistry rather than character?
How many punishments and rewards are we assigning not to autonomous agents, but to biological processes operating beyond conscious control?
And perhaps most disturbingly: If we could perfect the moral self through direct biological intervention—rewiring neural pathways or adjusting neurotransmitter levels to ensure “better” choices—should we?
Or would such manipulation, however well-intentioned, represent the final acknowledgement that what we’ve called free will was never free at all?
A Compatibilist Rebuttal? Not So Fast.
Some philosophers argue for compatibilism, the view that determinism and free will can coexist if we redefine free will as “uncoerced action aligned with one’s desires.” But this semantic shuffle doesn’t rescue moral responsibility.
If your desires themselves are products of biology and environment—if even your capacity to evaluate those desires depends on inherited neural architecture—then “acting according to your desires” just pushes the problem back a step. You’re still not the ultimate author of those desires or your response to them.
What’s Left?
Perhaps we need not a defence of free will but a new framework for understanding human behaviour—one that acknowledges our biological embeddedness while preserving meaningful concepts of agency and responsibility without magical thinking.
The evidence doesn’t suggest we are without agency; it suggests our agency operates within biological constraints we’re only beginning to understand. The question isn’t whether biology influences choice—it’s whether anything else does.
For now, the neuroscientific evidence points in one direction: The will exists, but its freedom is the illusion.
I’ve read Part I of Hobbes’ Leviathan and wonder what it would have been like if he filtered his thoughts through Hume or Wittgenstein. Hobbes makes Dickens read like Pollyanna. It’s an interesting historical piece, worth reading on that basis alone. It reads as if the Christian Bible had to pass through a legal review before it had been published, sapped of vigour. As bad a rap as Schopenhauer seems to get, Hobbes is the consummate Ebenezer Scrooge. Bah, humbug – you nasty, brutish, filthy animals!*
Audio: NotebookLM podcast conversation on this topic.
In any case, it got me thinking of free will and, more to the point, of will itself.
A Brief History of Humanity’s Favourite Metaphysical Scapegoat
By the time Free Will turned up to the party, the real guest of honour—the Will—had already been drinking heavily, muttering incoherently in the corner, and starting fights with anyone who made eye contact. We like to pretend that the “will” is a noble concept: the engine of our autonomy, the core of our moral selves, the brave little metaphysical organ that lets us choose kale over crisps. But in truth, it’s a bloody mess—philosophy’s equivalent of a family heirloom that no one quite understands but refuses to throw away.
So, let’s rewind. Where did this thing come from? And why, after 2,500 years of name-dropping, finger-pointing, and metaphysical gymnastics, are we still not quite sure whether we have a will, are a will, or should be suing it for damages?
Plato: Soul, Reason, and That Poor Horse
In the beginning, there was Plato, who—as with most things—half-invented the question and then wandered off before giving a straight answer. For him, the soul was a tripartite circus act: reason, spirit, and appetite. Will, as a term, didn’t get top billing—it didn’t even get its name on the poster. But the idea was there, muddling along somewhere between the charioteer (reason) and the unruly horses (desire and spiritedness).
No explicit will, mind you. Just a vague sense that the rational soul ought to be in charge, even if it had to beat the rest of itself into submission.
Aristotle: Purpose Without Pathos
Aristotle, ever the tidy-minded taxonomist, introduced prohairesis—deliberate choice—as a sort of proto-will. But again, it was all about rational calculation toward an end. Ethics was teleological, goal-oriented. You chose what aligned with eudaimonia, that smug Greek term for flourishing. Will, if it existed at all, was just reason picking out dinner options based on your telos. No inner torment, no existential rebellion—just logos in a toga.
Augustine: Sin, Suffering, and That Eternal No
Fast-forward a few hundred years, and along comes Saint Augustine, traumatised by his libido and determined to make the rest of us suffer for it. Enter voluntas: the will as the seat of choice—and the scene of the crime. Augustine is the first to really make the will bleed. He discovers he can want two incompatible things at once and feels properly appalled about it.
From this comes the classic Christian cocktail: freedom plus failure equals guilt. The will is free, but broken. It’s responsible for sin, for disobedience, for not loving God enough on Wednesdays. Thanks to Augustine, we’re stuck with the idea that the will is both the instrument of salvation and the reason we’re going to Hell.
Cheers.
