After the Shampoo: Conditioned for Excellence

By Thomas Fellows

Do we or don't we have free will? That is the question Thomas Fellows seeks to answer in his newest book, After the Shampoo: Conditioned for Excellence. The book, which was inspired by Malcom Gladwell's David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, introduces the reader to a little-known way of thinking called hard determinism. Hard determinists claim that free will doesn't exist.

Throughout the book, Fellows debates whether the following quote by Baruch de Spinoza is true:

"Men are deceived because they think themselves free...and the sole reason for thinking so is that they are conscious of their own actions, and ignorant of the causes by which those actions are determined."

By using popular movies such as Get Out, Finding Forrester, Cinderella, historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, FDR, Martin Luther King Jr., John Winthrop, music such as Queen, Dire Straits, The Beatles, Dave Mathews Band, and the coming-of-age novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, and several books from the Bible, Fellows goes back and forth debating whether or not we have free will.

Brimming with self-help, by reading this book, you will be able to navigate everyday scenarios more effectively in which hard determinism may or may not play a factor in the outcome.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1954617356
• ISBN13: 9781954617353
• Release Date: May 2023
• Publisher: Yawn Publishing LLC
• Length: 174 Pages
• Weight: 0.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.8" x 8.3"