The Objection

I had an email exchange with Tom S. revolving around what Sam Harris states was the most common objection to his free will thesis:

If there is no free will, why write books or try to convince anyone of anything? People will believe whatever they believe. They have no choice! Your position on free will is, therefore, self-refuting. The fact that you are trying to convince people of the truth of your argument proves that you think they have the very freedom that you deny them.

To which I responded:

It does not. This is simply a false assertion. I can try to convince someone that determinism is true and there is no free will while admitting that whether or not they believe me, or whether or not I try to convince them in the first place, is completely determined.

Here is the flip side from Epicurus, 2300 years ago:

The man who declares that everything happens of necessity can have no fault to find with the man who denies that anything happens of necessity, for he is saying this very denial is made of necessity. (Sententiae Vaticanae p 45 from Bailey: Epicurus, Text and Translation, Oxford, 1925)

 So why write a book on the subject? Obviously, he had no choice!