Free Will Is Real And You Better Believe It

The question of free will is one of the oldest of philosophical debates. If you truly fancy, there is a lot of depth to explore on the topic, even including arguments that free will and a deterministic universe can exist together. A deterministic universe is one where all actions are predetermined by the physical laws of nature. The Philosophy of Balance rejects the idea of a deterministic universe, but this is a conversation for a different post.

Those that argue for the existence of free will in a deterministic universe do tend to rely on a very narrow interpretation of what free will is. For instance, they argue that actions in the physical universe are deterministic, but our interpretations of those actions, the way we perceive them, is up to us. Or even that merely our conscious experience of the actions alone is sufficient to consider it free will because we get to experience our decision making, regardless of whether those decisions are inevitable or not.

Some such arguments were pioneered by theologians who had to reconcile the idea of free will, which they did believe in, with the idea of God’s perfect plan, which they also believed in. If God creates the Universe and determines its future, how can man be morally culpable for their actions, when the actions were already decided by God?

Personally, I find these arguments to be strained, because I don’t think that’s what most people want free will to mean. It certainly isn’t what I would want from it. If you want free will, and someone tells you that you have it, except that it isn’t what you want it to be, because your actions are still predetermined, well, I think you’re still going to feel empty-handed. So I don’t want to play word games here, this is my interpretation of free will: that we have the conscious ability to shape our own future through the power of will. This interpretation does require a disclaimer though: even though we can decide upon our own future, does not imply that we have unlimited ability to shape it. The family that we are born into, our experiences during childhood, the environment around us, all these things affect us and they affect our choices. Most of the choices we make, we don’t make consciously. Just as I don’t need to be conscious to continue breathing, so too don’t I make a conscious decision when I trip and stretch my hands to prevent falling. Most of our actions are performed unconsciously, either instinctively or based on intuition.

Scientific research also shows that many of our actions are performed by us before we even consciously register them. This makes it unlikely that most of our day-to-day activities are chosen by free will. And yet, that does not preclude those actions from being informed by free will. In fact, more recent discoveries in the field of neuroscience have also shed new light on the kind of agency that could be afforded by free will.

So yes, we probably still get to make a conscious choice on who we marry or want as our partners, although it could be the case that who you fall in love with is something that happens unconsciously. Or, to use a different example, you may not have much influence over which jobs are available to you at any given moment, but it is still your conscious decision which one you are willing to take.

But because we only have limited control over our actions, it is my belief that if you want to do the right thing in the moment, it is paramount that you envision the choice that you wish to make upfront. When you are confronted with a situation that you did not anticipate, you may not have enough time to make a conscious decision, meaning you will act based on instinct or intuition.

For this reason it is so important to think about topics such as morality and to define your own stance in these matters. This way, you will have a frame of reference to call upon when faced with a situation where otherwise you would not know how to act. If you have thought about these things upfront, exercising your free will, you will be able to guide your actions correctly in the heat of the moment.

But I digress, because this post is not about morality. So let’s return to the central question: Is free will even real?

Hopefully you agree that if the universe is nondeterministic, at least free will may be real. But just because it may be real, doesn’t imply that it is. And unfortunately I cannot prove that it is real either. I don’t think anyone can, regardless of whether the proof would be in favour of or opposed to free will. But what I can do, is give you a systematic overview of the choices that you have regarding the belief in free will, so that you can make a rational decision based on those. Logically, we can categorise the choice to believe in free will into four distinct possibilities:

1. Free will is real and you choose to believe in it. This seems to me to be the perfect scenario. Not only do we have free will, but you made the correct choice in believing in it.
2. Free will is real and you choose not to believe in it. This one seems to be the absolute worst choice that anyone can make. If free will is real, but you consciously made the decision to not believe in it, you have robbed yourself not only of the knowledge that you can exercise your free will, but thereby of the fundamental ability to truly exercise your free will as well. After all, how can you truly make the most of your ability to make your own future, if you don’t believe you have such ability in the first place? You’d be akin to an athlete who believes that exercise is futile.
3. Free will is not real, but yet you believe in it. It may be unfortunate that your free will is not real, but at least you will not realise it. And if you think about it, you’re not really to blame for your belief either, because if you didn’t have free will, your choice to believe in it wasn’t truly your own anyway.
4. Free will is not real and you don’t believe in it. This one seems bleak, but at least you have the comfort that it wasn’t your own choice to not believe in it.

Given these four possibilities, we can make a rational decision: Both options 3 and 4 state that free will is not real. But if free will is not real, then what we believe in is not our own choice either. But then, if we are answering the question whether to believe in free will or not, we are making a choice. Therefore, choosing to think either option 3 or 4 is correct leads to a paradox — a logical contradiction — as the choice can’t have been made by ourselves. In other words, if we have been given the choice to believe which of these options is true, we can’t choose 3 or 4, because those options deny that we even have a choice. And because option 2 makes no sense from a rational perspective, the only rational choice is option 1.

But maybe you’re not convinced with this paradox. Maybe you truly think that you don’t have a choice. That you are compelled to choose option 4, because all choice is ultimately an illusion. Ask yourself: What if you’re wrong? Someone who rationally chooses option 1 but who turns out to be wrong, will end up with option 3. That’s too bad, but then again, there’s also no real downside to option 3. But someone who feels compelled to choose option 4 and who turns out to be wrong, will end up with option 2, the absolute worst of options because it robs you of the ability to fully exercise the free will that you do have. So even if you feel compelled to choose option 4, you would be better off to remain open minded and reject the option, because the implication of being wrong is so profound. Option 4 should only be chosen if there is irrefutable proof of the non-existence of free will. Given that such proof does not exist, option 4 should still be avoided.

Now you could argue that if you don’t know which option to choose, because there is no proof either way, then you cannot fully embrace any of the options. So there should be a fifth option: Free will may or may not be real, and you don’t know which way to believe. This is reasonable too, and at least it lets you avoid having to choose option 4. But while such a 5^th option would be pragmatic, it still wouldn’t be the most rational position to take. Why? Because it will leave you filled with doubt and unable to embrace the existence of free will, and thereby your application of it. Consider, options 1 and 3 only apply if you believe in free will, and as long as you doubt you don’t believe in these. So this 5^th option really only represents indecisiveness between options 2 and 4 — still not good. Of course, this argument itself would not be true if free will doesn’t exist, but then it wouldn’t be harmful either. But if it does exist, then the argument does apply and you should embrace it. So even if you don’t know whether free will exists, the rational choice remains to choose to believe in it, because there is no downside to it, and there is only an upside to this belief.

Don’t merely take my word for this however. Studies show that people who believe in free will are generally better at self-control, perform better academically, are better at their jobs, are more likely to help others and less likely to be aggressive towards them. They are also less likely to engage in cheating behaviour. Not only can we argue that believing in free will is a rational choice, empirical studies confirm it is a more rational choice as well.

Finally, in the past I have seen and heard multiple people argue that free will is an illusion… but we need to pretend it is real for the sake of society. It should not come as a surprise that if you believe that you need to pretend, you don’t really believe in something. If this is you, you owe it to yourself to convince yourself.

You cannot and should not say that free will is an illusion unless you have irrefutable proof of it. In the absence of such proof, at the very least the argument should be weakened to say that we don’t know whether free will is real… but we need to pretend that it is real for the sake of society. But belief is a choice, and if you can pretend to make a choice, you can also believe that you decided to pretend. And if you made a decision, then you had a choice. And that choice was made by your free will, or we’re back at the paradox I highlighted above. So you better believe it.

Free will is real. To believe anything less is to undermine yourself.