Contrary to a widely-held view in psychology and other fields of research, belief in free will appears to be unrelated to moral behavior. Social psychologist Damien Crone from the University of Melbourne and Philosophy professor Neil Levy of Macquarie University and the University of Oxford conducted a series of studies of 921 of people and found that a person’s moral behavior is not tied to their beliefs in free will. The results will appear in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science this month.
“For some philosophers and psychologists, the belief in free will is linked with moral responsibility, and the possibility of denying free will leads to immoral behavior,” says Levy, “But our findings suggest there is no need for alarm.”