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Free will
n (13c) 1: voluntary choice or decision <I do this of my own free will>
2: freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

The significance of the problem of free will derives from the fact that free will is generally considered a necessary presupposition of
moral responsibility, while determinism has (at least until the advent of quantum mechanics) been regarded a necessary presupposition of
natural science. Arguments for free will are based on the subjective experience of freedom, on sentiments of guilt, on revealed religion,
and on the supposition of responsibility for personal actions that underlies the concepts of law, reward, punishment, and incentive. In
theology, the existence of free will must be reconciled with God's foreknowledge, with divine omniscience and goodness (in allowing
humans to choose badly), and with divine grace, which allegedly is necessary for any meritorious act.

The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions. Addressing this
question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally
deterministic. The various philosophical positions taken differ on whether all events are determined or not — determinism versus
indeterminism — and also on whether freedom can coexist with determinism or not — compatibilism versus incompatibilism. So, for
instance, 'hard determinists' argue that the universe is deterministic, and that this makes free will impossible.

The principle of free will has religious, ethical, and scientific implications.
 For example, in the religious realm, free will may imply that an omnipotent divinity does not assert its power over individual will
and choices.
 In ethics, it may imply that individuals can be held morally accountable for their actions.
 In the scientific realm, it may imply that the actions of the body, including the brain and the mind, are not wholly determined by
physical causality.
The question of free will has been a central issue since the beginning of philosophical thought.

Society generally holds people responsible for their actions, and will say that they deserve praise or blame for what they do. However,
many believe that moral responsibility requires free will. Thus, another important issue in the debate on free will is whether individuals
are ever morally responsible for their actions—and, if so, in what sense.

Jean-Paul Sartre argues that people sometimes avoid incrimination and responsibility by hiding behind determinism: "... we are always
ready to take refuge in a belief in determinism if this freedom weighs upon us or if we need an excuse".

The issue of moral responsibility is at the heart of the dispute between hard determinists and compatibilists. Hard determinists are forced
to accept that individuals often have "free will" in the compatibilist sense, but they deny that this sense of free will can ground moral
responsibility. The fact that an agent's choices are unforced, hard determinists claim, does not change the fact that determinism robs the
agent of responsibility.

Compatibilists argue, on the contrary, that determinism is a prerequisite for moral responsibility. Society cannot hold someone
responsible unless his actions were determined by something. This argument can be traced back to David Hume. If indeterminism is true,
then those events that are not determined are said to be random.

One Christian view has it that individual moral culpability lies in individual character. That is, a person with the character of a murderer
has no choice other than to murder, but can still be punished because it is right to punish those of bad character. How one's character was
determined is irrelevant from this perspective. Hence, Robert Cummins and others argue that people should not be judged for their
individual actions, but rather for how those actions "reflect on their character". If character (however defined) is the dominant causal
factor in determining one's choices, and one's choices are morally wrong, then one should be held accountable for those choices,
regardless of genes and other such factors.
Freedom
n (bef. 12c) 1: the quality or state of being free: as
a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action
b: liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another: independence
c: the quality or state of being exempt or released usu. from something onerous <~ from care>

David Hume, for example, defines liberty as “a power of acting or of not acting, according to the determination of the will.”

Our rational nature includes our ability to judge some ends as ‘good’ or worth pursuing and value them even though satisfying them may
result in considerable unpleasantness for ourselves. (Note that such judgments need not be based in moral value.) We might say that we
act with free will when we act upon our considered judgments/valuings about what is good for us, whether or not our doing so conflicts
with an ‘animal’ desire. But this would seem unduly restrictive, since we clearly hold many people responsible for actions proceeding
from ‘animal’ desires that conflict with their own assessment of what would be best in the circumstances. More plausible is the suggestion
that one acts with free will when one's deliberation is sensitive to one's own judgments concerning what is best in the circumstances,
whether or not one acts upon such a judgment.
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Thomas Aquinas thinks our nature determines us to will certain general ends ordered to the most general goal of goodness. These we
will of necessity, not freely. Freedom enters the picture when we consider various means to these ends, none of which appear to us either
as unqualifiedly good or as uniquely satisfying the end we wish to fulfill. There is, then, free choice of means to our ends, along with a
more basic freedom not to consider something, thereby perhaps avoiding willing it unavoidably once we recognized its value. Free
choice is an activity that involves both our intellectual and volitional capacities, as it consists in both judgment and active
commitment. However, a thorny question for this view is whether will or intellect is the ultimate determinant of free choices.

