TL; DR: It is clear that we have free will as it is reflected in societal values of moral accountability and the concept of daily decision-making.

Free will is the ability to choose an action without coercion. Jean Paul Sartre is the main proponent for such a theory as he argues that ‘existence precedes essence’. Furthermore, he observes the concept of ‘tabula rasa’ as the idea that we are a blank slate when born and nothing is predetermined. And so, free will is not some illusion and our actions are not uncontrollable due to prior causes. Instead, our rational mind allows us to think freely.

This theory is in-keeping with how society functions as it is often thought that the choices that we freely make will define ourselves. Although one’s personality may be defined by external causes that create certain dispositions, these dispositions can be overridden by the moral self.

It is clear that society recognises free will through the criminal justice system as with free will comes moral accountability. Without free will no one would be able to be blamed or praised for any actions as there would be argument to say that circumstances are inevitable and out of one’s control.

Therefore, free will is necessary for how we live our lives because we shape meaning by acting consistently with our values. It is intrinsically bad to live as passive objects of circumstance, merely seeking security and reassurance in the authority of determinism due to fear. Instead, we must take responsibility and believe in the concept of acting freely.

Finally, the simple fact that we face daily dilemmas and the need to make decisions due to a number of choices shows that we have free will.

TL;DR – Can Free Will be Determinist at the same time?

Free Will will exist as long as there are thinking individuals. It’s our approach to having Free Will that may determine a difference in its effect and whether it really is doing anything for us at all.

Free Will gives humans a sense of control. If we weren’t in control, would that lead us to be more open and compassionate individuals because there wasn’t another way? Does Free Will beg an explanation or will we always do something because we have Free Will?

Maybe a lack of belief in Free Will is a good thing because of this. Why should we do things because of Free Will? Aren’t we as thinking individuals better than our Free Will, if it exists? Can we see through it? My apologies for the socratic method, but these are genuine concerns of mine that may be somewhat unexplainable.

The source that got me thinking.

Robert Sapolsky, the Stanford Professor of Neurology and author of the best-selling Behave, was recently on the Mindscape Podcast:

• "...not only am I a free will skeptic, I don’t believe there is a shred of agency that goes into any of our behavior"

• "...it seems self-evident from my perspective, if you spend enough decades studying enough different ways in which our brain and behavior are influenced by stuff we have no control over, that put all those pieces together, and free will is just what we call the biology that hasn’t been discovered yet."

TL;DR: The question is not whether there is free will. Instead, one should ask whether humans are better off believing in free will.

One can make a pragmatic case for at least the belief in free will. The argument has two pillars. First, the debate of free will remains open and forced. Second, one is better off believing in free will than not.

Free will represents a necessary leap of faith. One cannot dispute that free will remains an open question. No one can prove or disprove free will. However, one cannot go about their life without a formed belief. Free will represents a momentous and existential question, one that will impact one’s decision-making in every circumstance. Therefore, “not having an opinion” does not constitute a legitimate stance. Even if one does not see sufficient evidence for either side, one has to at least operationally go by either a yes or a no.

From a practical standpoint, yes represents the better answer. A fully deterministic view appears detrimental from a personal and societal standpoint. On a personal level, the lack of free will removes emotions from events. If one is destined to succeed, one should not feel happy or strive for achievements. Alternatively, if misfortunes are inevitable, one does not have to feel sad or try again. Such a passive life attitude represents a depressing one. Moreover, the lack of incentive to self-mobilization translates to societal loss. Most of our progress comes from individual achievements. Without the individual drive for fame, our society will cease to witness more advancements or inventions. Therefore, free will represents a practically good belief. That utilitarian good does not make the case for free will as a fact, but it does for free will as a belief.

For these reasons, one should believe in free will.

TL;DR - Free Will feels real, but isn't!

As humans, it brings us comfort to believe that we have control over most things. It is then scary when there is no control over situations, like during natural disasters or approaching wild animals. I think this need for control is why some believe there is free will when in reality this is not the case.

Life is just a long series of yes/no decisions that you are able to make. I don’t believe we have a conscious free will that some argue we do. We are just a result of the choices our brain is wired for us to make rather than a totally free and random choice.

Just as American neuroscientist Sam Harris explains “Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control”.

All of the stimuli we experience, the way we are brought up and our genetics, make people unconsciously decide on things we think we have free choice over. There is nothing too bleak about this view for me, the feeling of freedom doesn’t become redundant, just that no choice is truly in our own conscious control or a result of free will.

Free will in the strictest sense may be done for (Sam Harris's argument against free will is philosophically, psychologically, and perhaps even biologically, compelling: Do you have any say over what is coming into your head right now? Over what you are choosing to do this very second? If you choose to do one thing or the other in response to reading this, the background cause of your doing one thing versus another remains an eternal mystery. The fact seems to stand that we have no idea what causes us to choose one thing over another, make one decision over another decision, or even think one thought from amidst a great many potential others. The "you" who chooses seems to be an after-effect of the chosen thought itself.)