Medievals: God’s Will or Yours, Pick One
The Scholastics, never ones to let an ambiguity pass unanalysed, promptly split into camps. Aquinas, ever the reasonable Dominican, says the will is subordinate to the intellect. God is rational, and so are we, mostly. But Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, the original voluntarist hooligans, argue that the will is superior—even in God. God could have made murder a virtue, they claim, and you’d just have to live with it.
From this cheerful perspective, will becomes a force of arbitrary fiat, and humans, made in God’s image, inherit the same capacity for irrational choice. The will is now more than moral; it’s metaphysical. Less reason’s servant, more chaos goblin.
Hobbes: Appetite with Delusions of Grandeur
Then along comes Thomas Hobbes, who looks at the soul and sees a wheezing machine of appetites. Will, in his famously cheery view, is simply “the last appetite before action.” No higher calling, no spiritual struggle—just the twitch that wins. Man is not a rational animal, but a selfish algorithm on legs. For Hobbes, will is where desire stumbles into motion, and morality is a polite euphemism for not getting stabbed.
Kant: The Will Gets a Makeover
Enter Immanuel Kant: powdered wig, pursed lips, and the moral rectitude of a man who scheduled his bowel movements. Kant gives us the “good will”, which acts from duty, not desire. Suddenly, the will is autonomous, rational, and morally legislative—a one-man Parliament of inner law.
It’s all terribly noble, terribly German, and entirely exhausting. For Kant, free will is not the ability to do whatever you like—it’s the capacity to choose according to moral law, even when you’d rather be asleep. The will is finally heroic—but only if it agrees to hate itself a little.
Schopenhauer: Cosmic Will, Cosmic Joke
And then the mood turns. Schopenhauer, world’s grumpiest mystic, takes Kant’s sublime will and reveals it to be a blind, thrashing, cosmic force. Will, for him, isn’t reason—it’s suffering in motion. The entire universe is will-to-live: a desperate, pointless striving that dooms us to perpetual dissatisfaction.
There is no freedom, no morality, no point. The only escape is to negate the will, preferably through aesthetic contemplation or Buddhist-like renunciation. In Schopenhauer’s world, the will is not what makes us human—it’s what makes us miserable.
Nietzsche: Transvaluation and the Will to Shout Loudest
Cue Nietzsche, who takes Schopenhauer’s howling void and says: yes, but what if we made it fabulous? For him, the will is no longer to live, but to power—to assert, to create, to impose value. “Free will” is a theologian’s fantasy, a tool of priests and moral accountants. But will itself? That’s the fire in the forge. The Übermensch doesn’t renounce the will—he rides it like a stallion into the sunset of morality.
Nietzsche doesn’t want to deny the abyss. He wants to waltz with it.
Today: Free Will and the Neuroscientific Hangover
And now? Now we’re left with compatibilists, libertarians, determinists, and neuroscientists all shouting past each other, armed with fMRI machines and TED talks. Some claim free will is an illusion, a post hoc rationalisation made by brains doing what they were always going to do. Others insist that moral responsibility requires it, even if we can’t quite locate it between the neurons.
We talk about willpower, will-to-change, political will, and free will like they’re real things. But under the hood, we’re still wrestling with the same questions Augustine posed in a North African villa: Why do I do what I don’t want to do? And more importantly, who’s doing it?
Conclusion: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Mess
From Plato’s silent horses to Nietzsche’s Dionysian pyrotechnics, the will has shape-shifted more times than a politician in an election year. It has been a rational chooser, a moral failure, a divine spark, a mechanical twitch, a cosmic torment, and an existential triumph.
Despite centuries of philosophical handwringing, what it has never been is settled.
So where there’s a will, there’s a way. But the way? Twisting, contradictory, and littered with the corpses of half-baked metaphysical systems.
Welcome to the labyrinth. Bring snacks.
* The solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short quote is forthcoming. Filthy animals is a nod to Home Alone.
Apologies. The sacred cow of social rituals. We’re told they’re essential—an ego on its knees, a ritual cleansing of the proverbial moral ledger. And yet, for all their lofty promises of redemption and relationship mending, aren’t apologies just glorified public relations exercises?
If you don’t like my position, I apologise. This is my response to Philosophy Minis, a channel I follow.
The philosophical breakdown you provide is charmingly earnest: admit guilt, promise reform, and repair the damage. It sounds good, doesn’t it? But let’s not kid ourselves—this is an ideal that seldom leaves the page. In practice, apologies are often nothing more than a performance. The “I’m sorry if you took offense” genre is merely the tip of the iceberg; the whole construct is a social mirage, designed more to shield the offender than to restore the wronged.
