I used to very politely say that if there is free will then it's in all sorts of boring places, like whether you're going to pick up this or that fork as you begin your meal. There really is none: It's all biology.
Robert SapolskyRead
The notion of humans as inherently rational beings has been not only trashed in economics, but trashed in all the best research on moral decision-making.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Humans are often not as rational as we believe when making decisions, especially moral ones.
Robert Sapolsky highlights that the belief in humans as inherently rational beings has been undermined not just in economics but across various studies in moral decision-making. This suggests that our decisions are often influenced by irrational factors, which challenge the idea of humans as purely logical actors.
Themes
RationalityDecision-MakingMoralityHuman BehaviorEconomics
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about economic policies, one can use this quote to emphasize the irrationality behind certain decisions.
More from Robert Sapolsky
All quotes βWhen you've wised up enough, there is a very clear conclusion that you have to reach after a while, which is, at the end of the day, it is really impossible for one person to make a difference.
Robert SapolskyRead
My adolescent rebellions took the form of, if anything, passive aggressively doing what was asked of me but doing it ten times more than what was asked of me, so that eventually they'd have to beg me to stop.
Robert SapolskyRead
When humans invented material inequality, they came up with a way of subjugating the low-ranking like nothing ever seen before in the primate world.
Robert SapolskyRead
Yes, genes are important for understanding our behavior. Incredibly important - after all, they code for every protein pertinent to brain function, endocrinology, etc., etc. But the regulation of genes is often more interesting than the genes themselves, and it's the environment that regulates genes.
Robert SapolskyRead
I expected social rank to be the determining factor in health, and in some ways that's true. But far more important is what sort of society that rank occurs in. Being low ranking in a benevolent troop is a hell of a lot better for your blood pressure than being low ranking in an aggressive troop.
Robert SapolskyRead
Similar quotes
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; the Named is the mother of all things.
Lao TzuRead
This is the most immediate fruit of exile, of uprooting: the prevalence of the unreal over the real. Everyone dreamed past and future dreams, of slavery and redemption, of improbable paradises, of equally mythical and improbable enemies; cosmic enemies, perverse and subtle, who pervade everything like the air.
Primo LeviRead
Just in the nick of time they realized that it was their own habitat they were wrecking -- that they weren't merely visitors.
Kurt VonnegutRead
The enduring lesson is war is a disaster. Whoever wins, tremendous loss of life, property - a set back for civilisation.
Lee Kuan YewRead
Most of the time in the 21st century, we dominate our surroundings: We tweak the thermostat, and the temperature falls one degree. We push a button, and Taylor Swift sings for us. It's the opposite in the wilderness, which teaches us constantly that we are not lords of the universe but rather building blocks of it.
Nicholas KristofRead
This is a fundamental view of the world. It says that when you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole; and the thing which you make takes its place in the web of nature, as you make it.
Christopher AlexanderRead