However, like so many moments in philosophy, we run up against a major problem here with how we choose to define concepts. Not only is the "you" who chooses defined differently depending on how the very concept is used, but so also is a deeper level of free will appearing in the debate that we may now wish to work with: The "you" that is making the choice out of all possibilities, the "you" who comes out of all (predetermined or not) steps in just one potential series of events... this "you" may not be how we typically conceive of ourselves, but it might be "free," nonetheless. We just have to spread the concept of free will to encompass more steps along the line---all those steps in the biological, physical universe that, looked at from this largest of lenses, create the choices "we" make. That, then, unknowable as it may forever remain from, say, just this one point in time, is who "we" are.

As Robert Sapolsky said, quoted here by Turi, "...free will is just what we call the biology that hasn’t been discovered yet."

TL; DR: Our will is only as free as our minds.

Our will is essentially as "free" as it needs to be.

If you were in a prison that was bigger than anywhere you could ever go, and its walls were farther than you could ever reach, does it even matter whether it is a prison?

The prison is determinism.
The fact that it doesn't ultimately matter is the illusion of free will.

Anything and everything any human will ever do, think, or say is within the normal parameters of human biology, and could ultimately be predicted with given sufficient information.

We view it as limitless, because we are not capable of seeing the limits. If we could see the limits, that would just mean the actual limits are further out.

We might wonder "how does an ant live with all those limitations?" But an ant doesn't care, because it can't perceive what it is missing. To the ant, it is living without limits. To us, it is living an almost entirely deterministic life.

TL;DR Libertarian free will is a logical impossibility.

If any given decision is not contingent on any previous decision or action, then it is uncaused and thus can not have occurred. If it is contingent on a previous decision or action, then it is not truly free as there were determining factors.

Consider the question: Was a choice someone made based on something else, either previous knowledge or other choices? If so, then your choice is contingent and thus is not free unless these other choices were somehow not contingent themselves. However, these other causes might have themselves been caused by something else, which might have been caused, and so on. Since their can not have been an infinite number of caused choices or actions in a finite period of time as this would imply an infinite regress, free will must be false. If the choice was not based on anything else, then it is uncaused and thus could not have occurred.

It is also possible that a decision was made randomly, or that the universe is stochastic in nature. This would however, preclude free will as this randomness is itself a cause of the action or decision.

Although at times free will can seem unlikely and unattainable, we need it. Consider a world where we have no free will. Every decision has been determined by some “other force”. As we have not made our decisions, we cannot be morally responsible for them. Therefore, criminals cannot be punished, and heroes cannot be praised.

What type of society would it be, where mass murderers are not punished, and doctors cannot be praised? For example, if a doctor saves a life, they cannot be praised. This is because the decision to save that person was not made by them. Therefore, everyone would ignore their life-saving work. This is wrong as doctors, and others like them, should be praised for their work.

Free will makes actions meaningful. Without free will, our actions would not mean anything. This is because it appears that nobody makes a decision because they want to, or even because they don’t want to. They do not make the decision at all.

Furthermore, if we do not have free will, then something must force our decision. However, we have no evidence of this, or a reasonable idea as to what it could be. Could it be a God like character? Or are our lives a result of a chain reaction of consequences started from the beginning of time? Both of these suggestions make life seem less personal as we do not control it.

Another force determining our decision would mean that our lives, every decision we supposedly make, is already decided. To me this makes life seem less unique and less special.

However, reasons against free will cannot be ignored. Determinism suggests that everything has a cause, and it is grounded in science. Even random actions can be determined by looking at previous events and laws of nature. This does suggest that free will cannot exist. However, even if free will does not exist we still need to believe in it. Belief in free will will continue to give our actions and choices meaning.

Although there are valid arguments as to why there is no free will, we need it. Or, we at least need to believe we have free will. This is because if we believe we have free will, then our actions continue to be meaningful and we continue to have moral responsibility for them.

Does free will exist and does it matter?

• Free will is the idea that we have control over our actions and choices. For thousands of years, the existence of free will has been hotly contested in philosophical debate.

• Many philosophers, such as Augustine, have argued that free will exists and is a vital part of human nature. They use personal experience as evidence for the existence of free will - we experience a sense of agency, ‘make’ our own choices, and feel as if we are in control of our decisions.

• Compatibilists, such as Thomas Aquinas, believe in both free will and determinism, arguing for their logical compatibility.

• Other schools of thought argue against the possibility of free will. Causal determinism states that all of our ‘decisions’ react to previous decisions, and therefore are not free as they are tied to determining factors.

• Many contemporary psychologists and social scientists believe that whether or not free will exists, we must all be held as morally responsible for our actions in order for society to function successfully.

I chose to write this

The irony of debating freely whether or not people have the ability to come to free ideas.

TL; DR: I have no choice but to believe in free will.

I think the notion of free will, if not real, a clever psychological defence mechanism against insanity. If I was shown conclusively that there is no such thing as free will, I presume I would go bonkers. How would I make sense of human interaction, my own choices (let alone that of my wife), and the thought put into making a decision?