Are We Free?

This question may be seen from at least three perspectives: In what ways are we free? In what does free will consist? How come we have free will, if we do? All other freedoms pre-suppose, are subordinate to, and are irrelevant without free will.

Consider one of the ways in which we may see ourselves as free: free as a bird, or as a wild animal. But do these have any power of choice? Are they not on auto-pilot, constrained by instincts, hunger, thirst, social pressures and fear? So are we also on auto-pilot, yet with a greater degree of choice and a stronger range of constraints: prison, blackmail, death threats? Humans clearly have the power of self-restraint, good manners, tact, enlightened self-interest; the ability to think through and carry out a plan of action which may or may not be benign, taking into account how others will react. But even in the most perfect world, there will be constraints.

Where in all this constrained freedom is free will? Free will requires total autonomy in thought, or at least the power to establish for oneself one’s principles of action. Even then, one’s behaviour will not necessarily accord with those principles. My mind, and I suppose others’, has been influenced from birth by what others communicate. Every neuron that has fired has been a response to some stimulus. So every thought has to follow from some signal. In simple animals there’s no room for free will. A man-eating tiger must be shot, clearly, even though it surely has done nothing but followed its nature and instincts?

Free will is autonomy, the unconstrained freedom to choose values and beliefs. But where does it come from? From nothing? From mass and energy? From a power beyond all science? So, if I have free will, how come? Is there something deep within me – self, id, soul, spirit that operates independently of instincts? There cannot be any explanation of free will from science. Yet to abjure free will is to abjure all responsibility, and all credit for any so-called achievements. The only possible explanation for free will speaks of a God who gives us choice even with considerable limitations on the freedom to act. (But does God exist? That is a question we will discuss another time.)

I look forward to your comments