Take the idea that a “good” apology must paint the apologizer as a villain. In the real world, does that happen? Rarely. Instead, we get the watered-down version—a careful choreography of noncommittal contrition, crafted to absolve the perpetrator while barely acknowledging the harm. It’s the politician’s bread and butter: “I made a mistake” becomes code for “I’m not actually sorry, but my PR team says I should say something.” Serial apologists thrive on this economy of empty gestures, repeating offences with impunity, because they know the script will always offer them an escape hatch.
Then there’s the supposed promise of change—“I will try my best not to do this again.” Admirable in theory, utterly laughable in execution. Actions speak louder than words, but apologies, divorced from tangible behavioural shifts, speak volumes about their futility. The self-flagellation of guilt is easy; reform is hard. The apology may declare, “This is not who I want to be,” but the track record often screams, “This is exactly who I am, and I’ll see you here next week.”
And let’s not forget the crowning jewel of the apology trilogy: relationship repair. The idea that an apology rebuilds bridges is as idealistic as it is naive. True repair requires more than words; it demands effort, time, and trust—not the performative recitation of a three-step apology handbook. Worse, the insistence on a good apology as a relationship panacea risks shifting the burden onto the harmed party. If they don’t forgive, they’re the villain. Apologies weaponized as moral obligations are nothing short of emotional coercion.
Even the social utility of apologies feels overstated. Sure, children may warm to those who apologise, but is this truly evidence of moral profundity, or just a reflection of our preference for surface-level niceties? If anything, our societal obsession with apologies perpetuates the illusion that words can magically undo harm. This is a comforting narrative for offenders, but it does little for the offended.
Ultimately, apologies are not the noble moral endeavour they are so often made out to be. At best, they are flawed attempts at social cohesion; at worst, they are phatic placeholders that substitute genuine accountability with a hollow facsimile. Before we canonise the “good apology,” perhaps we ought to ask whether its real purpose is to humble the ego—or to let it off the hook entirely.
A Comparative Analysis of Sarah Perry, Emil Cioran, and Contemporaries
In a world where procreation is often celebrated as a fundamental human aspiration, a group of philosophers challenges this deeply ingrained belief by questioning the ethical implications of bringing new life into existence. Antinatalism, the philosophical stance that posits procreation is morally problematic due to the inherent suffering embedded in life, invites us to reexamine our assumptions about birth, existence, and the value we assign to life itself.
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Central to this discourse are thinkers like Sarah Perry, whose work “Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide” intertwines the ethics of procreation with the right to die, emphasizing personal autonomy and critiquing societal norms. Alongside Perry, philosophers such as Emil Cioran, David Benatar, Thomas Ligotti, and Peter Wessel Zapffe offer profound insights into the human condition, consciousness, and our existential burdens.
This article delves into the complex and often unsettling arguments presented by these philosophers, comparing and contrasting their perspectives on antinatalism. By exploring their works, we aim to shed light on the profound ethical considerations surrounding birth, suffering, and autonomy over one’s existence.
The Inherent Suffering of Existence
At the heart of antinatalist philosophy lies the recognition of life’s intrinsic suffering. This theme is a common thread among our featured philosophers, each articulating it through their unique lenses.
Sarah Perry argues that suffering is an unavoidable aspect of life, stemming from physical ailments, emotional pains, and existential anxieties. In “Every Cradle is a Grave,” she states:
“Existence is imposed without consent, bringing inevitable suffering.”
Perry emphasises that since every human will experience hardship, bringing a new person into the world exposes them to harm they did not choose.
Similarly, David Benatar, in his seminal work “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence,” presents the asymmetry argument. He posits that coming into existence is always a harm:
“Coming into existence is always a serious harm.”
Benatar reasons that while the absence of pain is good even if no one benefits from it, the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is someone for whom this absence is a deprivation. Therefore, non-existence spares potential beings from suffering without depriving them of pleasures they would not miss.
Emil Cioran, a Romanian philosopher known for his profound pessimism, delves deep into the despair inherent in life. In “The Trouble with Being Born,” he reflects:
“Suffering is the substance of life and the root of personality.”
Cioran’s aphoristic musings suggest that life’s essence is intertwined with pain, and acknowledging this is crucial to understanding our existence.
Thomas Ligotti, blending horror and philosophy in “The Conspiracy Against the Human Race,” portrays consciousness as a cosmic error:
“Consciousness is a mistake of evolution.”
