Free will

===Other views===
Some philosophers' views are difficult to categorize as either compatibilist or incompatibilist, hard determinist or libertarian. For example, [[Ted Honderich]] holds the view that "determinism is true, compatibilism and incompatibilism are both false" and the real problem lies elsewhere. Honderich maintains that determinism is true because quantum phenomena are not events or things that can be located in space and time, but are [[Abstract object|abstract]] entities. Further, even if they were micro-level events, they do not seem to have any relevance to how the world is at the macroscopic level. He maintains that incompatibilism is false because, even if indeterminism is true, incompatibilists have not provided, and cannot provide, an adequate account of origination. He rejects compatibilism because it, like incompatibilism, assumes a single, fundamental notion of freedom. There are really two notions of freedom: voluntary action and origination. Both notions are required to explain freedom of will and responsibility. Both determinism and indeterminism are threats to such freedom. To abandon these notions of freedom would be to abandon moral responsibility. On the one side, we have our intuitions; on the other, the scientific facts. The "new" problem is how to resolve this conflict.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Honderich |first=T. |title=The Free Will Handbook |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2001 |editor-last=Kane |editor-first=Robert |chapter=Determinism as True, Compatibilism and Incompatibilism as Both False and the Real Problem}}</ref>

====Free will as an illusion====
[[File:Spinoza.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Baruch Spinoza]] thought that there is no free will.]]
:"Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined." [[Baruch Spinoza]], ''Ethics''<ref name=Spinoza>{{cite book |author=Benedict de Spinoza |year=2008 |chapter=Part III: On the origin and nature of the emotions; Postulates (Proposition II, Note) |editor=R.H.M. Elwes, trans |title=The Ethics |publisher=Digireads.com Publishing |edition=Original work published 1677 |isbn=978-1-4209-3114-3 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2tTweH2JeXsC&pg=PA54 |page=54 }}{{Dead link|date=April 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
[[David Hume]] discussed the possibility that the entire debate about free will is nothing more than a merely "verbal" issue. He suggested that it might be accounted for by "a false sensation or seeming experience" (a ''velleity''), which is associated with many of our actions when we perform them. On reflection, we realize that they were necessary and determined all along.<ref>Hume, D. (1765). ''An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding'', Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing Co. Second edition. 1993. {{ISBN|0-87220-230-5}}</ref>

[[File:Schopenhauer.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Arthur Schopenhauer]] claimed that phenomena do not have freedom of the will, but the will as [[noumenon]] is not subordinate to the laws of necessity (causality) and is thus free.]]
According to [[Arthur Schopenhauer]], the actions of humans, as [[phenomena]], are subject to the [[principle of sufficient reason]] and thus liable to necessity. Thus, he argues, humans do not possess free will as conventionally understood. However, the [[Will (philosophy)|will]] [urging, craving, striving, wanting, and desiring], as the [[noumenon]] underlying the phenomenal world, is in itself groundless: that is, not subject to time, space, and causality (the forms that governs the world of appearance). Thus, the will, in itself and outside of appearance, is free. Schopenhauer discussed the puzzle of free will and moral responsibility in ''[[The World as Will and Representation]]'', Book 2, Sec. 23:

{{blockquote|But the fact is overlooked that the individual, the person, is not will as [[thing-in-itself]], but is ''phenomenon'' of the will, is as such determined, and has entered the form of the phenomenon, the principle of sufficient reason. Hence we get the strange fact that everyone considers himself to be ''a priori'' quite free, even in his individual actions, and imagines he can at any moment enter upon a different way of life... But ''a posteriori'' through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but liable to necessity; that notwithstanding all his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the beginning to the end of his life he must bear the same character that he himself condemns, and, as it were, must play to the end the part he has taken upon himself.<ref>Schopenhauer, Arthur. ''The World as Will and Representation'', Vol. 1., trans. E. F. J. Payne, p. 113-114</ref>}}

Schopenhauer elaborated on the topic in Book IV of the same work and in even greater depth in his later essay ''[[On the Freedom of the Will]].'' In this work, he stated, "You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can ''will'' only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing."<ref>[[Schopenhauer]], Arthur, ''[[On the Freedom of the Will]]'', Oxford: Basil Blackwell {{ISBN|0-631-14552-4}}</ref>

