Free Will or Freedom?

Does free will exist? Is it an uncaused cause?

It sure feels like I have a free will. I don’t feel coerced to doing something that I don’t want to do. If I were coerced then I would rationalize that my free will has been curtailed by an external force. Curtailed, yes, but not taken away, for free will, it is assumed, is innate.

However, psychologists and philosophers have become quite wary about our ‘feeling that we are free’.  In “Is Free Will an Illusion?” Shaun Nichols writes:

Yet psychologists widely agree that unconscious processes exert a powerful influence over our choices. In one study, for example, participants solved word puzzles in which the words were either associated with rudeness or politeness. Those exposed to rudeness words were much more likely to interrupt the experimenter in a subsequent part of the task. When debriefed, none of the subjects showed any awareness that the word puzzles had affected their behavior. That scenario is just one of many in which our decisions are directed by forces lurking beneath our awareness.

This argument is not new. In the 20^th century, Behaviorism revealed that those ‘forces lurking under our awareness’ were determined by operant conditioning. If one was to be exposed to certain stimuli again and again, one would react in a certain way again and again. One's behavior would become a ‘habit’ and it would feel as though there were no external forces curtailing one’s sense of freedom.

We could spend the whole time arguing for and against the existence of free will. But, hasn’t anyone yet realized that whatever the outcome, it does not really matter?  Whether this argument or that argument could show you – its validity, it is still an argument that has no proof or hard evidence. 

Here’s what I know: I value freedom because I value human dignity. Humans fought against slavery because they are subjects, beings of intrinsic values. They are values in themselves. I don’t just believe in these ideas; I see actual people standing up for themselves, fighting and defending their rights, their human dignity.  And, when they retain and regain their human dignity, they are free.


So rather than saying that you have a free will (innate), why not describe freedom as an act? Wouldn't you feel that you have accomplished something valuable when you succeeded in overcoming an obstacle, be it physical or psychological, or spiritual? Let us think about it. For as long as you view freedom as an act of overcoming a resistance, then you will stand up and do something about your situation rather than enjoy complaining about 'how hopeless your situation is'.