I haven’t read Sam Harris’s book, though I’m familiar with the essentials of his position. Yes, it’s similar. I differ from Harris (I think) in that I don’t believe his neurological priority evidence is a knock down argument. Detecting some amount of brain activity on an MRI prior to the test subject reporting making a decision doesn’t prove the person didn’t exercise free will in the decision itself -- it only indicates that he or she didn’t consciously control the timing of the decision. In general, there is still something rather Lasheyan about making conclusions regarding details of cognition through the observation of gross patterns of activity in the brain. How do we know it wasn’t a couple of subtle neuron firings that made the difference, while much of the rest may have just been a preceding fanfare? Despite this objection, I agree the data is suggestive.

Though some consider the free will question tiresome (or worse -- unanswerable) I consider it foundational to any further inquiry into human behavior. I’m not sure how anyone can do serious philosophy, psychology, etc., without first having a settled understanding of our relationship to causality. Well – unless they happen to be wired to think they can…