====Free will as "moral imagination"====
[[Rudolf Steiner]], who collaborated in a complete edition of Arthur Schopenhauer's work,<ref>{{cite web|title=Arthur Schopenhauers sämtliche Werke in zwölf Bänden. Mit Einleitung von Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Stuttgart: Verlag der J.G. Cotta'schen Buchhandlung Nachfolger, o.J. (1894–96)|first=Rudolf|last=Steiner|url=http://www.pitt.edu/~kafka/k_s_bibII.html|language=de|access-date=2007-08-02|archive-date=2018-10-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181006113213/http://www.pitt.edu/~kafka/k_s_bibII.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> wrote [[The Philosophy of Freedom]], which focuses on the problem of free will. Steiner (1861–1925) initially divides this into the two aspects of freedom: ''freedom of thought'' and ''freedom of action''. The controllable and uncontrollable aspects of decision making thereby are made logically separable, as pointed out in the introduction. This separation of ''will'' from ''action'' has a very long history, going back at least as far as [[Stoicism]] and the teachings of [[Chrysippus]] (279–206 BCE), who separated external ''antecedent'' causes from the internal disposition receiving this cause.<ref name=Chrysippus>{{cite book |title=The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy |publisher=Cambridge University Press |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9lRD6feR3hEC&pg=PA529 |page=529 |chapter=Chapter VI: The Chyrsippean notion of fate: soft determinism |author=Keimpe Algra |isbn=978-0-521-25028-3 |year=1999}}</ref>

Steiner then argues that inner freedom is achieved when we integrate our sensory impressions, which reflect the outer appearance of the world, with our thoughts, which lend coherence to these impressions and thereby disclose to us an understandable world. Acknowledging the many influences on our choices, he nevertheless points out that they do not preclude freedom unless we fail to recognise them. Steiner argues that outer freedom is attained by permeating our deeds with ''moral imagination.'' "Moral" in this case refers to action that is willed, while "imagination" refers to the mental capacity to envision conditions that do not already hold. Both of these functions are necessarily conditions for freedom. Steiner aims to show that these two aspects of inner and outer freedom are integral to one another, and that true freedom is only achieved when they are united.<ref>Steiner, R. (1964). Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1964, 1970, 1972, 1979, 230 pp., translated from the 12th German edition of 1962 by Michael Wilson. [http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/ ((online))]</ref>

====Free will as a pragmatically useful concept====
[[William James]]' views were ambivalent. While he believed in free will on "ethical grounds", he did not believe that there was evidence for it on scientific grounds, nor did his own introspections support it.<ref>See Bricklin, Jonathan, "A Variety of Religious Experience: William James and the Non-Reality of Free Will", in Libet (1999), ''The Volitional Brain: Toward a Neuroscience of Free Will'' (Thorverton UK: Imprint Academic).</ref> Ultimately he believed that the problem of free will was a metaphysical issue and, therefore, could not be settled by science. Moreover, he did not accept incompatibilism as formulated below; he did not believe that the indeterminism of human actions was a prerequisite of moral responsibility. In his work ''[[Pragmatism]]'', he wrote that "instinct and utility between them can safely be trusted to carry on the social business of punishment and praise" regardless of metaphysical theories.<ref name="JW">James, W. (1907) ''Pragmatism'' (1979 edition). Cambridge, MA: [[Harvard University Press]]</ref> He did believe that indeterminism is important as a "doctrine of relief"&nbsp;– it allows for the view that, although the world may be in many respects a bad place, it may, through individuals' actions, become a better one. Determinism, he argued, undermines [[meliorism]]&nbsp;– the idea that progress is a real concept leading to improvement in the world.<ref name="JW"/>

====Free will and views of causality====
{{See also|Principle of sufficient reason}}

In 1739, [[David Hume]] in his ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]'' approached free will via the notion of causality. It was his position that causality was a mental construct used to explain the repeated association of events, and that one must examine more closely the relation between things ''regularly succeeding'' one another (descriptions of regularity in nature) and things that ''result'' in other things (things that cause or necessitate other things).<ref name=Kane>
{{cite book |title=The significance of free will |author=Robert Kane |publisher=Oxford University Press |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dBlXH3FtwJIC&pg=PA226 |page= 226 |chapter=Notes to pages 74–81, note 22 |isbn=978-0-19-512656-3 |year=1998 |edition=Paperback}}
</ref> According to Hume, 'causation' is on weak grounds: "Once we realise that 'A must bring about B' is tantamount merely to 'Due to their constant conjunction, we are psychologically certain that B will follow A,' then we are left with a very weak notion of necessity."<ref name=Lorkowski>{{cite encyclopedia |author=CM Lorkowski |date=November 7, 2010 |title=David Hume: Causation |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/hume-cau/ |encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref>

