A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, moralityas well as feelings of remorse or personal achievementwithout first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion.

The problem is that we live in a world of cause and effect. So, either our wills are determined by prior causes, which means we have no control over them. Or they are determined by chance, which means we have no control over them. Or there is some combination of chance and determinism, but no combination gives you the perception of Free Will that we have in our day to day lives.

Consider a generic serial killer. His choice to commit his last murder was determined by neuro-physiological events in his brain. Which were in turn determined by prior causes, bad genes, traumatic childhood, a sleepless night because the car alarm down the street kept going off. These events precede any conscious decision to act.

What does it mean to say that this murderer committed to it of his own free will. If this statement means anything it means that he could have behaved differently. He could have declined the impulse to commit the murder or simply refused to have the impulse. Not at the basis of some random influences that he had no conscious control but because he was actually the conscious author of his thoughts and actions.

Now, when we assume that violent criminals have such freedom, of course, we reflexively blame them but when we look at this wider net of causality the basis for placing blame seems to evaporate. The moment we catch sight of a stream of causes that lead back to childhood his culpability seems to disappear, and to say that he would've done otherwise or could he have done otherwise had he chose this is simply to say he would've lived in a different universe had he lived in a different universe. As sickening as I would find such a persons behavior, If I were to switch places with him, I would be him there's no extra part of me that could resist the impulse to victimize innocent people, and even if you believe that every one of us harbors an immortal soul, this problem of responsibility remains. I cannot take credit for the fact that I don't have the soul of a psychopath.

So, If i was in this persons shoes with his brain, with his genes, with his life experiences I would not be able to behave any differently.