History Main / TheEvilsOfFreeWill

** Somewhat ironically, most Satanic sects reverse the roles, with Satan being the advocate of free will and God being the overbearing authority trying to stamp it out.
** This trope is at least referenced in just about every sect of UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}}. If there was no free will, {{Satan}} would never have rebelled, and Adam would have never eaten the ForbiddenFruit. In fact, there wouldn't be a need for the [[BigRedButton Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil]]. On the other hand, the reason that there is free will is the fact that God created it that way.
*** In fact, one interpretation is that, because an all-knowing God would obviously know that the existence of free will would lead to evil, He obviously considered the existence of all evil in the world to be an acceptable alternative to a world without free will.
*** Most of these examples are NewerThanTheyThink; Literature/TheBible itself mentions nothing in regards to free will ([[ValuesDissonance as it wasn't a topic largely considered]]), so all interpretations are largely based on Thomas Aquinas's works.
*** The Literature/BookOfExodus, for example, has Pharaoh wanting to let the Jews go after just the first couple of plagues, with God telling Moses he's going to make Pharaoh change his mind, with the Bible saying that He did so when it gets to that point in the story, and later recapping that He did so. The phrase "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" comes up a lot.
*** Yet it still is OlderThanFeudalism. St. Augustine, the famous church father who lived around 400 AD, wrote extensively on free will and had arguments about it with both the Manicheans (a non-Christian religion of which he was a former member) and, more famously, with Pelagius (a British Christian monk). Augustine believed in free will, but also believed that humanity was tainted with original sin and would therefore be in need of divine grace to achieve moral perfection. Pelagius denied this necessity and the impact of original sin on anyone else but Adam. Augustine was not the first church father to write on free will. Among others Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Irenaeus have all written on the subject. Furthermore, even though the Bible does not raise the question directly, reading the narrative will naturally provoke the question, especially concerning Adam and Eve's actions surrounding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Did they eat its fruit willingly or was it predetermined? If free will is good and eating it gave humanity this, why was it wrong? Etc).
** Another interpretation is that God created free will so that mankind would have the choice to follow Him or not. He could have not put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden in the first place, but if He hadn't left that door open, wouldn't Adam and Eve technically have been living in enslavement, [[GildedCage even if it was enslavement in paradise]]? (Though it should be noted that Adam and Eve in this story were depicted as naive and gullible, not all-knowing and wise, after all, if they could think for themselves on how to discern what is bad from what is good, there would have been no need for the tree of knowledge in the first place, so while they may have had the free will to eat from it, it wasn't exactly a choice they came to using critical thinking and reason.)
*** Jews tend to follow the above interpretation due to the importance of freedom to their religion.
*** The interpretation in Paradise Lost is that it was necessary for Adam and Eve to have the choice as it meant they had free will. Even if God knew they would do this, it was still their choice.
** Literature/BookOfJob gives an interesting view on Satan as a tempter whose sole purpose was to tempt the faithful and then denounce them as a test of faith, ''and he was given that role by God''. It was seriously implied that God was in command of both Good and Evil, thus being beyond such.

Contrast RousseauWasRight where people are naturally good by their own free will, though if this trope does occur even in a setting like that, the villain abdicating for the removal of "free will" is either a WrongGenreSavvy or firmly believes in DystopiaJustifiesTheMeans. Compare FreedomFromChoice, which is value-neutral. Compare ''and'' contrast BrainwashingForTheGreaterGood.

Contrast RousseauWasRight where people are naturally good by their own free will, though if this trope does occur even in a setting like that, the villain abdicating for the removal of "free will" is either a WrongGenreSavvy or firmly beleives in DystopiaJustifiesTheMeans. Compare FreedomFromChoice, which is value-neutral. Compare ''and'' contrast BrainwashingForTheGreaterGood.

Contrast RousseauWasRight where people are naturally good by their own free will. Compare FreedomFromChoice, which is value-neutral. Compare ''and'' contrast BrainwashingForTheGreaterGood.

* ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' has The Alliance, or at least River Tam's interpretation of them, state "We're not telling people what to think. We're just trying to teach them how."

