Do we have free will?
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What this question is about
Every choice you make has causes: your genes, your upbringing, what you ate for breakfast, the state of your neurons a second ago. If all of that was already fixed, could you ever have chosen otherwise, and does it matter whether you could?
Philosophers split three ways. Compatibilists say free will is acting on your own reasons without coercion, which a fully caused world allows. Libertarians say real choice needs something not fixed in advance. Skeptics say neither works, so free will as most people picture it doesn't exist. The answer bears on blame, punishment and whether pride or regret make sense.
Positions
3 positions, in no order of merit. Open one for its full case.
Free will means acting on your own reasons and values without being forced, even if those reasons themselves have causes (compatibilism).
2 reasons1 source2 objections from other positions
What we care about when we call a choice free is whether it came from your own reasons rather than a gun to your head.
Strongest objection (Leaves something out), for No, free will is an illusion: Your reasons came from genes and experiences you never chose.
At the moment of choosing, more than one future is genuinely open, and the person, not prior causes, settles which one happens (libertarian free will).
2 reasons0 sources2 objections from other positions
When you deliberate, you experience more than one option as genuinely open.
Strongest objection (Doesn’t follow), for No, free will is an illusion: Feeling free is exactly what we'd expect if we simply can't see the causes of our own decisions.
Our choices are the product of causes we didn't choose, so nobody could have done otherwise and nobody deserves blame or praise in the deep sense.
2 reasons2 sources3 objections from other positions
Brain activity that leads to a movement starts before people feel they have decided, so the feeling of choosing comes after the brain has already set things in motion.
Strongest objection (Overstated), for Yes, our choices aren't fixed in advance: The early buildup may just be random neural noise, not a hidden decision.
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Open questions
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Source requested · No, free will is an illusion
Flicking a wrist at a random moment isn't the kind of choice anyone argues about.
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No source yet · Yes, our choices aren't fixed in advance
When you deliberate, you experience more than one option as genuinely open.
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No source yet · Yes, free will fits a caused world
Holding people responsible works: praise, blame and punishment change how people act, and that only makes sense if their choices respond to reasons.
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No source yet · No, free will is an illusion
Every event, including a decision, is either caused by earlier events or happens by chance.
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No source yet · Yes, our choices aren't fixed in advance
Physics no longer says the future is fully fixed: quantum events appear to be genuinely random, so determinism may simply be false.
Is a position missing?
Propose a positionSource trail
- PhilPapers Survey 2020: results for all respondentssurvey2020.philpeople.org
- Wikipedia: Neuroscience of free willen.wikipedia.org
- Schurger, Sitt & Dehaene (2012): An accumulator model for spontaneous neural activity prior to self-initiated movement, PNAS 109(42)digitalcommons.chapman.edu
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