Examples Of Free Will

Throughout my life I have made some decisions and choices that I considered free. What is free choice? Free choice is being able to differentiate right from wrong and make a decision from the two. My theory is if someone is doing something no one forces or commands them to do therefore that person is acting freely. An example is the way that someone chooses to dress or the kind of music someone decides to listen to. What I did not consider in this theory is the fact that even though there is nobody pointing an arm commanding you to do certain things, however there are other factors that may affect the choices we make. Philosophers of different periods have discussed the subject of free will; some of them believe that free will does not

Although most people would consider it a normal thing to do, for me it was a big decision to make. For the first time in my life I was the one who had to decide whether I should go to college or do something else with my life. My choice was to go to continue my education by going to college and I consider this decision as free because nobody forced me to do so. After reflecting on the subject before and after reading some articles on free will, I realize that it was not really a free will decision but it was more like a cause, it was caused. The reason I said that is because I realize that the society in which I grew up paved the way for me to make such choice. If I did not grow up in a society where most of the people that have a decent life had to go to school to get a better job in order to give their family a better life, I could have chosen not go to school. In his book “The Illusion of Conscious Will,” Daniel Wegner explains how a plan can be a causal agency (page 19). In my case I have always plan to be an engineer and the only way to be an engineer is to go to college, so when it was time to decide whether to go to college or not, the choice was easy and anyone that I knew could have predicted the choice I would