Abstract

Worries about free will are worries about whether we might be mistaken in taking ourselves to be at least occasionally free. Any such worry is usually expressed in terms of one of several compelling claims of determinism. Some suggest that, as it turns out, we aren't mistaken since determinism, though compelling, is fully compatible with our acting freely. Others suggest that, as it turns out, we are not mistaken since determinism, though incompatible, is not compelling. But questions as to how we solve the problem are dependent for their meaning on a clear answer to a prior question: What exactly is the nature of the mistake that we might be making when we take ourselves to be free? For whatever else is true, this is not a mistake like other mistakes. ;There is no great dispute over the fact that when we take ourselves to be free, we do so unavoidably---we cannot stop seeming to be free. It is further taken, as a starting point, that the experience, though unavoidable, is potentially deceptive. This deception has often been cast in terms of a consummate illusion. I argue that such an 'illusion' is simply too 'consummate' to be understood. ;The experience of seeming to be free is not only an experience that we cannot fail to have, it is an experience that we could not fail to have under any conceivable circumstances. This is made clear by distinguishing between notions of constraint on the one hand, and a comprehensive lack of freedom on the other. Though it is possible that, to oneself, one may seem to be completely constrained, one can no more seem to lack all freedom than one can seem to lack all self-awareness. ;When an experience is said to be illusory, we mean that, even if we are not in a position to experience the 'falsity' of the illusion, the circumstances of such a position are imaginable. The experience of freedom, however, is not the sort for which there is any such conceivable perspective and thus, whatever it is, it is not a candidate for illusion