What Cats Teach Us About Free Will:
Cat Behavior Problems, Jerks, and Revolutions
The revolution has whiskers. (Concept image created digitally)
Cats Aren’t Jerks
Every time I hear “cats are jerks,” I yank out more of my hair. People brag about how their cat is untrainable, destructive, beyond redemption, and they say it like it’s funny. It isn’t. It’s lazy. When cats act out, it’s not because they’re jerks. It’s because something’s wrong.
The internet loves to paint cats as aloof sociopaths or tiny tyrants. Or swing the opposite way and treat them like spoiled toddlers. It’s enough to make me bang my head off a wall. Repeatedly.
People Google why cats act out or are cats jerks like it’s a riddle. It’s not. Both extremes miss the point. Cats aren’t toddlers. They’re not sociopaths either. Cats are adult, sentient beings with intelligence, oodles of sensitive emotions, and agency. They’re survival experts who make active choices in their own best interest.
Case in point: it doesn’t matter where you got your cat: a neighbor, a shelter, a rescue, or a breeder. Your cat selected you to be their person. Cats audition many different humans, and when they decide on one, they let them know. Then they spend the rest of their nine lives actively choosing to stay. My outdoor cat Charlie comes home every night because he wants to. Not because I bribe him. Not because he has nowhere else to go. Believe me, Charlie has options. He has an incredibly wide social circle. But for whatever reason, he chooses me. It’s my honor and privilege to be his human.
Why Do Cats Knock Things Over?
Scroll long enough on your socials and you’ll see endless posts about “why cats act out” or “are cats jerks.” Every video of a cat knocking glass off a table gets captioned “lol so mean!” And then the bragging rights over which cat sucks the most. But a cat knocking a glass off a table isn’t because “spite.” It’s a living, breathing, adult being making a choice in real time. If you’ve ever Googled why do cats knock things over or wondered the meaning of a cat knocking glass off a table, here’s your answer. Your cat isn’t malicious. They’re upset, or sick, or desperately telling you something you’re too dense to hear.
Kara’s Tail of Doom
My mother’s pleas fall on selectively deaf Bengal ears.
Kara was a Snow Bengal who could weaponize her tail at will. I’m not sure if this ability was part of basic Bengal anatomy, or if she had exercised the muscles at the base of her tail over time so that she had the skill to stampede through display shelves like Godzilla through Tokyo, to similar effect. (Never should have let her see that movie.). All this with the pretense of looking innocent because her paws were firmly planted.
Kara wasn’t always destructive. But the moment she got annoyed, her tail became a geopolitical weapon. Ignoring her while I was working? There goes my collection of African violets I inherited from my mother. Trying to sleep past 4:30 am? The bedside lamp did not survive. Kara wasn’t curious about my reaction: she knew I’d have one.
Pure calculation, all of it. Watching me to see what I’d do, knowing with absolute certainty that at least I would do something, and anything was better for her than being ignored. All this while looking over her shoulder, batting her eyes as if to say “Who, me? Oh, no, did I do that? Whoopsie!” These are the active choices of a sentient individual reveling in her own power. There’s no negotiating with an unblinking Bengal at dawn.
“One toppled glass is all it takes to spark the revolution.”
Cat Communication: Frankie’s Long Con
I once worked with an extraordinary tabby mix who had the most gorgeously delectable girlie meow. It got louder and louder depending on how much he wanted attention at any given time. He had his ‘treats?’ chirp, the ‘nap time snuggle’ trill, and the deeper, raspier ‘prey call’ for when he’d strut around the house with his mousie in his jaws.
Proud of his mousie.
Frankie’s human called me a few years ago to get my opinion: should she take him to the vet? Frankie had completely lost his voice. He’d stand in front of her and do a silent meow, gazing at her helplessly, opening his mouth and emitting a tiny painful croak. Poor, poor kitty. It must be dire, right?
It turned out that Frankie was deliberately dialing up the drama specifically for his favorite human. If he deployed the silent meow, she would immediately pick him up, cuddle him, ask him what was wrong, and mollify him with treats.
This silent meow trick was specifically tailored to whatever human was in the room. A learned behavior based on systematically testing his human for weakness so he could gain a reward. Frankie knew exactly how and when to deploy each meow in his repertoire. This wasn’t random noise. It was cats communication with humans, designed to test and adapt.
““Every meow is a manifesto.””
The Science of Cat Decisions
Science backs this up. Cats use frontal cortical regions for decision making, planning, and impulse control. They improvise when old strategies fail. They adjust their meows depending on who’s listening. They don’t just act on instinct. They test, revise, and adapt.
Existentialism and Cats’ Rebellion
Existentialism begins with the raw fact of existence: you’re here, you didn’t ask to be, and now you have to decide what it means. Your cat didn’t ask to exist either, but they’re not interested in navel gazing. They didn’t choose your walls, your schedule, or your furniture, but they did choose to live with you. If they don’t like your schedule, the lack of cat furniture, or how you ran out of Meow Mix, they probably won’t lose a lot of sleep over it. Instead, they act.
Expect stoppages. Expect being ignored. Labor being withheld. Withholding laptime. Carving slogans into the doorframe to your bedroom. And some disruption of routine. 2:00 am hallway yodeling is not uncommon.
