User:Peter Damian/Free will draft
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Free will is traditionally understood as the ability to choose between different possible courses of action. It is closely linked to the concepts of responsibility, praise, guilt, sin, and other judgments which apply only to actions that are freely chosen. It is also connected with the concepts of advice, persuasion, deliberation and prohibition, which are pointless unless different possible results follow from different courses of action.[1]
The metaphysical problem of free will is to explain how this conception of freedom is consistent with the deterministic nature of the universe. Determinism suggests that only one course of events is possible, which is inconsistent with the existence of free will as traditionally conceived. In addition to the metaphysical problem of free will, there is a closely related ethical problem. Traditionally, only actions that are freely willed are seen as deserving credit or blame. If there is no free will, there is no justification for rewarding or punishing anybody for any action. As far as we know, the problem was first suggested by Aristotle in the fourth century B.C.E., but it is still the focus of philosophical debate.
There are many different positions on the problem, broadly divided into two types. Incompatibilists hold that free will is not compatible with determinism. The two main incompatibilist positions are metaphysical libertarianism, the claim that determinism is false and thus free will is at least possible; and hard determinism, the claim that determinism is true and thus free will is not possible.[2] Compatibilists hold that free will is compatible with determinism. Some compatibilists even hold that determinism is necessary for free will, arguing that choice involves preference for one course of action over another, requiring a sense of how choices will turn out.[3]