Disenchanting determinism

Caitrin Nichol

Critiques of genetic or neurological determinism, or any of the other reductionist bugbears, too often preoccupy themselves with what they assume to be a sinister philosophical agenda at work. This is not entirely unreasonable; there are any number of amoral attractions in the idea of human beings as mere matter in motion, on a biologically fixed course, with all our choices and values just illusory epiphenomena. But this idea has cinched its vises on the modern psyche less by the desire that we be reducible than by the uncomfortable suspicion that, like it or not, we really are. In the words of the great Tom Wolfe, “Sorry, but your soul just died.”

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/disenchanting-determinism