theAtlantic | Free will

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/primarysources --- What would happen if no one believed in free will, but instead assumed that all their actions were predetermined? For one thing, according to a recent study, we'd end up with a lot of greedy cheaters. A psychologist and a marketing professor asked two groups of undergraduates to read passages from a book by the biophysicist Francis Crick. Students in one group read a passage that argued against the possibility of free will, while students in the other group read a neutral passage on consciousness. The subjects then took a basic arithmetic test on a computer but were told that, because of a glitch in the program, the computer would automatically feed them the right answer to each question unless they pressed a key to stop it. The computer secretly recorded what they did. The researchers found that those students who had read Crick's argument against individual agency were substantially more likely to cheat, and that they showed less faith in free will than their counterparts in a follow-up survey. The authors conclude that even if free will is an illusion, it is "an illusion that nevertheless offers some functionality" when it comes to encouraging moral behavior.