Is free will a myth?”
Hoover Research Fellow Tibor Machan poses this dramatic question in his new book Initiative: Human Agency and Society (Hoover Institution Press, 2000). No, he says emphatically, “free will is a feature of our natural, biological nature . . .” This, according to Machan, is an idea that is out of vogue, given the current climate of the times. Arrayed against his assertion, Machan finds the bulk of the scientific community as well as the general public who believe that “we act because we are forced to by circumstance.”
Machan recognizes the fundamental conflict in ideology and understanding between those who feel every aspect of thinking and action is pre-determined and those who see in every human action the unfettered stroke of man's free will. Machan feels the conflict between these views has deep ramifications for our society. In contemplating the idea for this book, Machan wrote, “I hold out hope that if free will or self-determination is a fact, it must be something completely compatible with other facts, i.e. science. I cannot fathom a basic conflict between our nature and the way the world generally must work . . .”
The strength of Machan’s work, however, lies in his ability to awaken the reader to the dangers that threaten a society when its people refuse to acknowledge the role of initiative in decision making.
“How can we worry about corporate social responsibility or accountability by politicians and bureaucrats, let alone parents and teachers, if all proceeds as it must and no one can make choices and act differently from how they in fact do?”
There could be no more timely release for such a work. The ever-expanding influence of multinational corporations, the extension of governmental power, coupled with a singular decline in moral fastness and of personal responsibility, make the issue a pressing one and leaves us knowing Machan's questions are vital—a matter that cannot be overstated—for ourselves and our society.
“Shouldn’t there be a national debate about this?” he asks. “Isn’t it vital whether a Theodore Kaczinsky is treated as a criminal or some kind of virus, or Stalin and Hitler as natural calamities or moral monsters?”
Machan is a professor at the Argyros school of Business and Economics at Chapman University, Orange, California, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, California. He is the author of The Business of Commerce: Examining an Honorable Profession (with James E. Chesher, Hoover Institution Press, 1999) and editor of Business Ethics in the Global Market (Hoover Institution Press, 1999). His writings have appeared in the Humanist, National Review, Barron’s, the American Scholar, and numerous daily newspapers throughout the country.
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, founded at Stanford University in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, who went on to become the 31st president of the United States, is an interdisciplinary research center for advanced study on domestic and international affairs.