This empiricist view was often denied by trying to prove the so-called [[apriority]] of causal law (i.e. that it precedes all experience and is rooted in the construction of the perceivable world):
* [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]]'s proof in ''Critique of Pure Reason'' (which referenced time and time ordering of causes and effects)<ref>Kant argued that, in order that human life is not just a "dream" (a random or projected by subjects juxtaposition of moments), the temporality of event A as before or after B must submit to a rule. An established order then implies the existence of some necessary conditions and causes, that is: sufficient bases (a so-called sufficient reason is the coincidence of all the necessary conditions). Without established causality, both [[Transcendental apperception|in subject]] and in the external world, the passing of time would be impossible, because it is essentially directional. See [[s:Critique of Pure Reason/Volume 1/Division 1#B. Second Analogy. Principle of the Succession of Time According to the Law of Causality. All changes take place according to the law of the connection of Cause and Effect.|online text of his proof]]</ref>
* [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]]'s proof from ''The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason'' (which referenced the so-called intellectuality of representations, that is, in other words, objects and [[qualia]] perceived with senses)<ref>Schopenhauer, who by the way continued and simplified Kant's system, argued (among others basing on optical illusions and the "initial processing") that it is the intellect or even the brain what generates the image of the world out of something else, by ''concluding from effects, e.g. optical, about appropriate causes'', e.g. concrete physical objects. Intellect in his works is strictly connected with recognizing causes and effects and associating them, it is somewhat close to the contemporary view of [[cerebral cortex]] and formation of associations. The intellectuality of all perception implied then of course that causality is rooted in the world, precedes and enables experience. See [[s:Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/90|online text of his proof]]</ref>

In the 1780s [[Immanuel Kant]] suggested at a minimum our decision processes with moral implications lie outside the reach of everyday causality, and lie outside the rules governing material objects.<ref name=Hill>
{{cite book |author=R Kevin Hill |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y1CHkFRdYD4C&pg=PA196 |chapter=Chapter 7: The critique of morality: The three pillars of Kantian ethics |title=Nietzsche's Critiques: The Kantian Foundations of His Thought |pages=196–201 |isbn=978-0-19-928552-5 |edition=Paperback |year=2003| publisher=Clarendon Press }}
</ref> "There is a sharp difference between moral judgments and judgments of fact... Moral judgments... must be ''a priori'' judgments."<ref name=Paton>
{{cite book |title=The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant's Moral Philosophy |author=Herbert James Paton |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8Y7RS1cM9KUC&pg=PA20 |isbn=978-0-8122-1023-1 |year=1971 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |chapter= §2 Moral judgements are ''a priori''|page=20 }}
</ref>

Freeman introduces what he calls "circular causality" to "allow for the contribution of self-organizing dynamics", the "formation of macroscopic population dynamics that shapes the patterns of activity of the contributing individuals", applicable to "interactions between neurons and neural masses... and between the behaving animal and its environment".<ref name=Freeman>{{cite book |title=Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? |editor1=Susan Pockett |editor2=WP Banks |editor3=Shaun Gallagher |chapter=Consciousness, intentionality and causality |author=Freeman, Walter J. |publisher=MIT Press |year =2009 |isbn=978-0-262-51257-2 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G5CaTnNksgkC&pg=PA88 |page=88| quote=Circular causality departs so strongly from the classical tenets of necessity, invariance, and precise temporal order that the only reason to call it that is to satisfy the human habitual need for causes.... The very strong appeal of agency to explain events may come from the subjective experience of cause and effect that develops early in human life, before the acquisition of language...the question I raise here is whether brains share this property with other material objects in the world.}}</ref> In this view, mind and neurological functions are tightly coupled in a situation where feedback between collective actions (mind) and individual subsystems (for example, [[neuron]]s and their [[synapse]]s) jointly decide upon the behaviour of both.

====Free will according to Thomas Aquinas====
Thirteenth century philosopher [[Thomas Aquinas]] viewed humans as pre-programmed (by virtue of being human) to seek certain goals, but able to choose between routes to achieve these goals (our Aristotelian [[telos (philosophy)|telos]]). His view has been associated with both compatibilism and libertarianism.<ref>{{Cite journal| volume = 2| issue = 2| page = 74| last = Staley| first = Kevin M.| title = Aquinas: Compatibilist or Libertarian| journal = The Saint Anselm Journal| access-date = 2015-12-09| date = 2005| url = http://www.anselm.edu/Documents/Institute%20for%20Saint%20Anselm%20Studies/Abstracts/4.5.3.2h_22Staley.pdf| url-status=dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151221073832/http://www.anselm.edu/Documents/Institute%20for%20Saint%20Anselm%20Studies/Abstracts/4.5.3.2h_22Staley.pdf| archive-date = 2015-12-21}}</ref><ref>{{Cite thesis| last = Hartung| first = Christopher| title = Thomas Aquinas on Free Will| access-date = 2015-12-09| date = May 2013| publisher = University of Delaware| url = http://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/12979| type = Thesis}}
</ref>

