Abstract

The following is a now popular argument for free will skepticism: 1. If free will exists, then people must make themselves. 2. People cannot make themselves. 3. Thus, free will is impossible. It would make no sense to hold someone responsible, either for what he’s like or what he’s done, unless he has made himself. But no one could make himself. A person’s character is necessarily imposed upon him by Nature and others. To rebut, I intend to lean on common usage, according to which 2 is false: the vernacular provides a clear sense in which we DO make ourselves. It is the sense in which we speak of a cake being made from ingredients or a statue out of clay. Self-formation sufficient for a free will occurs along these lines. I shall discuss a compatibilist and a libertarian version of this project.