freedom of will
Choosing without coercion
Freedom of will is the capacity to make choices unconstrained by fate, divine predetermination, or physical causation.
The concept anchors debates in philosophy, theology, and neuroscience about whether human decisions are genuinely free or merely feel that way.
Someone who believes in freedom of will holds that people could have acted otherwise than they did: The whole justice system assumes freedom of will.
- volitionCapacity for choice
- political libertyFreedom from state oppression
- nature vs nurtureWhat shapes us more
- moral responsibilityEthical answerability for actions
- guilty conscienceSelf-blame for wrongdoing
making decisions · agency · accountability · soul searching · subconscious influence · dualism · Spinoza · existentialism · causality · civil rights · libertarianism · legal autonomy · self-determination · divine plan · human dignity · consequentialism · deontology · impulse control
freedom of willdeterminism
Doctrine of causal necessity
predestination · fatalism · hard determinism · predetermination · necessity
freedom of willcoercion
Pressured compliance through threats
compulsion · bondage · enslavement · captivity · subjugation
freedom of willcompulsion
Irresistible urge to act
addiction · obsession · weakness of will · unfreedom · automatism
freedom, free, freely, freer, freest, unfree, freedoms, freeing, freed