Does Free Will Exist?

Throughout history, philosophers, theologians, and scientists have long disputed the problem of free will—but without conclusion. The bedrock belief for many is that we’re independent beings who mold the lives we lead due to decisions made of our own volition. But can such freedom ever be definitively demonstrated? When you start unpicking this philosophical conundrum, links to other weighty matters like religion, law, and morality emerge. So do we or don’t we possess free will?

The idea of “free will” refers to the ability to make choices without being coerced or controlled by something outside ourselves—like destiny. It means we can behave in a way that reflects our beliefs or values. This becomes relevant when considering who should be held responsible for doing wrong.

To help understand this concept better, consider something you could do at any time during the day: choose what to have for breakfast.

When you wake up in the morning, there are several possibilities: cereal? Toast? Eggs? Or perhaps something more elaborate, like pancakes? Your free will allows you to pick whichever one of these foods is most appropriate (taking into account factors such as taste or health).

Here’s another example: deciding on your future career. We all come across decisions like this sometime in our lives that might have a big influence on what kind of work we do.

Doctor or artist? Teacher or engineer? Choosing involves thinking deeply about your likes and dislikes, skills, and passions. How much value we place on these things and how important they are to us personally helps determine which path best allows us to pursue them further.

However, it is important to note that even in situations where we feel like we are making choices freely, outside factors shape what we do. These include things like our environment, how society expects us to behave, our personal backgrounds, what sort of education we have had, and whether or not we can access resources.

Different scientific theories and philosophical arguments challenge the idea of free will. They argue that either genetics or outside circumstances have a big impact on how people act and that everything has already been decided before it happens.

The philosophical idea of free will stands for the object of great interest and reflection within the whole of ancient and medieval philosophy. Therefore, representatives of ancient Greek philosophy, such as Plato and Aristotle, referred to different aspects and provided their own interpretations regarding human agencies and the possibility of choice.

Plato would say that inner harmony, if achieved, would make the mind transcend emotional impulses. From Plato’s point of view, a person would act only in conformity with what the conscience considered morally right.

Aristotle, however, observed that there are certain actions for which humans have an option. Hence, he insisted that most of our actions qualify to be voluntary.

Advancing further in time brings us to theologians interweaving free will with religious belief. St. Augustine traced the application of free will to the existence of evil. He was relating problems like why bad things happen and how humans misuse free will through stories from the Bible. For instance, he cites Adam and Eve’s fall when eating fruit from a tree.

Similarly, Thomas Aquinas—the outstanding 13th-century theologian—postulated that freedom was realized when people chose ways to approach the ultimate good. This philosopher said freedom of will had to be executed through choices that agreed with virtue and God’s divine plan.

These philosophical and theological perspectives reveal an important truth: people have long held differing opinions on what it means to possess free will.

Some, like Plato, argue that we freely choose our actions without any influence from external forces. Others, such as Augustine or Aquinas, suggest that certain limitations may exist on this freedom, or perhaps it is granted by religious beliefs.

At the core of understanding free will lies an argument between determinism and compatibilism. Determinists such as early modern thinkers Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz believed the world runs on causal determinism. That is to say, everything that happens is caused by something else happening before it – so all outcomes are predictable.

For example, in good old-fashioned Newtonian physics, every movement of a physical system would follow strict laws – there would be no room for freedom or choice.

From this deterministic view, our existence can be traced back to the Big Bang, the formation of planets, and the evolution of life itself. Who we are today and our choices have been shaped by things beyond our control – genes, upbringing(s), social environment(s).

Determinists argue that free will is meaningless because everything you do will always happen, given how matter has evolved since time began.

Another perspective is compatibilism. Compatibilists believe that free will and determinism can be true simultaneously. Philosophers who’ve taken this view include Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Immanuel Kant.

They all said that even if everything we do is decided by outside forces or circumstances (determinism), we can still be free if what’s happening inside us lines up with that (acting on our own ideas and reasons).

For instance, Arthur Schopenhauer suggested voluntarism, admitting that external reasons play a role in what we do and recognizing an inner will arising from considerations of duty or morality. Friedrich Nietzsche came up with the idea of a “will to power,” arguing that we act because we want to dominate or assert ourselves.

Jean-Paul Sartre, an existential philosopher, suggested that free will places a heavy burden on individuals who must make choices throughout their lives – a condition he referred to as anguish. From this viewpoint, one clear-cut effect of having the freedom to act according to our wishes is that we become entirely responsible for what happens next.

These opposing views about whether or not people determine their own outcomes can lead us to profound considerations concerning such issues as moral duty, the true potential for human autonomy, and how outside factors might shape our decisions.

The Christian faith explores free will from a perspective that focuses on the story of Adam and Eve. Did they freely choose to eat the forbidden fruit? And if not, weren’t they being unjustly punished? Yet if their act was voluntary, why should all their descendants bear responsibility for what they did?

Traditional Christianity teaches that people are personally accountable for moral choices – a concept called “original sin.” This implies that human beings must be able to make decisions deserving of blame or praise. However, this notion conflicts with the idea of divine predestination: that God has already decided which individuals will wind up in heaven or hell.

The debate between human freedom and divine predestination has been a major theological topic for centuries. People who believe that humans have free will think this is important because it helps explain why people should take responsibility for their actions and try to do better. But if God already determines everything, then maybe people can’t really make choices that matter.

Different Christian groups have different opinions on this issue. Some theologians think God controls everything, and anything we think we’ve decided to do was actually planned out before we were born. Others think: how could love be real unless people had the chance to pick someone else instead?

To understand free will in Christianity, one must ask many difficult questions: What kind of God would create beings whose choices only seem meaningful? If there’s some plan behind it all, how can humans be held responsible? And what does any of this mean when one sees so much inequality or suffering?

These questions continue to be asked because no one knows all the answers yet, so debates like these are still shaping Christian theology today!

Free will has been an argument for years, but new developments in science are changing the conversation. Recent neurological experiments suggest that we may not have free will at all.

One famous study by Benjamin Libet showed that there’s a delay between when we do something and the moment we become aware of our decision to act. He asked people to press a button while recording what was happening inside their heads. Activity linked to moving started happening before participants said they’d decided to push it.

We’re also learning more about dopamine and serotonin, chemicals involved in feeling good that have long been associated with wanting rewards. They seem to play important roles in making choices, too.

According to a recent study, people who suffer from Parkinson’s disease and essential tremors still have dopamine and serotonin responses even when they’re making choices whose outcomes they don’t know yet.

These results challenge the idea that we all make voluntary decisions. However, it is important not to jump too quickly to this conclusion because these experiments might ignore things about how humans really decide or fail to take into account problems with monitoring what goes on inside our heads.

So, Does a Free Will Exist?

The concept of free will is still being discussed and impacts us in important ways. If we lack free will, it would mean everything we do or choose is determined by factors that were already in place. So how could someone be responsible for their actions if they never really had control over them?

If nothing can be initiated or altered once underway—if, say, people commit crimes because they were always going to (and not because they wanted to)—what purpose would there be in sending anyone to prison?

Or is there a reason societies have systems for dispensing punishment that apply even when individuals aren’t seen as having made conscious choices?

So, the question of whether free will exists or not isn’t yet settled. Scientists and thinkers are still arguing about it. But considering this philosophical problem can give us insight into ourselves and our world, which is worth exploring either way!