Abstract

This chapter will address seven questions regarding freedom of the will: Just what is freedom of the will? Does freedom require control? Does freedom require that the agent could have done otherwise? Does predictability preclude freedom? Is an act’s freedom compatible with its causal explanation? How can freedom of the will be evidentiated? Is free will unscientific? Drawing on John Locke’s famous example of a person who freely chooses to remain in a locked room, I argue that freedom does neither require control, nor require that the agent could have done otherwise. Instead, I argue that acting from the agent’s own, appropriately formed motives is the very essence of free will. I conclude, accordingly, that predictability does not preclude freedom—at least not necessarily.