What's free in the concept of Free Will?

Answer 1

The USE of the power we call will. It incurs no effects, no causal debt so to speak. It's there, it is free for you to use. There's no payback of any kind that gets established due to its use.

What does it ultimately do? When you use it, you change the direction cause and effect was going. (It is NOT a replacement for cause and effect. Nor is it a contradiction to cause and effect, nor does it conceptually run inconsistently with cause and effect, contrary to the popular argument.)

Depending on how wisely you use it, you can end up in some desirable situations, or some undesirable ones. In that way, you have causal debt. There are effects of what you do with will. They can involve considerable cost. But the use of will came at no cost. It was free. Which is cool, because I wouldn't want a bill for it in addition to my electrical power bill!

I'll be damned though if I haven't had to pay for my thoughts, feelings and actions constituting unwise use of will. No cost for the simple use of it though.

Without this being the way it works, how could I ever be responsible for anything I think, feel or do? For me to be repsonsible, I must choose, and I must be subject to cause and effect at the same time.

So again, how do they work together? The one is the power to alter the direction of the other. That way, we always live in the results of our decisions. We pay for our decisions, not the power to make them. The more we know this and understand it, the more stupid it is to think, feel or act unwisely, but rather to get willful control over them and go about them wisely.

We certainly would not think your neighbor has no responsibility for his actions if he drives his car onto your yard and "lays rubber" until your lawn is destroyed!

Again, the free part is its USE. That's just the way it is.

It actually comes as hard news to some people. They like to talk about human freedoms, but deny that will is a power they can use at no cost, they say everything is determined and at the same time hold everybody responsible for their lives, and point to some supposedly rational argument or other to support their confusion, or to support a fear of responsibility for themselves.

Increasingly use will freely to control your own thoughts, feelings and actions in accordance with your ethical desires, motives and goals.

The more you practice it intentionally, the better you get at it. It's far better to do it than to argue about it. It's pure pragmatism. It doesn't have to involve philosophical debate, or psychological theorizing, or skepticism, or religion, or theology. It's just working with fundamental principles of operation.

Answer 2

Good question my friend for the free in the concept of Free Will is not free and perhaps is no will. And let no one suppose that because he is no longer free, he is no longer morallly responsible for his behavior and the structure. Precisely because men's actions are determined by their memories, society must for its protection form its citizens through their hopes and fears into some measure of social order and cooperation. All education presupposes determinism and pours into the open mind of youth a store of prohibitions which are expected to participate in determining conduct.

The evil which ensues from evil deeds is not therefore less to be feared because it comes of necessity, whether our actions are free or not, our motives still are hope and fear. Therefore the assertion is false that i would have no room for precepts and commands.

Answer 3

The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether or not the laws of nature are causally deterministic. The various philosophical positions taken differ on whether all events are determined or not—determinism versus indeterminism—and also on whether freedom can coexist with determinism or not—compatibilism versus incompatibilism. So, for instance, hard determinists argue that the universe is deterministic, and that this makes free will impossible.


The principle of free will has religious, ethical, and scientific implications. For example, in the religious realm, free will may imply that an omnipotent divinity does not assert its power over individual will and choices. In ethics, it may imply that individuals can be held morally accountable for their actions. In the scientific realm, it may imply that the actions of the body, including the brain and the mind, are not wholly determined by physical causality. The question of free will has been a central issue since the beginning of philosophical
The basic philosophical positions on the problem of free will can be divided in accordance with the answers they provide to two questions: 1) Is determinism true? and 2) Does free will exist?


Determinism is roughly defined as the view that all current and future events are necessitated by past events combined with the laws of nature. Neither determinism nor its opposite, non-determinism, are positions in the debate about free will.[1]

Compatibilism is the view that the existence of free will and the truth of determinism are compatible with each other. Incompatibilism is the view that there is no way to reconcile a belief in a deterministic universe with a belief in free will.[2] Hard determinism is the version of incompatibilism that accepts the truth of determinism and rejects the idea that humans have any free will.[3] Metaphysical libertarianism topically agrees with hard determinism only in rejecting compatibilism. Since libertarians accept the existence of free will, they must reject determinism and argue for some version of indeterminism that is compatible with freedom.


In Elbow Room, Dennett presents an argument for a compatibilist theory of free will, which he further elaborated in the book Freedom Evolves.[17] The basic reasoning is that, if one excludes God, an infinitely powerful demon, and other such possibilities, then because of chaos and quantum randomness, the future is ill-defined for all finite beings. The only well-defined things are "expectations". The ability to do "otherwise" only makes sense when dealing with these expectations, and not with some unknown and unknowable future. Since individuals have the ability to act differently from what anyone expects, free will can.....



Arthur Schopenhauer put the puzzle of free will and moral responsibility in these terms:
Everyone believes himself a priori to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life... . But a posteriori, through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subjected to necessity, that in spite of all his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the very character which he himself condemns….


Society generally holds people responsible for their actions, and will say that they deserve praise or blame for what they do. However, many believe that moral responsibility requires free will. Thus, another important issue in the debate on free will is whether individuals are ever morally responsible for their actions—and, if so, in what sense….individual moral culpability lies in individual character…… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

Answer 4

We, as created human beings have the ability to make choices in our life. Original sin really gives us no choice, it says "we are" not that "we choose to be". Free will means that we have the one of two options: to do, or not to do. Without that free will, we only act by instinct. We either choose to be good or evil, right or wrong, friend or foe, to live in peace or in war, etc. Since we are created above the instinctive "animals", we have the freedom to choose our path, whether is it a spiritual path or a carnal path.

Answer 5

The actual term was a rebuttal against the idea of original sin. Original Sin says that everyman was born evil and slaves to evil and therefore can't help doing evil. Free will states that a man ultimately chooses whether or not he is evil or holy. That is, he is free to do either, therefore making evil more evil because it is chosen, and holiness more holy because it is chosen

Answer 6

Free is for freedom from the slavery to mind .The mind eventhough it is dependent on the self acts as if it is the master .One who has realised his free will is no more a slave to the mind he is in control of the sitiuations and there will be no preconcieved notions of the mind.

Answer 7

Free will is freedom of thought. If we choose to exercise it, it can grow into other freedoms. If we choose to give it up and follow someone else's will, then true slavery begins. The popular reason for giving up this freedom is to shirk responsibility for our actions.

Answer 8

to be able to have the right's to rise or fall in life on your own with no help from other's or religion. even in the bible it goes by free will.

Answer 9

to do whatever you wanna do without a restriction or DO NOT DO THIS sign in your head

Answer 10

The fact that your opinion on it is your own.