GO, GO, GO, SAID THE BIRD
THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT REALITIES THAT MOST HUMANS REFUSE TO ACCEPT. RICHARD OERTON HAS WRITTEN TWO BOOKS ABOUT FREE WILL, ARGUING THAT ITS NON-EXISTENCE IS ONE OF THESE REALITIES. IN HIS NEW BOOK, GO, GO, GO, SAID THE BIRD, HE DEVELOPS THE SAME VIEW BUT AIMS MUCH MORE WIDELY, EXPOSING OTHER REALITIES THAT WE FIND UNACCEPTABLE. HE ARGUES STRONGLY THAT OUR SPECIES WOULD BE ALL THE BETTER FOR ACCEPTING THEM.
Welcome
Since retiring from the law, Richard Oerton has written three books, all dealing in their different ways with the failure of our species to face up to the realities of its existence.
The first two books concentrate on one particular reality: the non-existence of what we call “free will”. The free will in which most of us believe (and which underlies our justice system) is the idea that we have free choices – the idea that, in any given situation, we might behave differently from the way in which we do behave. This idea matters a great deal because, if it’s true, then the fact that we behave in a bad way, perhaps a criminal way, is thought to make us “morally responsible” and so deserving of all the blame, condemnation, hatred, contempt and retribution that will be heaped upon us. But it isn’t true.
In The Nonsense of Free Will, Richard squared up to this idea, took it apart, and showed that it simply makes no sense. The reality is that we behave as we do because we are the people we are, and we have not made ourselves the people we are. We are the products of an intricate process of cause and effect, starting with our biological inheritance and embracing all our lifetime experiences – a process of nature and nurture, a process - yes - of determinism. Free will, if it could exist, would be a nonsense and would make a nonsense of us.
The next book, The Cruelty of Free Will, developed the theme by arguing that we maintain our belief in free will by refusing to consider it dispassionately, so giving a foothold to all sorts of philosophical sophistry and sleight of hand, and that our main reason for doing this is that free will belief is needed in order to justify our cruelty to one another. The savagery which still characterises us as human brings demands an outlet, so we need to believe in the self-created badness of those we call the bad guys. Badness, in reality, is a piece of luck. So, come to that, is goodness.
The last book, Go, go, go, Said the Bird, looks again at free will belief, judging it from a different point of view and showing how it skews the criminal law and prevents us from dealing effectively with crime. But this book has a far wider scope, dealing also with rationality, conscience, altruism, savagery, religion, death, perception and sexuality, and showing how our flight from reality leads us to misunderstandings in every case. It’s controversial and at this stage of our evolution most people will want to reject its message, but if the human race survives we may come eventually to accept it. Richard says that our “present moral dispensation causes a great deal of unnecessary and unjustifiable suffering,” and adds: “If morality means anything at all, then our present moral stances are grossly immoral.”
More information about all three books can be found on the books page.
