We have been witnessing so far a myriad of biological, genetic, and brain factors that conspire together to create violence and crime. A number occur even before a child is born. A child does not ask to be born with birth complications or a shrunken amygdala, or to have the gene for low levels of MAOA. So if these factors predispose some innocent babies to a life of crime, can we really hold them responsible for what they eventually do - no matter how heinous the crime? Do they have free will in the strict sense of the word? That's the key question we must address.
At one extreme, many theologians, philosophers, social scientists - and likely yourself - would argue that barring exceptional circumstances suc as sever mental illness, each and every one of us has full control over our actions. Theologians argue that we have a choice as to whether to let God into our soul, that we choose whether to commit sin or not, and consequently our criminal actions - our sins - are a product of a will that is under our full control.
At the other extreme, some scientists eschew the idea of a disembodied soul that has its own free will and take a more reductionist approach. Francis Crick, who won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA, for example, believed that free will is nothing more than a large assembly of neurons located in the anterior cingulate cortex, and that under a certain set of assumptions it would be possible to build a machine that would believe it has fee will. Such a view harks back to our discussion of evolutionary perspectives. Perhaps we are indeed merely gene machines that con ourselves into believing we have choices in life.
I might argue for a middle ground between these two extremes. Free will likely lies on a continuum, with some people having almost complete choice in their actions, while others have relatively less. ... Most of us lie between these extremes. Thik of the free-will concept like IQ, extraversion or temperature, which are dimensional in nature. There are degrees of free will, and we all differ on that dimension of agency.
What determines the extent of free will? Early biological and genetic mechanisms alongside social and environmental factors play substantial roles. For some, free will is significantly constrained early in life by forces far beyond their control. ...
{He then gives case history evidence that completely demolishes the free will perspective and then comes back to talk about why a person is even reading his book and the possible influences that induced them to buy and read it. Then he says:}
You want so desperately to believe that you determin ethings in your life, yet that belief has no true substance. It floats like a ghost in a a mind machine forged by ancient evolutionary forces. You were as helpless in deciding to buy this book as I was in writing it. ...
Complete free will is sadly an illusion - a mirage. I wish it were not, because I too find this perspective unsettling. But there we have it. ...
Responsibility and self-reflection are not disembodied, ethereal processes but are instead rooted firmly in the brain. Functional imaging research has shown that the medial prefrontal cortex is centrally involved in the ability to engage in self-reflection.
