CAN FREE CHOICE BE PREDICTED?

In considering the four questions mentioned in Chapter 1, it is sometimes suggested that the fourth is conceptually more difficult than the others because it involves decisions of human beings, who have goals and desires, beliefs and ideas, and perhaps also free will. Can we hope to predict the behavior that results from all these? Will such prediction not be in conflict with the notion that individuals have free will?

These questions should bother anyone interested in the social sciences. If humans have free will, and if this means that their behavior cannot be predicted with any accuracy, we would have to declare social science an impossibility. The fact that we study economics probably indicates that we believe that some prediction is possible. Indeed, the question of free will is usually not brought up in the context of the second question, namely, whether my car will be stolen. But cars are stolen by humans, and therefore any prediction regarding the car theft should also cope with the question of free will.

The fact is that there are many generalizations that are true of human beings and many predictions that can be made about them with a high degree of certainty. Whether individuals have free will or not, it is safe to predict that a $100 bill will not be lying on the sidewalk for 5 days in a row without being picked up by someone.