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“The idea of determinism, he said, is that everything that happens, and every decision or action you make, is "causally inevitable." Why? Because everything is caused by something else: a preceding action, event or situation. [...] He said people can only act as they actually do. A murderer, for example, will inevitably murder because his childhood, his genes, his brain chemistry, his socioeconomic situation, his fear of rejection, the convenient proximity of a defenseless woman on a dark street corner, will all lead him, inevitably, to murder. Someone said, quite passionately as I recall, as if we were speaking of a specific murder and not a hypothetical one, "But he chose to murder! He had free will!" The bearded man said he himself was a "hard determinist" and therefore did not believe in free will. [...] If free will doesn't exist, if all your decisions and actions are inevitable, are you still required to apologize for them?” — Liane Moriarty