In facing choices, he argued that humans are governed by ''intellect'', ''will'', and ''passions''. The will is "the primary mover of all the powers of the soul... and it is also the efficient cause of motion in the body."<ref name=Stump>

A discussion of the roles of will, intellect and passions in Aquinas' teachings is found in {{cite book |title=Aquinas, ''Arguments of the philosophers series'' |author= Stump, Eleonore|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1GvL3eKhoM8C&pg=PA278 |pages=278 ''ff'' |isbn=978-0-415-02960-5 |year=2003 |publisher=Routledge (Psychology Press) |chapter= Intellect and will}}

</ref> Choice falls into five stages: (i) intellectual consideration of whether an objective is desirable, (ii) intellectual consideration of means of attaining the objective, (iii) will arrives at an intent to pursue the objective, (iv) will and intellect jointly decide upon choice of means (v) will elects execution.<ref name=OConnor0>{{cite encyclopedia |author=Timothy O'Connor |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/freewill/ |title= Free Will |encyclopedia= The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition) |editor= Edward N. Zalta |date=Oct 29, 2010 |publisher=The Metaphysics Research Lab Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University|quote=Philosophers who distinguish ''freedom of action'' and ''freedom of will'' do so because our success in carrying out our ends depends in part on factors wholly beyond our control. Furthermore, there are always external constraints on the range of options we can meaningfully try to undertake. As the presence or absence of these conditions and constraints are not (usually) our responsibility, it is plausible that the central loci of our responsibility are our choices, or "willings".}}</ref> Free will enters as follows: Free will is an "appetitive power", that is, not a cognitive power of intellect (the term "appetite" from Aquinas's definition "includes all forms of internal inclination").<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01656a.htm |title=Catholic Encyclopedia: Appetite |publisher=Newadvent.org |date=1907 |access-date=2012-08-13}}</ref> He states that judgment "concludes and terminates counsel. Now counsel is terminated, first, by the judgment of reason; secondly, by the acceptation of the appetite [that is, the free-will]."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1083.htm |title=Summa Theologica: Free-will (Prima Pars, Q. 83) |publisher=Newadvent.org |access-date=2012-08-13}}</ref>

A compatibilist interpretation of Aquinas's view is defended thus: "Free-will is the cause of its own movement, because by his free-will man moves himself to act. But it does not of necessity belong to liberty that what is free should be the first cause of itself, as neither for one thing to be cause of another need it be the first cause. God, therefore, is the first cause, Who moves causes both natural and voluntary. And just as by moving natural causes He does not prevent their acts being natural, so by moving voluntary causes He does not deprive their actions of being voluntary: but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them; for He operates in each thing according to its own nature."<ref>Thomas Aquinas, ''Summa Theologiae'', Q83 A1.</ref><ref>Further discussion of this compatibilistic theory can be found in Thomas' ''Summa contra gentiles'', Book III about Providence, c. 88–91 (260–267), where it is postulated that everything has its cause and it is again and again in detail referred also to all individual choices of man etc., even refuting opposite views. [http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles3b.htm#88 Here the online text of the Summa] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171123185058/http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles3b.htm#88 |date=2017-11-23 }}. In order to avoid, at least in concept, the absolution of man of any guilt he then notes the contingency of all that takes place, i.e. lack of ''direct'' necessity from God strictly with regard to a concrete ("contingent") act. A typical choice was not separately ordained to be so-and-so by God; St. Thomas says the choice is not necessary, but in fact that apparently means it was ''contingent'' with regard to God and the law of nature (as a specific case that could have not existed in other circumstances), and ''necessary'' with regard to its direct previous cause in will and intellect. (The contingency, or fortuity, is even intuitive under modern [[chaos theory]], where one can try to show that more and more developed products appearing in the evolution of a universe or, simpler, an automaton are [[chaos theory|chaotic]] with regard to its principles.)</ref>

====Free will as a pseudo-problem====
Historically, most of the philosophical effort invested in resolving the dilemma has taken the form of close examination of definitions and ambiguities in the concepts designated by "free", "freedom", "will", "choice" and so forth. Defining 'free will' often revolves around the meaning of phrases like "ability to do otherwise" or "alternative possibilities". This emphasis upon words has led some philosophers to claim the problem is merely verbal and thus a pseudo-problem.<ref name=Deery>
{{cite book |title=The Philosophy of Free Will: Essential Readings from the Contemporary Debates |author1=Paul Russell |author2=Oisin Deery |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CLyi7nmzr28C&pg=PA5 |page=5 |chapter=I. The free will problem – real or illusory |isbn=978-0-19-973339-2 |year=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press }}
</ref> In response, others point out the complexity of decision making and the importance of nuances in the terminology.{{citation needed|date=October 2022}}