Ligotti argues that human awareness amplifies suffering, making us uniquely burdened by the knowledge of our mortality and the futility of our endeavours.
Peter Wessel Zapffe, in his essay “The Last Messiah,” examines how human consciousness leads to existential angst:
“Man is a biological paradox due to excessive consciousness.”
Zapffe contends that our heightened self-awareness results in an acute recognition of life’s absurdities, causing inevitable psychological suffering.
Ethics of Procreation
Building upon the acknowledgement of life’s inherent suffering, these philosophers explore the moral dimensions of bringing new life into the world.
Sarah Perry focuses on the issue of consent. She argues that since we cannot obtain consent from potential beings before birth, procreation imposes life—and its accompanying suffering—upon them without their agreement. She writes:
“Procreation perpetuates harm by introducing new sufferers.”
Perry challenges the societal norm that views having children as an unquestioned good, highlighting parents’ moral responsibility for the inevitable pain their children will face.
In David Benatar’s asymmetry argument, he extends this ethical concern by suggesting that non-existence is preferable. He explains that while the absence of pain is inherently good, the absence of pleasure is not bad because no one is deprived of it. Therefore, bringing someone into existence who will undoubtedly experience suffering is moral harm.
Emil Cioran questions the value of procreation given the futility and despair inherent in life. While not explicitly formulating an antinatalist argument, his reflections imply scepticism about the act of bringing new life into a suffering world.
Peter Wessel Zapffe proposes that refraining from procreation is a logical response to the human condition. By not having children, we can halt the perpetuation of existential suffering. He suggests that humanity’s self-awareness is a burden that should not be passed on to future generations.
The Right to Die and Autonomy over Existence
A distinctive aspect of Sarah Perry’s work is her advocacy for the right to die. She asserts that just as individuals did not consent to be born into suffering, they should have the autonomy to choose to end their lives. Perry critiques societal and legal barriers that prevent people from exercising this choice, arguing:
“Autonomy over one’s life includes the right to die.”
By decriminalizing and destigmatizing suicide, she believes society can respect individual sovereignty and potentially alleviate prolonged suffering.
Emil Cioran contemplates suicide not necessarily as an action to be taken but as a philosophical consideration. In “On the Heights of Despair,” he muses:
“It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.”
Cioran views the option of ending one’s life as a paradox that underscores the absurdity of existence.
While Benatar, Ligotti, and Zapffe acknowledge the despair that can accompany life, they do not extensively advocate for the right to die. Their focus remains on the ethical implications of procreation and the existential burdens of consciousness.
Coping Mechanisms and Societal Norms
Peter Wessel Zapffe delves into how humans cope with the existential angst resulting from excessive consciousness. He identifies four defence mechanisms:
Isolation: Repressing disturbing thoughts from consciousness.
Anchoring: Creating or adopting values and ideals to provide meaning.
Distraction: Engaging in activities to avoid self-reflection.
Sublimation: Channeling despair into creative or intellectual pursuits.
According to Zapffe, these mechanisms help individuals avoid confronting life’s inherent meaninglessness.
Thomas Ligotti echoes this sentiment, suggesting that optimism is a psychological strategy to cope with the horror of existence. He writes:
“Optimism is a coping mechanism against the horror of existence.”
Sarah Perry and Emil Cioran also critique societal norms that discourage open discussions about suffering, death, and the choice not to procreate. They argue that societal pressures often silence individuals who question the value of existence, thereby perpetuating cycles of unexamined procreation and stigmatizing those who consider alternative perspectives.
Comparative Insights
While united in their acknowledgement of life’s inherent suffering, these philosophers approach antinatalism and existential pessimism through varied lenses.
Sarah Perry emphasises personal autonomy and societal critique, advocating for policy changes regarding birth and suicide.
Emil Cioran offers a deeply personal exploration of despair, using poetic language to express the futility he perceives in existence.
David Benatar provides a structured, logical argument against procreation, focusing on the ethical asymmetry between pain and pleasure.
Thomas Ligotti combines horror and philosophy to illustrate the bleakness of consciousness and its implications for human suffering.
Peter Wessel Zapffe analyzes the psychological mechanisms humans employ to avoid confronting existential angst.
Critiques and Counterarguments
Critics of antinatalism often point to an overemphasis on suffering, arguing that it neglects the joys, love, and meaningful experiences that life can offer. They contend that while suffering is a part of life, it is not the totality of existence.