Sartre said we’re “condemned to be free.” No blueprint, no divine plan, only choices in the void. Camus called life absurd, and said rebellion is the only honest answer. Cats don’t write essays about this. They stage rebellion through behavior: refusing yesterday’s food, pacing the hallway at 2 a.m., sitting on your laptop the second you open it. These aren’t quirks. This is proof of agency. Call it cats free will or cat agency if you like. Insisting on choice in a world that isn’t living up to the bargain they signed up for.
Cat Revolution in the Home
Revolution grows from the same soil. The proletariat never asked for whistles and clock-punching lives, but they inherited them, and with them the right to resist. Cats inherit our homes, our routines, our Amazon boxes, our obsession with control. And they resist. Every rejected RoboBox, every sudden refusal of the “perfect” litter, every strategic swipe at the wrong moment is a declaration: freedom isn’t granted by humans. It’s taken, exercised, sharpened into daily action. If you haven’t yet lived through the terror of a feline uprising, count yourself fortunate. But vigilance is the price of peace. Cats make thousands of choices every day, and every one of them carries the spark of revolt. That’s cat free will philosophy in fur and claw.
Defining Free Will in Cats
Do cats really make choices? Free will means acting without the constraint of necessity or fate. It’s the ability to act at one’s own discretion. Humans forget this when they talk about their cats. They act like they’re living with a spoiled toddler or a tiny terrorist. They’re not. They’re living with an adult roommate who has opinions.
Philosophy Meets Cat Behavior
Descartes said animals were machines. He saw animals as complicated clockwork, like fountains or wind-up toys. That view also let him keep animals outside moral concern. No need to worry about ethics if your cat is just a furry mechanism. One wonders if he ever actually met a cat.
Modern science has burned that to the ground. We know cats have emotional memory, problem solving skills, communication strategies, and brains complex enough to support real agency. Frankie’s silent meow scam is a pretty irrefutable argument against Descartes. That’s the core of cat free will philosophy: their choices aren’t mechanical, they’re intentional.
Pondering choices and freedom. (Concept image created digitally)
Nietzsche and Cats’ Will to Power
Nietzsche wrote about the “will to power,” the drive to assert yourself and shape your world. Watch a cat knock over a glass or claim your pillow as sovereign territory and you’re watching will to power with four paws. Cats don’t apologize. They don’t justify. They just do. I believe Nietzsche would’ve been a cat person. I can’t find any evidence that he wrote about cats, but if he had, I suspect he would’ve recognized his own philosophy staring back at him from the windowsill.
Cat Litter Box Problems Explained
One of the most common cat behavior problems I get called about is litter box trouble. People panic and Google why won’t my cat use the litter box and fall into a pit of hacks: this new litter, a fancy Robobox. People interpret their cat’s non-compliance through a very personal anthropomorphic lens: my cat hates me. Or hates my new boyfriend. They see this as rejection, anger, rage.
Here’s the truth: healthy cats want to use their litter boxes. Healthy cats are fastidiously clean (with few exceptions: a certain Snowshoe of mine comes to mind, but that’s a different story.). They love having a private bathroom (provided it’s clean), where they feel safe to leave their scent. When they stop using the litterbox, it’s a flashing red light that something’s gone terribly wrong, either medically or emotionally.
It could also mean that you don’t keep it clean enough. Can you blame them? Don’t you feel exactly the same way about public bathrooms that are befouled or not serviced?
To solve your cat’s litterbox aversion, you must first figure out what’s going wrong. Why? Is everything okay healthwise? When’s the last time your cat saw their vet? Litterbox aversion is linked to a myriad of physical symptoms, including but not limited to: aging, pain, constipation, IBD, UTI, infection, declawing, etc.
What about your cat’s emotional state? Has anything changed? What’s different? Remember that these are questions for your cat, not you. Just because the new neighbor hasn’t really hit your radar, your cat might have a real problem with them.
Open negotiations with your cat. Let them know you’re listening. Give them more litter choices: a couple of different boxes, a couple of different litters, placed in different spots. Then scoop it, at least twice a day. Yes, at least twice a day. Your cat notices. That’s it. No Instagram product-placing hack beats listening to your cat.
Offer options, not ultimatums. Notice the patterns. Respect individuality. Your cat isn’t “cats.” They’re this cat. Your cat.
Respect their decision. It doesn’t matter if your RoboBox works for you. (Sorry!) I know you love it and it’s super convenient for you. But your cat probably hates it.
When you listen, the problem often evaporates. What looked like spite was cat dialogue all along.
Closing Thoughts on Cat Agency
Cats don’t knock glasses over because they’re jerks. They knock them over to communicate with you. Because they choose to. Because they’re calling your attention to a wrong that must be righted immediately.
These are not the actions of a spoiled toddler. It’s a fully sentient, independent being demanding your time and respect.
That’s free will in action. That’s agency. Dare we call it . . . revolution?
If your cat is staging a revolution in your living room, we can help translate. Book your free 15 minute consultation.
Written by Jenne Mundy, cat behaviorist with 25 years of experience and over 1,500 lost cat recoveries worldwide.
