Various Perspectives on Free Will

Free will defines the role we play in our own lives. Whether we have it or not maybe the key in linking our world to forces and dimensions beyond what we can see. But, if we do really have free will, it may leave us a solitary species. A scary thought in the realm of the 46 billion lightyear universe in which we are left to make choices on our tiny speck of dirt planet.

Defined by Timothy O’Conner in The Stanford Encyclopedia free will is “a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives.” O’Conner suggests that the freedom of will is associated with rationality. From this, the question becomes, where does rationality originate? The originator, whoever or whatever that may be, holds the capacity to choose based on their judgement which, according to the dictionary, is “the ability to make considered decisions or come to a conclusion chosen in accordance with wisdom.” We can elaborate further by defining the term wisdom as, “the quality of having experience, knowledge and good judgement.” This idea that wisdom, which defines judgement, is based off of a being’s experience helps supports compatibilism.

The most inclusive perspective on free will, compatibilism, combines ideas of determinism and free will, claiming that although we do have the freedom of will and choice, our past experiences define our judgement and therefore our will. (McKenna) Determinists who disagree with the first part, free will, in compatibilism, agree with the later statement, that experiences playing a defining role in our will. In his book, “Between Chance and Choice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Determinism” author Robert Bishop states the principle of deter...

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... choose to change a part of that chain. Introducing an indetermined event, by which the determined course will shift, creating another determined course that includes the indetermined act.

Maybe we should be scared, we and the life closest to us are the only things which I believe has developed a sense of free will. We are all alone with the dogs, dolphins, and bugs, left to make choices for change in the deterministic universe. Deterministic events have advanced for so long and has created indeterminist events and the free will we have. The origin of our freedom, assuming we have any, remains a puzzling matter, answers stretch as far as from God to the meat computers that sit in our head. Whichever it is, I believe there is an answer and maybe one day I will know whether I wrote this out of my own will or I was destined and trained to write these words all my life.