Free Will

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen may be the most acclaimed graphic novel of the twentieth century. This chapter examines how it explores two metaphysical questions: What is the nature of time? Does free will exist? Moore and Gibbons explore these questions together, illuminating connections between time and free will through connections between the graphic novel’s form and content. The chapter introduces three views of the nature of time: presentism, the view that only the present exists; growing-universe theory, the view (...) that only the present and past exist; and eternalism, the view that past, present, and future exist. Because of Moore and Gibbons’ distinct use of images and words within the visual structure and their depiction of a character who is simultaneously aware of past, present, and future events, the chapter deduces that the operative view in Watchmen is eternalism. After discussing three views of the existence of free will, the chapter then argues that eternalism entails that people could not have acted otherwise than they actually acted. Hence the operative view in Watchmen is either determinism, according to which no one has free will because no one could have done otherwise, or compatibilism, according to which people can have free will because having it merely requires having acted. The chapter concludes that the operative view is compatibilism. Finally it responds to the objection that compatibilism is mistaken. If no one could have done otherwise, then determinism must be true. (shrink)

This article critically examines the experimental philosophy of free will, particularly the interplay between ordinary individuals’ compatibilist and incompatibilist intuitions. It explores key insights from research studies that propose “natural compatibilism” and “natural incompatibilism”. These studies reveal a complex landscape of folk intuitions, where participants appear to exhibit both types of intuitions. Here, we examine error theories, which purport to explain the coexistence of apparently contradictory intuitions: the Affective Performance Error hypothesis, the “Free Will No Matter What” hypothesis, the Bypassing (...) hypothesis, and the Intrusion hypothesis, and the article explores the cognitive errors that could shape individuals’ inconsistent perceptions of free will. We then explore three possibilities regarding folk intuitions: most individuals may hold either compatibilist or incompatibilist intuitions, both simultaneously, or neither. Our aim is to deepen the understanding of the complex dynamics of intuitions about free will, and we close with suggestions for future studies in experimental philosophy. (shrink)

