Free will

thumb|Liberty Enlightening the World (known as the Statue of Liberty), by sculptor [[Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, was donated to the US by France in 1886 as an artistic personification of liberty.]] Liberty is the state of being free within society from restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. The concept of liberty can vary depending on perspective and context. In the constitutional law of the United States, ordered liberty means creating a balanced society where individuals have the freedom to act without unnecessary interference (negative liberty)

ability of agents to be the ultimate source or originator of their choices, free from external determination

faculty of the mind which intentionally selects the strongest desire from among the various desires present

play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1635)

An intention is a mental state in which a person commits themselves to a course of action. Having the plan to visit the zoo tomorrow is an example of an intention. The action plan is the content of the intention while the commitment is the attitude towards this content. Other mental states can have action plans as their content, as when one admires a plan, but differ from intentions since they do not involve a practical commitment to realizing this plan. Successful intentions bring about the intended course of action while unsuccessful intentions fail to do so. Intentions, like many other ment

school of thought in metaphysics, psychology, sociology, and theology

Indeterminism is the idea that events (or certain events, or events of certain types) are not caused, or are not caused deterministically.

In psychology, economics and philosophy, preference is a technical term usually used in relation to choosing between alternatives. For example, someone prefers A over B if they would rather choose A than B. Preferences are central to decision theory because of this relation to behavior. Some methods such as Ordinal Priority Approach use preference relation for decision-making. As connative states, they are closely related to desires. The difference between the two is that desires are directed at one object while preferences concern a comparison between two alternatives, of which one is preferr

philosophical concept proposed by Friedrich Nietzsche

Epiphenomenalism is a philosophical theory on the mind–body problem in philosophy of mind. It holds that subjective mental events are completely dependent for their existence on corresponding physical and biochemical events within the human body, but do not themselves influence physical events. According to epiphenomenalism, the appearance that subjective mental states (such as thoughts and intentions) are causally effective themselves and directly influence physical events is an illusion generated by brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex, with consciousness itself being a by-product of

Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent. The opposing belief, that the thesis of determinism is logically incompatible with the classical thesis of free will, is known as "incompatibilism".

Qadariyyah (), also Qadarites or Kadarites, from (), meaning "power", was originally a derogatory term designating early Islamic theologians who rejected the concept of predestination in Islam, qadr, and asserted that humans possess absolute free will, making them responsible for their actions, justifying divine punishment and absolving God of responsibility for evil in the world. Originally, the Qadarites also reject belief in the prior knowledge of God, and they deny that God wrote the decrees concerning His creation before He created the heavens and the earth; Consequently, their belief goe

Capacity to act on one's own free will without internal constraint

American philosopher (1929–2023)

area in philosophy concerned with theories about the processes causing willful human bodily movements of a more or less complex kind. This area of thought involves epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, jurisprudence, and philosophy of mind

Arbitrariness is the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". It is also used to refer to a choice made without any specific criterion or restraint.

contention that omniscience is incompatible with free will

term in political philosophy

Akrasia refers to the phenomenon of acting against one's better judgment—the state in which one intentionally performs an action while simultaneously believing that a different course of action would be better. Sometimes translated as "weakness of will" or "incontinence," akrasia describes the paradoxical human experience of knowingly choosing what one judges to be the inferior option. This concept raises philosophical questions regarding the connection between reason, desire, and action by challenging the intuitive assumption that rational judgment governs an agent's behavior. Altogether, akr

American academic (1916–2007)

capacity of an agent to act in a world and make own decisions

thumb|right|140px|Classical incompatibilists hold that determinism leaves no room for [[free will. ]] Incompatibilism is the view that the thesis of determinism is logically incompatible with the classical thesis of free will. The term was coined in the 1960s, most likely by philosopher Keith Lehrer. The term compatibilism was coined (also by Lehrer) to name the view that the classical free will thesis is logically compatible with determinism, i.e. it is possible for an ordinary human to exercise free will (the freedom-relevant ability to do otherwise), even in a universe where determinism is

proposed personality disorder

ethical problem in religion in which the existence of Hell for the punishment of souls is regarded as inconsistent with the notion of a just, moral, and omnibenevolent God

free choice in which only one option is offered

term in metaphysics

phenomenon that making an option the default increases the likelihood that it is chosen

logical argument

Conceptual issue in the philosophy of mind

conception of free will in a religious context

quantum physics theorem that, given relativitistic causality, quantized spin and entanglement, if 2 experimenters each having one of a pair of entanged particles can freely decide what to measure, the measured results aren’t determined by prior state

theory of time and consciousness posited by the French philosopher Henri Bergson

memory recall that occurs when cues encountered in everyday life evoke recollections of the past without conscious effort

philosophical argument against compatilibism by Peter van Inwagen

the study of topics related to free will (volition and sense of agency) using neuroscience

ethical formula