Q&A: Determinism
Determinism
Question
If free choice is a person's ability to act according to his will, how can that exist? Because if the will is a fixed given in a person, a guiding line he is born with, then the choice is deterministic, since it stems from the will, which is fixed.
And if the will is free, then what does that mean? If it is like the way we defined freedom, it turns out that this will is yours because you chose it—that is, because you wanted it. And what about that will?
What other definition of a free will could there be so that my choice will be free?
Answer
The will is not something fixed in advance. It is free in the sense that there is nothing that determines it. But it does not operate in a vacuum. There are given values, and a person is supposed to choose the positive ones and avoid the negative ones among them. I devoted a book to this, The Science of Freedom, and there is also an article summarizing it here on the site.