1 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: A question for Objectivists
It is agent causation: you
But who I am is not up to my control. I'm a product of my environment.
If I make a choice, I would cite a reason for doing so. That reason is ultimately external to my self. I don't like the color yellow, past trauma, I prefer taking the bus, past experience, I want to be wealthy, societal relations, etc.
Every caveman would choose a basket of apples over a free iPhone. And every modern Human would do the opposite. Likewise, simple intelligence animals make choices between things.
As you said, Free will is not choosing, but the capability to act volitionally, free of any personal self-interest. All rational self-interested action is by definition not free will. Rational: derived from reason, and self-interested: derived from incentive. The only way to achieve free will is to have your needs met to the extent that you feel free to contribute to something outside of your own rational self-interest, say creating art, or helping a stranger. Of course having those needs met isn't a guarantee that one would, simply the prerequisite.
Making rational self-interested choices is not free will, simply a demonstration of intelligence. Something animals can demonstrate by pulling a lever or using a stick to get food. Free will is being capable of exerting our free energy and free time towards something outside of rational self-interest.
Comment by globieboby at 08/03/2025 at 14:30 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Free will is not the absence of motivation, it is the ability to choose your motivations. Your environment, past experiences, and biology influence you, but they do not determine your choices. If they did, thought itself would be impossible,
The essential choice in free will is to think or not to think, to engage in rational focus or surrender to passive drift. Animals and cavemen act on instinct and immediate perception, but humans have the power to conceptualize, introspect, and redirect their thinking. That is why rational action is volitional, even when it aligns with self-interest.
Free will does not require rejecting self-interest; it requires choosing one’s values and acting by reason rather than blind impulse or external compulsion. A starving man may have limited options, but he still chooses how to respond, whether to steal, to beg, or to work. Likewise, a wealthy man must still choose whether to pursue purpose or waste his life in stagnation.
Material security may expand the range of choices, but it does not create free will, thinking does. The ability to act for purposes beyond immediate survival, such as creating art or helping others, is not a departure from free will but an exercise of it. Free will is not about acting against one’s interests but about determining what one values and why, and directing one’s actions accordingly.
And the greatest proof of free will? The very fact that we are having this discussion. If your thoughts were purely determined by past experiences, biology, or environment, you would not be questioning them. You would simply be following a pre-set course, incapable of even considering an alternative. But you are questioning, challenging, and analyzing, which means you are choosing to think.
A deterministic entity a machine, an animal, or a human with no free will, could not ask, Do I have free will? It would simply react. The fact that you can step outside of your immediate impulses, reflect on the nature of choice, and engage in abstract debate means you are exercising the very faculty that makes free will possible: rational thought.
Free will is not the ability to act without cause, nor is it the rejection of self-interest. It is the ability to choose to focus, to direct your thinking, and to evaluate what is true and what matters. Without this ability, discussion, philosophy, and even the concept of morality would be meaningless—because reason itself would be an illusion. But reason is not an illusion. You are using it right now.