Free Will as Guidance Control

John Martin Fischer (1994) distinguishes two sorts of control over one's actions: guidance and regulative.
 A person exerts guidance control over his own actions insofar as they proceed from a ‘weakly’ reasons-responsive (deliberative)
mechanism. This obtains just in case there is some possible scenario where the agent is presented with a sufficient reason to do
otherwise and the mechanism that led to the actual choice is operative and it issues in a different choice, one appropriate to the
imagined reason.
 Regulative control requires alternative possibilities open to the agent, whereas guidance control is determined by characteristics
of the actual sequence issuing in one's choice. Fischer allows that there is a notion of freedom that requires regulative control but
does not believe that this kind of freedom is required for moral responsibility.

Free Will as Ultimate Origination (Ability to do Otherwise)

As Aristotle put it, “…when the origin of the actions is in him, it is also up to him to do them or not to do them”

For human reality, to be is to choose oneself; nothing comes to it either from the outside or from within which it can receive or accept….it
is entirely abandoned to the intolerable necessity of making itself be, down to the slightest details. Thus freedom…is the being of man,
i.e., his nothingness of being.

Scotus and, more recently, C.A. Campbell, appear to agree with Descartes and Sartre on the lack of direct causal influence on the activity
of free choice while allowing that the scope of possibilities for what we might thus will may be more or less constricted. So while Scotus
holds that “nothing other than the will is the total cause” of its activity, he grants (with Aquinas and other medieval Aristotelians) that we
are not capable of willing something in which we see no good, nor of positively repudiating something which appears to us as
unqualifiedly good. Contrary to Sartre, we come with a ‘nature’ that circumscribes what we might conceivably choose, and our past
choices and environmental influences also shape the possibilities for us at any particular time. But if we are presented with what we
recognize as an unqualified good, we still can choose to refrain from willing it. And while Campbell holds that character cannot explain
a free choice, he supposes that “[t]here is one experiential situation, and one only, … in which there is any possibility of the act of will
not being in accordance with character; viz. the situation in which the course which formed character prescribes is a course in conflict
with the agent's moral ideal: in other words, the situation of moral temptation”

Now, the long anticipated question: Do We Have Free Will?

I can say YES, we have free will. According to philosophers, there are two kinds of free will – the Absolute freewill – that is to separate
oneself from God; and Limited freewill – that is to submit to the will of God.

God has loved man so much that He has given man the freewill and the freedom to choose whatever he wants. Ever since, God allowed
man to make decisions for himself. Take for example the story of Adam and Eve. They were given all the freewill and freedom to do
anything and everything they want except to eat of that Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But God is so good, he allows man to sin.
And even better, He gives man the opportunity to repent, to turn back from sins as he walks the path God prepared for him, and then to
return back to His folds.

God knew man even before he was born. God has laid out a perfect plan and purpose for him. Now, it is up to man to choose between
good and bad for his personal gain or interest. God wants us to walk the path to righteousness according to His will; and that is for our
betterment. However, our choices have consequences; that is why we are given free will – that we might be the ones responsible for those
actions.

Ngayon, kung nakita mong natutulog siya at mukha naming hindi niya kailangan ang bukas na ilaw at ito iyong pinatay, ikaw ang may
responsibilidad sa aksiyon na iyon kahit pa man ang hangarin mo ay mabuti. Hindi mo alam kung bakit gusto niyang nakabukas ang ilaw
habang siya ay natutulog. Hindi mo na saklaw ang aspetong iyon. May choice ka upang piliin kung papatayin mo nga ang ilaw o hindi.
Ngunit sa isang society, may mga alituntunin tayong dapat sundin at igalang. At sa pagkakataong ito, dapat mong panagutan ang naging
kinahinatnan ng iyong aksyon. Kaya’t sa salang pagpatay ng ilaw sa kuwarto ng iba, hinahatulan kita ng guilty as charged!

Determinism Theory states that all events, including human decisions, are completely determined by previously existing causes.
Compatibilism Thesis states that free will, in the sense required for moral responsibility, is consistent with universal causal determinism.
It is important to distinguish the question of the logical consistency of belief in universal causal determinism with belief in free will from
the question whether the thesis of free will (or that of causal determinism) is true. Compatibilists need not assert (though many have) the
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reality both of free will and of causal determinism. Among incompatibilists, some maintain the existence of free will and accordingly
deny universal causal determinism, while others uphold universal causal determinism and deny the existence of free will.