* White Diamond from ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' believes herself to be the perfect being, and thus when she uses her assimilating EyeBeams on a gem, turning them into literal extensions of herself, she believes she is doing them a service by removing their flaws.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Social engineering is the science of modifying people's behaviors and actions through a variety of methods to make people behave better and more optimally. There are numerous examples of this, such as painting targets in men's urinals to reduce splash, printing graphic images on cigarette packets to discourage smoking, and installing streetlights in soothing colors to dampen teenage aggression at night.
* The example that essentially served as the origin for this trope was Thomas Hobbes' philosophical treatise, Leviathan. In his work, Hobbes argues that humans have a default "state of nature" where they are ruled by their selfish impulses, and are automatically inclined to seek their own betterment over anyone else. Thus, Hobbes' argument is that in order to avoid total destruction and chaos, [[HobbesWasRight people must give up their freedom to a leviathan (powerful ruler) who can use his authority to overrule humanity's impulsive tendencies and provide long term security in exchange for some freedoms]]. Most villains who subscribe to this trope, particularly those of the WellIntentionedExtremist variety, tend to to present their ideas as something of an extension of Hobbes original argument. They almost always also believe ''they'' should be the ruler (or loyally serve someone who thinks this).
* Many despots of the UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans variety have put some of this trope into operation (whether or not they believe it is a different matter). Stalin, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, and the more extremist participants of UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution like UsefulNotes/MaximilienRobespierre come to mind, but they are really just the tip of the iceberg.
* Even Hitler could be seen as having shades of it. Through introducing the ''Fuhrerprinzip'' (leader-principle) he demanded absolute, unquestioning obedience from those below him - morality be damned (in turn, his lieutenants demanded the same from those directly below them and so on). He, as the head of state, effectively became the personification of the nation's will, the incarnation of the highest law, and answerable only to Germany and God. All this was seen/presented as absolutely necessary for the survival of the German people.
* The influential 20th Century psychologist [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner B. F. Skinner]] argues in his 1971 book ''Beyond Freedom and Dignity'' that the entrenched beliefs [[ValuesDissonance in western society]] of being in control of our actions and of free will and moral autonomy being sacrosanct is hindering the potential of using science and technology in altering and regulating human behavior to make a better and happier society. Check the other Wiki ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Freedom_and_Dignity Beyond Freedom and Dignity]]).
--> '''Skinner''': ''If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.''
* Several political scholars and critics in regards to UsefulNotes/TheArabSpring, a series of uprisings and protest to establish liberal democracies in the Middle-East/North African region which was dominated by dictatorial regimes. In cases where the dictators were toppled, [[AnarchyIsChaos lawlessness soon broke out in their countries]] or [[TheFundamentalist religious fanatics]] that were [[EvilPowerVacuum previously held back by the previous dictators were able to fill the power void]] and ''turned even more despotic'' than their predecessors. The Western support for these uprisings turned cold and came to be bitterly referred to as the "Arab Winter", with many coming out in support of the [[BetterTheDevilYouKnow Syrian regime being supported despite its many flaws]] against [[TheHorde ISIL]].
** Funnily enough, in Egypt, when the protestors had their elections and realized that their new leader would attempt to invade Israel ''again'', many who still remembered the whoopping Egypt received the last couple times they tried immediately worked to oust ''that'' guy from power, and hold a ''new'' set of elections with his party, understandably, not allowed to run.
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* Many despots of the UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans utopian variety have put some of this trope into operation (whether or not they believe it is a different matter). Stalin, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, and the more extremist participants of UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution come to mind, but they are really just the tip of the iceberg.

** This trope is at least referenced in just about every sect of UsefulNotes/{{Christianity}}. If there was no free will, {{Satan}} would never have rebelled, and Adam would have never eaten the ForbiddenFruit. In fact, there wouldn't be a need for the [[BigRedButton Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil]].
*** On the other hand, the reason that there is free will is the fact that God created it that way.

*** The Book of Exodus, for example, has Pharaoh wanting to let the Jews go after just the first couple of plagues, with God telling Moses he's going to make Pharaoh change his mind, with the Bible saying that He did so when it gets to that point in the story, and later recapping that He did so. The phrase "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" comes up a lot.

** Book of Job gives an interesting view on Satan as a tempter whose sole purpose was to tempt the faithful and then denounce them as a test of faith, ''and he was given that role by God''. It was seriously implied that God was in command of both Good and Evil, thus being beyond such.