Abstract
Progress may be made in resolving the tension between free will and determinism by analysis of the necessary conditions of freedom. It is of the essence that these conditions include causal and deterministic regularities. Furthermore, the human expression of free will is informed by understanding some of those regularities, and increments in that understanding have served to enhance freedom. When the possible character of a deterministic system based on physical theory is considered, it is judged that, far from implying the elimination of human freedom, such a theory might simply set parameters for it; indeed knowledge of that system could again prove to be in some respects liberating. On the other hand, it is of the essence that the overarching biological framework is not a deterministic system and it foregrounds the behavioural flexibility of humans in being able to choose within a range of options and react to chance occurrences. Furthermore, an issue for determinism flows from the way in which randomness (e.g. using a true random number generator) and chance events could and do enter human life. Once the implications of that issue are fully understood, other elements fit comfortably together in our understanding of freely undertaken action: the contribution of reasons and causes; the fact that reasons are never sufficient to account for outcomes; the rationale for the attribution of praise and blame.
Highlights
There are widely recognised problems focused on the idea of free will
When the possible character of a deterministic system based on physical theory is considered, it is judged that, far from implying the elimination of human freedom, such a theory might set parameters for it; knowledge of that system could again prove to be in some respects liberating
To make progress in understanding the relation between free will and determinism, it proves to be valuable to analyse the conditions of freedom
Summary
People generally understand themselves to be making choices and exercising responsibility This is because nothing can determine the outcome of a system governed by pure indeterminacy; that outcome cannot be said to be the responsibility of a human agent exercising free will At this point in discussion, another suggestion which sometimes arises is that the human agent makes decisions and choices while being independent of physical nature: from that vantage point, he or she can somehow intervene and make things happen. Various considerations imply that the exercise of human freedom is such that the idea of the universe as a deterministic system incorporating human action is a mistaken one
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