Prescriptive Illusionism: The Ethicist's Red Pill
A compilation of the relevant studies: Encouraging belief in determinism increases cheating: http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/91974.pdf Prosocial benefits of Feeling Free: http://web.missouri.edu/~segerti/capstone/BaumeisterFreeWill.pdf Priming beliefs in determinism diminishes implicit components of self-agency: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4268906/ Freewill belief bolsters academic performance: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886915300659 Disbelief in freewill increases aggression, reduces helpfulness: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19141628 Freewill Belief promotes gratitude, abstract: http://psp.sagepub.com/content/40/11/1423.full.pdf+html https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265557958_You_Didn't_Have_to_Do_That_Belief_in_Free_Will_Promotes_Gratitude Freewill disbelief decreases attention regulation, task persistence, self-control: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/27/8250.full.pdf Inducing disbelief in freewill alters brain correlates of preconscious motor preparation: https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/RigoniSuppMaterial.pdf "Researchers recorded the brain activity of participants who had been told to press a button whenever they wanted. This showed that people whose belief in free will had taken a battering thanks to reading Crick's views showed a weaker signal in areas of the brain involved in preparing to move. In another study by the same team, volunteers carried out a series of on-screen tasks designed to test their reaction times, self control and judgement. Those told free will didn't exist were slower, and more likely to go for easier and more automatic courses of action." Finally, the article by Stephen Cave: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/theres-no-such-thing-as-free-will/480750/ Note: After recording this video I realized that Cave's article does not source to any of the above data, so I figured that it'd be better to link to it down here. *** I'm yet to happen upon any study showing the inverse effect (i.e. laypersons' newfound belief in determinism resulting in prosocial behavior on the part of the layperson). To say that I'm 'open' to such studies would be an understatement.
A compilation of the relevant studies: Encouraging belief in determinism increases cheating: http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/91974.pdf Prosocial benefits of Feeling Free: http://web.missouri.edu/~segerti/capstone/BaumeisterFreeWill.pdf Priming beliefs in determinism diminishes implicit components of self-agency: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4268906/ Freewill belief bolsters academic performance: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886915300659 Disbelief in freewill increases aggression, reduces helpfulness: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19141628 Freewill Belief promotes gratitude, abstract: http://psp.sagepub.com/content/40/11/1423.full.pdf+html https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265557958_You_Didn't_Have_to_Do_That_Belief_in_Free_Will_Promotes_Gratitude Freewill disbelief decreases attention regulation, task persistence, self-control: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/27/8250.full.pdf Inducing disbelief in freewill alters brain correlates of preconscious motor preparation: https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/RigoniSuppMaterial.pdf "Researchers recorded the brain activity of participants who had been told to press a button whenever they wanted. This showed that people whose belief in free will had taken a battering thanks to reading Crick's views showed a weaker signal in areas of the brain involved in preparing to move. In another study by the same team, volunteers carried out a series of on-screen tasks designed to test their reaction times, self control and judgement. Those told free will didn't exist were slower, and more likely to go for easier and more automatic courses of action." Finally, the article by Stephen Cave: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/theres-no-such-thing-as-free-will/480750/ Note: After recording this video I realized that Cave's article does not source to any of the above data, so I figured that it'd be better to link to it down here. *** I'm yet to happen upon any study showing the inverse effect (i.e. laypersons' newfound belief in determinism resulting in prosocial behavior on the part of the layperson). To say that I'm 'open' to such studies would be an understatement.