In response, antinatalist philosophers acknowledge the presence of pleasure but question whether it justifies the inevitable suffering every person will face. Benatar argues that while positive experiences are good, they do not negate the moral harm of bringing someone into existence without their consent.
Regarding the right to die, opponents express concern over the potential neglect of mental health issues. They worry that normalizing suicide could prevent individuals from seeking help and support that might alleviate their suffering.
Sarah Perry addresses this by emphasizing the importance of autonomy and the need for compassionate support systems. She advocates for open discussions about suicide to better understand and assist those contemplating it rather than stigmatizing or criminalizing their considerations.
Societal and Cultural Implications
These philosophers’ works challenge pro-natalist biases ingrained in many cultures. By questioning the assumption that procreation is inherently positive, they open a dialogue about the ethical responsibilities associated with bringing new life into the world.
Sarah Perry critiques how society glorifies parenthood while marginalizing those who choose not to have children. She calls for reevaluating societal norms that pressure individuals into procreation without considering the ethical implications.
Similarly, Emil Cioran and Thomas Ligotti highlight how societal denial of life’s inherent suffering perpetuates illusions that hinder genuine understanding and acceptance of the human condition.
Conclusion
The exploration of antinatalist philosophy through the works of Sarah Perry, Emil Cioran, and their contemporaries presents profound ethical considerations about life, suffering, and personal autonomy. Their arguments compel us to reflect on the nature of existence and the responsibilities we bear in perpetuating life.
While one may not fully embrace antinatalist positions, engaging with these ideas challenges us to consider the complexities of the human condition. It encourages a deeper examination of our choices, the societal norms we accept, and how we confront or avoid the fundamental truths about existence.
Final Thoughts
These philosophers’ discussions are not merely abstract musings but have real-world implications for how we live our lives and make decisions about the future. Whether it’s rethinking the ethics of procreation, advocating for personal autonomy over life and death, or understanding the coping mechanisms we employ, their insights offer valuable perspectives.
By bringing these often-taboo topics into the open, we can foster a more compassionate and thoughtful society that respects individual choices and acknowledges the full spectrum of human experience.
Encouraging Dialogue
As we conclude this exploration, readers are invited to reflect on their own beliefs and experiences. Engaging in open, respectful discussions about these complex topics can lead to greater understanding and empathy.
What are your thoughts on the ethical considerations of procreation? How do you perceive the balance between life’s joys and its inherent suffering? Share your perspectives and join the conversation.
References and Further Reading
Perry, Sarah. Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide. Nine-Banded Books, 2014.
Benatar, David. Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. Oxford University Press, 2006.
Cioran, Emil. The Trouble with Being Born. Arcade Publishing, 1973.
Ligotti, Thomas. The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. Hippocampus Press, 2010.
Zapffe, Peter Wessel. “The Last Messiah.” Philosophy Now, 1933.
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This ChatGPT o1-generated article aims to thoughtfully and respectfully present the philosophical positions on antinatalism and existential pessimism. The discussions about suffering, procreation, and the right to die are complex and sensitive. If you or someone you know is struggling with such thoughts, please seek support from mental health professionals or trusted individuals in your community.
Next Steps
Based on reader interest and engagement, future articles may delve deeper into individual philosophers’ works, explore thematic elements such as consciousness and suffering, or address counterarguments in more detail. Your feedback and participation are valuable in shaping these discussions.
Let us continue this journey of philosophical exploration together.
Morality, that ever-elusive beacon of human conduct, is often treated as an immutable entity—a granite monolith dictating the terms of right and wrong. Yet, upon closer inspection, morality reveals itself to be a mirage: a construct contingent upon cultural frameworks, historical conditions, and individual subjectivity. It is neither absolute nor universal but, rather, relative and ultimately subjective, lacking any intrinsic meaning outside of the context that gives it shape.
Friedrich Nietzsche, in his polemical Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality, exposes the illusion of objective morality. For Nietzsche, moral systems are inherently the products of human fabrication—tools of power masquerading as eternal truths. He describes two primary moralities: master morality and slave morality. Master morality, derived from the strong, values power, creativity, and self-affirmation. Slave morality, by contrast, is reactive, rooted in the resentment (ressentiment) of the weak, who redefine strength as “evil” and weakness as “good.”
