Determined on Determinism: A Review of Who’s In Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain by Michael S. Gazzaniga

I have to admit that I am not much of a science guy, though if I were a science guy, I suppose the area that would most interest me is psychology, simply for the fact that I have always wondered why I have always struggled with having mind set and view point than my peers.  Every so often, when the price enables it, I’ll buy a non-fiction book that discusses scientific history or scientific thought. 

Who’s In Charge? is one of those spur of the moment purchases I bought on sale for $1.99 on my Nook just for a kick.  When another book drove me to a stalemate, I picked up this book in order to get me out of a reading rut.

Gazzaniga’s first occupation is not a writer.  This is obvious when one reflects upon his attempts to explain the more complex aspects of a scientific principle.  In fact, the rough analogies he uses give the impression that he fits the profile of a neurobiologist better than he fits the profile of a psychologist. 

Perhaps this explains why Gazzaniga guides the reader to the inevitable conclusion that he does.  He makes clear that the human mind conceptually much different than common belief.  Gazzaniga a brain composed of various competing modules each serving a separate purpose with no guiding managing system.  He goes a step further and describes how humans fool themselves into believing that an automatic action, i.e., an unconsciously committed act, was in fact, a conscious one, i.e., selected and deliberate. 

We have no choice, Gazzaniga argues, and yet, in an odd twist, he spends the last two chapters explaining why humans should still be held responsible for their actions.  For Gazzaniga, responsibility for acts, especially criminal ones, is important for the simple reason that evolution requires that human being choose mates who are suited to follow society’s rules.

At the heart of this concept is Gazzaniga’s belief that social responsibility is not an internal trait but one developed as a result of being a social being.  He comically suggests that the only principle preventing people from speeding on the street is the fear of being stopped and ticketed by the police.  It is a depressing view at best.

At worst, Gazzaniga criticizes the current criminal system, suggesting that there is no justification for treating persons with alleged mental conditions any differently.  At one point, he oddly takes a position which sounds biased as if it came straight out of the mouth of a prosecutor:

“An abnormal brain does not mean that the person cannot follow rules.  Note that in the above cases, the perpetrators were able to make a plan, take with them what was necessary to implement the plan, understood that what they were doing was not something that should be done in public, and were able to inhibit their actions until they were in a deserted place.”

Even the language he uses sounds loaded, as if the decision about the two kinds of people in this world were already decided:

“Punishing free riders in economic games or those don’t follow the accepted rules of a social group, brings us back again to Tomasello’s theory of self domestication of humans:  Punishment (whether it was by killing or banishment) resulted in temperaments being selected for that made us mnore cooperative.  If we don’t incapacitate the offenders, will the noncooperators take over and society fall apart?”

Gazzaniga suggests that the only reasonable solution to “free riders” and rule breakers is either incapacitation or banishment.  Although discussed briefly, rehabilitation is never really explored.  Further, makes certain assumptions, namely that social rules stay the same based on evolutionary requirements.  Social rules, i.e., laws, reflect a species collective attempt to survive.  The problem is, as Gazzaniga himself recognizes, the complex system that is human society may have a set of rules that do not work on an evolutionary level. 

For example, although homosexuality has in the past been considered to be taboo and illegal, recent legal and social advances have made homosexuality not only accepted but, in some parts of society celebrated.  Clearly, though, homosexuality does not result in the procreation of the species.  Nor does Gazzaniga address the discriminatory laws which had for a long time held down the African-American race. 

While I think that Gazzaniga’s book is well researched, I feel perhaps his conclusions are not well tested and do not reflect a true version of the complexity of the human soul.  While he tolerates a certain amount of conflicting positions, his desire to reconcile those conflicting opinions becomes his undoing.  There simply has to be a world in which polar opposites can exist in tandem and abide by the same rules, and, in the end, he becomes the thing he sys he rises above, a scientist mired in the need for an explanation when maybe one is not needed or cannot be found.