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Philosophy

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    And how are you free when your only choice is to choose according to your preferences which are outside of your choosing? How is that a choice then, exactly? I you are correct, not only metaphysical freedom is in question but also freedom of choice. Ultimately, freedom would be reduced to a descriptive category and would seize to be an ontological one. Commented Dec 29, 2022 at 9:15
  • Here's a definition for freedom: The absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. In other words: Freedom is the opportunity to act according to your own preferences instead of someone else's. Commented Dec 29, 2022 at 12:03
  • And how are these preferences in any meaningful way "my own" if I have no say in what they are? Commented Dec 29, 2022 at 12:19
  • @PhilipKlöcking In the usual sense. They are "your own" because they depend on who you are. If there were a different person in your place, those preferences might be different. The only "free will" you lack is the freedom to choose the place and circumstances of your birth – and, in general, the freedom for hypothetical people to decide whether or not to instantiate themselves on real-world Planet Earth. But, having been born, you have freedom to decide what you do from there (in the sense that who you are, and what you know and want, are the primary determiners for your choices). Commented Dec 29, 2022 at 14:44
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    To the layperson, "actions are predetermined" means they don't get to choose them (in fact, something stronger: that they are not a part of the process that determines their actions), and free will means they do get to choose them. Other definitions of free will necessarily lead to different conclusions, but by this definition (one I posit is the usual one), most people have free will. Commented Dec 29, 2022 at 17:54