Free Will In Philosophy: Incompatibilism And Determinism

In philosophy today, free will is defined as, “the power of human beings to choose certain actions, uninfluenced by pressure of any sort, when a number of other options are simultaneously possible.” Philosophers have debated the issue of whether humans truly possess free will since ancient times. Some argue that humans act freely, while others believe that, “Every event, including our choices and decisions, is determined by previous events and the laws of nature—that is, given the past and the laws of nature, every event could not have been otherwise,” which is an idea known as determinism (Barry, #14). This relationship between free will and determinism continues to puzzle philosophers into the twenty-first century. An example of a piece to the free will puzzle, are the schools of thought of Incompatibilism and Compatibilism. Incompatibilism is defined as,

The simplest description of free will, as conceived by such philosophers as David Hume, is simply that free will is, “the ability to choose an action to satisfy a desire” (Hoefer). However, modern philosophers have mostly rejected this definition because it is known that nonhuman animals also act on their wants and needs but lack the intelligence to consider their actions as free choices. A more complex assessment of free will, better differentiating between humans and animals, is that the ability of humans to choose actions flows from the relationship between their animal desires and intellects. This means that people's actions are free when they have intelligently determined the best decision to make in any situation, even if their choices conflict with what they truly want, or their base animal desires. By conquering their basic instincts to make rational, informed decisions, humans have exercised free will, which animals cannot do