As a response to the problem of evil, the free will defense proposes that evil might exist as a consequence of God’s endowing human beings with moral freedom which we have tragically misused. Standard versions of the free will defense assume that (1) our moral freedom began in this earthly existence and (2) what explains our suffering in this world must constitute an abuse rather than a right use of our moral freedom. However, there is another variation of the free (...) will defense that does not share these assumptions. This version of the free will defense appeals to the pre-existence of the human soul. Here I consider a premortalist free will defense according to which each human soul might have rational concourse with God prior to the start of her earthly career and during which she might choose the sort of life she is to live on earth, complete with all of the trials and difficulties necessary to develop a certain kind of desirable character. Given the possibility that such a theory is true, the reach of the free will defense is significantly expanded. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy by Tobias HoffmannNicholas OgleFree Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy by Tobias Hoffmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), xiv + 292 pp.Modern readers are often perplexed by the frequency and rigor with which angels are discussed in medieval philosophical texts. To the untrained eye, it may seem as if debates concerning the various properties and abilities of (...) purely spiritual beings are the epitome of Scholastic extravagance, which can be safely disregarded—if not outright ridiculed—as a fanciful diversion from more essential philosophical concerns. The truth, of course, is that angelological reflection gave rise to some of the most original philosophical ideas of the Middle Ages, from Anselm's two affectiones of the will to Aquinas's "real distinction" between essence and existence. Far from being an idiosyncratic theological addendum to an already complete philosophical system, consideration of the angelic nature was in fact a central component of medieval philosophy, without which certain crucial metaphysical and psychological insights might not have occurred. This often-neglected truth is given detailed expression in Tobias Hoffmann's Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy, which explores how philosophical investigation into the fall of the angels—that is, the hypothesis of an evil choice made by rational beings under optimal psychological conditions—helped bring about significant advances in medieval debates about free will. Focusing on the century immediately following the reception of Aristotle's action theory in the Latin West (from roughly the 1220s to the 1320s), Hoffmann examines how theological claims regarding angelic sin influenced medieval thinkers as they sought to reconcile the intellectualism of Aristotelian moral psychology with their understanding of free will as the power to choose between alternatives.This period is particularly deserving of study, Hoffmann argues, because it was then that the existence of free will first began to be "investigated within a philosophical account of action," rather than merely asserted on theological grounds as a necessary corollary of the doctrines of grace and sin (1). Consequently, theological anthropology took what Hoffmann calls a "psychological turn," with theologians newly determined to explain rational agency in terms of the interaction between different powers of the soul. In Hoffmann's estimation, the subsequent debates over the respective roles of intellect and will in the process of decision-making, as well as the relation between faulty cognition and voluntary wrongdoing, gave rise to some of the most innovative theories of free will in the later Middle Ages—including not only those of celebrated thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, but also those of lesser-known luminaries such as [End Page 388] John of Pouilly and Peter Auriol. Although the concerns that motivated these debates were primarily anthropological, having to do with specifically human psychological processes, Hoffmann's study foregrounds the role that the angels played in the unfolding of various controversies. Comparing medieval angelological discussion to the thought experiments commonly employed by contemporary philosophers, Hoffmann argues that angels proved significant because they provided a subject matter in which rational freedom could be considered in a pure and ideal form, abstracted from any material constraints (3). While the angelic nature was certainly regarded as worthy of study in its own right, it was also often viewed as an opportunity to explore the nature of cognition and volition simpliciter, in relation to which the distinctiveness of human psychology could be better understood.The book is divided into three parts, each of which traces the historical development of a distinct topic related to the free will debate. In the first part, Hoffmann presents a lucid account of the various ways that medieval thinkers employed Aristotelian ideas—including not only the essentials of his action theory, but also metaphysical doctrines such as the distinction between active and passive powers—as they sought to explain the psychological origins of free will. Comprising over half the text, these chapters provide a comprehensive overview of the free will debate from its origins in the writings of Anselm of Canterbury to its culmination in the proto-modern theorizing of William of Ockham, including a thorough discussion of the controversies... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Efficacious Grace and Free Will:Six Inadequate ArgumentsSteven J. JensenDuring the de auxiliis controversies, the idea of efficacious grace was used extensively as an attempt to explain the manner in which God infallibly achieves his will at the level of supernatural grace. One meaning of efficacious grace has often been considered inconsistent with the idea of free will. The inconsistency—if there is any—depends upon a particular meaning, according to which (...) efficacious grace has three important characteristics: it is an infallible physical pre-motion. (1) Efficacious grace is "physical" because it moves after the manner of an efficient cause rather than after the manner of a final cause (which would be called a "moral" motion).1 (2) The motion is prior (or a pre-motion) because it causally precedes the act of the will to which it gives rise. Finally, (3) the motion is infallible because that toward which it moves the will in every case must be achieved.Suppose, for instance, that God gives Jerry an efficacious grace to help Jane, who is in need. The grace is not merely the enticement of some good (a moral movement), but is the movement of an efficient cause, after the manner by which fire heats water. Furthermore, the grace is efficacious prior to Jerry's actual choice and does not depend upon his will for its efficacy. Finally, once Jerry is moved by this grace, he will of necessity (or infallibly) choose to help Jane.In what follows, references to efficacious grace will refer to this particular [End Page 115] understanding, with these three characteristics. Other conceptions of efficacious grace, such as that given by Jacques Maritain, are not relevant to this paper.2The combination of these three characteristics is sometimes thought to be inconsistent with a particular understanding of free will, according to which the will is the only created cause that determines itself to its final action. Since efficacious grace is a created cause (and not the divine will), since it is an efficient cause, since it is causally antecedent to the final act of the will, and since it determines the will to act, it is inconsistent with free will. Or so the argument goes, at any rate. Whatever the details of this argument, most people will concede that there is, at the very least, an intuitive inconsistency between free will and efficacious grace. To be moved infallibly by an efficient cause seems incompatible with the movement of the will, the agency of which is free, and which therefore is not moved determinately to some effect.3Those who wish to defend efficacious grace have advanced a contrary claim—that efficacious grace is consistent with human free will—which might be called the Consistency Thesis. Apparent inconsistencies are nothing more than apparent. In defense of the Consistency Thesis, a multiplicity of Thomistic arguments are offered by authors such as Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Steven Long, and Taylor O'Neill.This paper is concerned to show neither the truth nor the falsity of the Consistency Thesis. Rather, it considers six of the arguments defending the thesis and finds all of them wanting. Whatever their merits for other purposes (and often their merits are great), these arguments are inadequate to the task of defending the Consistency Thesis. They are often not bad arguments; they are simply insufficient. They are not enough to show a consistency between efficacious grace and free will. This goal, although modest, is significant, for when confronted with the six arguments readers can be left with the impression that the question is settled. [End Page 116]The Problem ClarifiedThe enemies of efficacious grace suggest the following implication: if the will is moved to act by an infallible physical pre-motion, then the will is determined. The Consistency Thesis may be defended by denying the implication. Even when moved by an infallible physical pre-motion such as efficacious grace (so the defense will argue), the will can remain undetermined. All the arguments discussed below (if they are indeed arguments in defense of the Consistency Thesis) take this approach, although the fourth argument does so only in a very indirect manner.The first argument claims... (shrink)

