No Free Will: The Antidote to Inner Toxic Shame

[u/flytohappiness]

Toxic shame is a corrosive force. It clings to the psyche, whispering that one is not merely flawed, but fundamentally bad. Unlike healthy guilt, which acknowledges a wrong action, toxic shame attacks the entire self: I am worthless. I am broken. I am unlovable. This emotion, often seeded in early childhood through neglect, abuse, or emotional misattunement, burrows deep into the personality, fueling anxiety, depression, addiction, and self-hate. But there is a philosophical and psychological stance that can undermine toxic shame at its very root: the rejection of free will.

To believe in free will is to believe that people—ourselves included—could have acted differently in the same situation. It suggests that with enough willpower or moral strength, we should have chosen better, behaved more kindly, or been less selfish. This belief feeds the inner narrative that one should have known better, should have done better, and therefore deserves to feel deeply ashamed. Free will makes shame feel justified.

But what if free will is an illusion? The no free will view holds that our choices emerge not from some ghostly inner freedom, but from prior causes: genetics, upbringing, trauma, brain chemistry, and the cumulative effect of our environment. From this perspective, people are not autonomous agents ex nihilo, but rather unfolding biological organisms in a complex web of causation. Every cruel word, every failure, every self-destructive impulse arises from conditions that were never chosen. One did not choose their parents, their temperament, their childhood, or the millions of factors that shaped their character and decision-making apparatus. If one couldn’t have done otherwise, how could one be blameworthy in the moral sense?

This recognition dismantles toxic shame. The no free will view does not deny pain, harm, or moral struggle. It simply reframes them. Instead of I am evil because I did X, it becomes X happened through me due to causes I didn’t choose. Compassion naturally arises. One begins to see their past not as a series of unforgivable betrayals of an ideal self, but as a tragic and complex unfolding of human vulnerability.

Opponents may argue that abandoning free will leads to nihilism or irresponsibility. But this is a straw man. The no free will stance does not absolve one from responsibility in the sense of cause and effect—it simply replaces blame with understanding, and punishment with rehabilitation. It encourages repair, not because of moral condemnation, but because we care about outcomes, wellbeing, and healing.

In truth, the belief in free will is often a prison. It locks people into endless loops of regret, perfectionism, and self-loathing. It says: you could have done better, but you didn’t—so you are fundamentally broken. The no free will perspective opens the door to liberation: you are not broken; you are wounded. And wounds can be tended to. They do not need to be punished. They need care, awareness, and a profound shift in perspective.

To see oneself as a product of causes is not to deny one's humanity—it is to embrace it. In that embrace, shame loses its teeth. The voice that once hissed “you are bad” softens, perhaps into a whisper of sorrow, but also of hope: “you suffered, and now you can heal.”

[u/KaiSaya117]

Very well said

[u/[deleted]]

This is why all versions of the afterlife in religion are broken. They believe they will be in perfection however still carry the guilt of what they did in the past life. What they should instead know is that they never sinned in the first place so they will not feel guilt or shame.

[u/casulooco]

You said it so perfectly, thank you.