Nietzsche’s critique dismantles the notion that morality exists independently of cultural, historical, or power dynamics. What is “moral” for one era or society may be utterly abhorrent to another. Consider the glorification of war and conquest in ancient Sparta versus the modern valorisation of equality and human rights. Each framework exalts its own virtues not because they are universally true but because they serve the prevailing cultural and existential needs of their time.
The Myth of Monolithic Morality
Even viewed through a relativistic lens—and despite the protestations of Immanuel Kant or Jordan Peterson—morality is not and has never been monolithic. The belief in a singular, unchanging moral order is, at best, a Pollyanna myth or wishful thinking, perpetuated by those who prefer their moral compass untroubled by nuance. History is not the story of one moral narrative, but of a multiplicity of subcultures and countercultures, each with its own moral orientation. These orientations, while judged by the dominant moral compass of the era, always resist and redefine what is acceptable and good.
If the tables are turned, so is the moral compass reoriented. The Man in the High Castle captures this truth chillingly. Had the Nazis won World War II, Americans—despite their lofty self-perceptions—would have quickly adopted the morality of their new rulers. The foundations of American morality would have been reimagined in the image of the Third Reich, not through inherent belief but through cultural osmosis, survival instincts, and institutionalised pressure. What we now consider abhorrent might have become, under those circumstances, morally unremarkable. Morality, in this view, is not timeless but endlessly pliable, bending to the will of power and circumstance.
The Case for Moral Objectivity: Kantian Ethics
In contrast to Nietzsche’s relativism, Immanuel Kant offers a vision of morality as rational, universal, and objective. Kant’s categorical imperative asserts that moral principles must be universally applicable, derived not from cultural or historical contingencies but from pure reason. For Kant, the moral law is intrinsic to rational beings and can be expressed as: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”
This framework provides a stark rebuttal to Nietzsche’s subjectivity. If morality is rooted in reason, then it transcends the whims of power dynamics or cultural specificity. Under Kant’s system, slavery, war, and exploitation are not morally permissible, regardless of historical acceptance or cultural norms, because they cannot be willed universally without contradiction. Kant’s moral absolutism thus offers a bulwark against the potential nihilism of Nietzschean subjectivity.
Cultural Pressure: The Birthplace of Moral Adoption
The individual’s adoption of morality is rarely a matter of pure, autonomous choice. Rather, it is shaped by the relentless pressures of culture. Michel Foucault’s analysis of disciplinary power in works such as Discipline and Punish highlights how societies engineer moral behaviours through surveillance, normalisation, and institutional reinforcement. From childhood, individuals are inculcated with the moral codes of their culture, internalising these norms until they appear natural and self-evident.
Yet this adoption is not passive. Even within the constraints of culture, individuals exercise agency, reshaping or rejecting the moral frameworks imposed upon them. Nietzsche’s Übermensch represents the apotheosis of this rebellion: a figure who transcends societal norms to create their own values, living authentically in the absence of universal moral truths. By contrast, Kantian ethics and utilitarianism might critique the Übermensch as solipsistic, untethered from the responsibilities of shared moral life.
Morality in a Shifting World
Morality’s subjectivity is its double-edged sword. While its flexibility allows adaptation to changing societal needs, it also exposes the fragility of moral consensus. Consider how modern societies have redefined morality over decades, from colonialism to civil rights, from gender roles to ecological responsibility. What was once moral is now abhorrent; what was once abhorrent is now a moral imperative. Yet even as society evolves, its subcultures and countercultures continue to resist and reshape dominant moral paradigms. If history teaches us anything, it is that morality is less a fixed star and more a flickering flame, always at the mercy of shifting winds.
Conclusion: The Artifice of Moral Meaning
Morality, then, is not a universal truth etched into the fabric of existence but a subjective artifice, constructed by cultures to serve their needs and adopted by individuals under varying degrees of pressure. Nietzsche’s philosophy teaches us that morality, stripped of its pretensions, is not an arbiter of truth but a symptom of human striving—one more manifestation of the will to power. In contrast, Kantian ethics and utilitarianism offer structured visions of morality, but even these grapple with the tensions between universal principles and the messy realities of history and culture.
As The Man in the High Castle suggests, morality is a contingent, situational artefact, liable to be rewritten at the whim of those in power. Its apparent stability is an illusion, a construct that shifts with every epoch, every conquest, every revolution. To ignore this truth is to cling to a comforting, but ultimately deceptive, myth. Morality, like all human constructs, is both a triumph and a deception, forever relative, ever mutable, yet persistently contested by those who would impose an impossible order on its chaos.
Philosophics 