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Free will
Could you have done otherwise?
This morning you chose coffee over tea. It felt like both options were open. But your choice came from your desires, which came from your brain, which followed the laws of physics from states that existed before you were born.
Determinism says every event, including every choice, is fixed by the past and the laws of nature. If that is true, only one future was ever really possible.
Try it · Pick a view and press Play. Watch how many paths are really open, and what the choice passes through.
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Libertarians (about free will, not politics) say real freedom needs genuinely open alternatives, so determinism must be false. Compatibilists, like Hume, say freedom is acting from your own reasons without being forced. You can be free in that sense even if the outcome was determined.
Whichever you pick affects how we think about praise, blame and responsibility.
Key ideas
Words worth remembering
- Determinism
- The past plus the laws of nature fix a single future.
- Libertarianism
- We are free, and freedom requires that more than one future is possible.
- Compatibilism
- Freedom means acting from your own reasons, and is compatible with determinism.
Think about it
If a neuroscientist could predict your choice before you made it, would that make it less yours?