Atheist philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Kurt Baier, though from different philosophical traditions, shared a common concern about the traditional Judeo-Christian-Muslim doctrine that human beings are the creations of a Supreme Being. For Sartre, in “Existentialism is a Humanism” (1946), a God who designed us would thereby detract from our freedom and dignity. For Baier, in “The Meaning of Life” (1957), the idea that God designs us to serve his own purposes was deeply offensive in treating us as artifacts, domestic animals, (...) or slaves. Indeed, Baier said explicitly what was implicit in Sartre: that the divine creation of humans as would violate Immanuel Kant’s respect for persons principle. But this Kantian objection is badly flawed in ignoring the crucial role of human free will in traditional Abrahamic theism. Still, if we focus not on the divine-creation doctrine but on the doctrine of eternal torment for non-worshippers of God, then traditional Abrahamic theism does arguably undermine human freedom and dignity. For the threat of eternal torment is extraordinarily coercive. Keywords: theism, artifacts, free will, eternal torment, coercion. (shrink)

The book presents Fichte’s position on free will as a form of compatibilism that has not yet been explored in the literature. Due to early rationalist convictions, Fichte is as much concerned with reconciling freedom with a logical and a theological determinism as he is with a causal determinism. He sees in Kant’s novel concept of a pure practical reason a new form of rationalism, one consisting of a system of moral rather than natural necessitating grounds. At the same time, (...) he adopts a more radically libertarian stance on free will than Kant. Every member in a sequence of free actions is a “first and absolute member” and could be other than it is given the same antecedent natural events and natural laws. The interest of Fichte as a theorist of freedom lies in how he brings together freedom and predetermination in a way that challenges our assumption about their mutual exclusivity. The book provides an overview of Fichte’s philosophical system – the so-called “Doctrine of Science” – from 1793 to 1800 with the aim of contextualizing his theory of free agency and destiny. In doing so, it sheds light on how consideration of these issues in turn shapes the system. (shrink)

Niniejszy esej stanowi piąty rozdział tomu The Realm of Spirit kończącego cykl The Realms of Being. Podstawą przekładu jest pierwsze wydanie dzieła: George Santayana, The Realms of Being (London: Constable and Co., Ltd., Toronto: The Macmillan Company, 1940), 67–89. -/- This essay is the fifth chapter of The Realm of Spirit volume concluding The Realms of Being series. The translation is based on the first edition of the work: George Santayana, The Realms of Being (London: Constable and Co., Ltd., Toronto: (...) The Macmillan Company, 1940), 67-89. (shrink)

