Definition and roles of free will

Summary

Free will is generally understood as the capacity or ability of people to (a) choose between different possible courses of action, (b) exercise control over their actions in a way that is necessary for moral responsibility, or (c) be the ultimate source/originator of their actions. It is closely tied to ideas of moral responsibility and moral desert—such as praise, blame, and culpability—because these judgments logically apply only to actions that are freely chosen. Free will is also connected with practical concepts like advice, persuasion, deliberation, and prohibition, since these presuppose that agents can respond to reasons and constraints. Philosophical debates about free will focus on how (or whether) it can coexist with constraints such as physical determinism, divine foreknowledge, and other forms of determinism. Incompatibilists argue that free will and determinism cannot both be true, covering views such as metaphysical libertarianism (determinism is false) and hard determinism/hard incompatibilism (determinism is true, so free will is impossible). Illusionist or hard-incompatibilist positions go further by claiming that even indeterminism (randomness) would not secure free will. Compatibilists, by contrast, hold that free will is compatible with determinism, often redefining free will in terms of freedom from coercion, the psychological capacity to act for reasons, or the ability to guide behavior in a way that can support responsibility.

Key Points

• 1

  Free will is commonly defined as the capacity to choose among options, control one’s actions for moral responsibility, or be the ultimate origin of one’s actions.

• 2

  Debates center on whether free will can coexist with determinism and other constraints, leading to incompatibilism (including libertarianism and hard determinism) versus compatibilism (often redefining free will in terms of action without coercion or responsiveness to reasons).