There are two popular theories about free will which are incompatible with each other and with reality. The positive position is that we, as human beings, have this magical thing called free will that is independent of physics and causality, which allows us to make truly “free” choices. The negative position is that we are mere particles, and so there is no free will and life is meaningless.

The error in both of these theories is that they are conflating two propositions which are actually independent of each other:

  1. Human beings can do whatever they want.
  2. The decisions of human beings are not wholly deterministic.

The positive position is that both of these statements are true. The negative position is that they are both false: our decisions are deterministic, therefore we cannot do whatever we want.

But hold on a second, and let us see if we can use some Science here. Proposition 2 is false. The decisions of human beings are wholly deterministic, because the universe is entirely deterministic.¹ Does this mean that Proposition 1 is also false, as the popular negative position holds?

Of course not. Your actions are entirely determined by your wants. All determinism tells us is that our wants themselves are entirely determined by physical processes. This even has the advantage of being intuitive²: even when I do things I don’t want to do (like math homework), I have some greater want in mind that makes them worthwhile (like graduating from college).

You can do whatever you want. But as the staggeringly important philosopher Robert Nozick has observed,

No one has ever announced that because determinism is true thermostats do not control temperature.

This position is known as compatibilism.

 

1: Some accounts of quantum mechanics disagree, but the lack of determinism in those accounts certainly has nothing to do with human decision-making processes.

2: Though please remember that intuition is not any kind of proof, and not very good evidence either.