This article is a commentary and an introduction to the Polish translation of George Santayana’s work, Freedom, which is a chapter in the fourth volume of his series, The Realms of Being, titled The Realm of Spirit (1940). It provides an overview of his previous works, particularly his series The Life of Reason (1905–1906) and Scepticism and Animal Faith (1926). Additionally, it briefly examines the evolution of Santayana’s standpoint and the meaning of the fundamental categories and concepts of his ontology. (...) The analysis of Freedom, along with a comparison to the standpoints of Nicolai Hartmann and Hannah Arendt, enables us to classify it as a form of compatibilism. Within this perspective, natural determinism harmonizes with the teleological self-determination of human will. Human freedom, directed towards an open horizon of the future, unveils an essential tragic aspect of human condition, as the choice of a value is perpetually linked to unfulfillment. Ultimately, any value resides in the realm of ideals, and by making a choice, we neglect other values and select only one of the potential paths in our lives. (shrink)

Previous research has suggested that bodily signals from internal organs are associated with diverse cortical and subcortical processes involved in sensory-motor functions, beyond homeostatic reflexes. For instance, a recent study demonstrated that the preparation and execution of voluntary actions, as well as its underlying neural activity, are coupled with the breathing cycle. In the current study, we investigated whether such breathing-action coupling is limited to voluntary motor action or whether it is also present for mental actions not involving any overt (...) bodily movement. To answer this question, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), and respiratory signals while participants were conducting a voluntary action paradigm including self-initiated motor execution (ME), motor imagery (MI), and visual imagery (VI) tasks. We observed that the voluntary initiation of ME, MI, and VI are similarly coupled with the respiration phase. In addition, EEG analysis revealed the existence of readiness potential (RP) waveforms in all three tasks (i.e., ME, MI, VI), as well as a coupling between the RP amplitude and the respiratory phase. Our findings show that the voluntary initiation of both imagined and overt action is coupled with respiration, and further suggest that the breathing system is involved in preparatory processes of voluntary action by contributing to the temporal decision of when to initiate the action plan, regardless of whether this culminates in overt movements. -/- . (shrink)

Warum ist eine moderne, in ihrem Selbstverständnis rationale Gesellschaft auf einen so okkult anmutenden Begriff wie den des Schicksals angewiesen? Franziska Rehlinghaus weist nach, dass der deutsche Schicksalsbegriff seit seiner Etablierung um 1650 ein zentraler Ausdruck epochenspezifischer Problemstellungen war, so dass man von der Neuzeit als einem fatalisierten Zeitalter sprechen kann. Dafür rekonstruiert sie erstmals den semantischen und den funktionalen Wandel sowie die Konjunkturen des Schicksalsbegriffs von der Aufklärung bis zum Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts.

The paper investigates the systematic connection between Kantian concept of radical evil and radical indeterministic idea of freedom. According to the presented thesis the systematically relevant interpretation of the radical evil concept requires considering not only philosophical ideas Kant`s but also the historic background in which they were formulated. Particularly the specific situation of German philosophic terminology in the 17th and early 18th Century will be acknowledged as one of the most significant factors influencing the development of the radical evil (...) concept. For the sake of methodological precision of the presented analysis, the differentiation between thick and thin concept of evil will be introduced. (shrink)

Heeft een miljonair recht op zijn rijkdom? Moeten we zelfs een moordenaar vergeven? En kan een mens ooit zijn lot veranderen? Het hangt allemaal af van ons antwoord op een fundamentele vraag: hebben we een vrije wil? 0Filosofen twijfelen al eeuwen over het antwoord hierop, en sinds decennia roepen biologen en neurologen dat de vrije wil niet bestaat. Ieder jaar stapelt het bewijs tegen de vrije wil zich verder op: we zijn een product van onze genen, van onze geschiedenis en (...) van onze omstandigheden.0Toch laat de vrije wil ons niet los. Deze mythe heeft meer invloed dan ooit? in ons strafrecht, onze economie en onze zoektocht naar geluk. 0Jurriën Hamer denkt verder waar anderen terugdeinzen en stelt de rol van de vrije wil ter discussie. 'Waarom schurken pech hebben en helden geluk' is een confronterend debuut met radicale implicaties voor onze manier van leven - van onze politiek tot onze meest intieme relaties. (shrink)

Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth are currently being targeted by global anti-trans legislation that would prevent their access to gender-affirming care even by healthcare providers willing to deliver it and who understand the importance of this support. It has been suggested in some studies that transness in young people is a result of peer contagion. As such their free will, authenticity and autonomy could be brought into question when accessing gender-affirming care. It is important to explore the relevance of (...) these concepts concerning the provision of gender-affirming care to TGD youth by nurses and other healthcare professionals. Nurses should challenge the notion held by some that these young people are not capable of knowing themselves or the level of treatment they require. They can do this by practising gender-affirming care determined by aspirational ethical values of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy and justice. (shrink)

Excerpt from Ethik des Reinen Willens Die Summe der Logik Die Grundlagen als Grundlegungen Wahrheit und die Idee des Guten Zusammenhang der Ethik mit der Logik Die Religion und Prometheus Wahrheit in der Verbindung von Logik und Ethik Lessings Parabel Die Sittlichkeit in Wissenschaft und Recht Die Methode der Reinheit Das Ding und die Sache Bewusstsein und Selbstbewusstsein Subjekt und Person Die Zweideutigkeit des Gesetzes Das Sichere der H pothesis Psyche und Ethos Die Hypothesis das erkzeug der Wahrheit Der Trieb (...) Anwendbarkeit der Continuität Der Begriff des Willens Der Wille und die Handlung Bewegung und Bewusstsein Pro jektion des Voreinander Bewegung im Denken und Wollen Das logische und das ethische Problem. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The subject of ‘Determinism’ and ‘Free will’ is one of the most debatable and abstruse theological arguments. This argument has very old historical roots and has been appeared in different ways in the sayings and thoughts of philosophers, mystics, poets and others. It can be said that the concept of determinism is one of the key and practical concepts in the poetry of Hafez and Abu Ala Maari. Judging from the form of words, some people assume that these two poets (...) belong to determinism and another group of people assume that they believe in free will by commenting and interpreting theirs verses. This study tries to deal with this matter and do a comparative study of the poetry of these two eminent poets in this ground. Although in the scales of the attitudes of the two poets determinism outweighs free will, a halo of doubt and distraught shadows on the ideologies of these two, so that in Hafez’s attitude it tends towards the specification of free will-oriented thought in many cases, while Maari just suffices to follow a mean manner, and speaks scarcely about determinism. We see, therefore, that in Hafez’s attitude there is a type of spirituality combined with profligacy (rindi) which cannot be elicited from Abu-Al-Ala’s ideology. (shrink)

데넷에 의하면 인간의 의식, 자유의지, 도덕성은 자신의 복제자를 더욱 많이 퍼트리기 위해 만든 밈의 기생공간이자 정보고속도로인 뇌와 신경계를 진화시킨 결과이다. 본 논문은 데넷 연구의 전체적인 구조를 라카토슈 연구프로그램으로 분석한다. 데넷의 연구프로그램은 이론을 특징지우는 견고한 핵과 이를 보완하는 보호대로 구성되어 있다. 연구프로그램의 핵심 원리인 견고한 핵은 자연선택의 특성을 집약적으로 표현하고 그 적용범위를 확대하는 ‘알고리즘으로서의 자연 선택’, ‘지향성 진화가설’, ‘밈 적응’으로 구성된다. 이들 견고한 핵이 가지는 추상성을 보완하여, 구체적인 가설을 첨부하는 보호대는 ‘만능산과 크레인 비유’, ‘생산과 검증의 탑’, ‘다중원고 모형’으로 구성된다. 궁극적으로 이들 (...) 가설은 인간의 의식, 자유의지, 문화, 도덕 등 인간의 독특성을 설명하는 신선한 예측의 토대가 된다. 이 과정에서 데넷은 다른 개체의 행동을 모방하고 심리에 공감하는 인간 본성에 대한 자연주의적 설명을 제공한다. (shrink)

Debates about the concept of Free Will date back to ancient times. About 40 years ago Benjamin Libet designed an experiment showing that the conscious intention to move is preceded by a specific pattern of brain activation. His finding suggested that unconscious processes determine our decisions. Libet-style experiments have continued to dominate the debate about Free-Will, pushing some authors to argue that the existence of Free Will is a mere illusion. We believe that this dispute is because we often measure (...) free will using arbitrary human decisions rather than deliberate actions. After reviewing the definition of free will and the related literature we conclude that the scientific evidence does not disprove the existence of Free Will. However, our will encounters several constraints and limitations that should be considered when evaluating our deeds’ personal responsibility. (shrink)

[The following is a draft abstract:] -/- This book aims to diagnose and tackle a problem concerning God's action. If God has good reasons for everything He does, then it does not seem as if God could do otherwise than He does. If God were to do otherwise than what He has good reason to do (we might think) God would act arbitrarily. While this general problem has been dealt with in various ways by philosophers, I propose that a specific (...) version of that problem is serious and has not been adequately resolved. If sin is in no way good for anyone who commits it, or anything else, and God could have prevented each of our sins from occurring, then how could God allow each of our sins for good reasons? In particular, how could God allow each sin on account of the good of the person who commits the sin? The worst case of this problem concerns God's decisions to allow anyone to remain in a sinful state forever and end up in hell. -/- The book makes progress toward resolving this problem by working through a series of related proposals: that anyone being in hell is impossible; that God cannot prevent our sins or allows them for no reason at all or requires them to achieve His purposes; that God does not care about us all but only the elect. After rejecting these alternatives, I outline the way in which God merely foreknows our sins but does not require or necessitate or cause sin to occur. Then, I propose that God allows sin, and even damnation, on account of His love for us. There is nothing that can happen to us which would cause God to stop loving us; and there is always hope for us, even when things appear most hopeless. (shrink)

This paper delves into the philosophical debate surrounding determinism and free will, exploring the compatibility of these two concepts in light of contemporary understanding in physics, psychology, and philosophy. The author critiques Ayer's perspective on free will and determinism, employing examples from quantum mechanics and neuroscience to argue for a deterministic framework of understanding human choices and actions. The paper introduces the concept of "Soft Free Will" as a reconciliation between determinism and the human experience of making choices, positing that (...) free will exists not as an ontological reality, but as a psychological phenomenon rooted in our limited understanding of the complexities involved in decision-making. Through a comprehensive analysis, the paper underscores the importance of acknowledging the deterministic nature of human behavior while also appreciating the subjective experience of choice, ultimately arguing that the progression of scientific understanding will continue to reveal the mechanics of choice without negating our experience of free will. (shrink)

The paper is about Kant’s moral psychology, a complex analysis and philosophical reflection on the tension of human will as arbitrium sensitivum in acting consistently as ratio essendi. It explores the tension of fallibility of the human will. In Kant’s notion of practical freedom he points to the dynamics of the will—Wille and Willkur—and how it creates tension between choice and culpability. This occurs specifically in the Willkur’s function as the arbiter. I explore the impact of Willkur’s arbitration in self-determination, (...) especially the important call of obedience to the Wille. I conclude with an emphasis on the challenge for Kantian will to operate towards unity which enables the agent to be authentically autonomous. (shrink)

This paper proposes that we rename free will, also called libertarian free will, to the more accurate characterization of “predisposed agency.” This is needed for two reasons: First, classical compatibilists have redefined free will to mean something quite different than and in fact contrary to libertarian free will, and thus have introduced needless confusion into the concept. More importantly, even those who believe in libertarian free will recognize that our will is not so free in that we are predisposed toward (...) the decisions we make and the actions we take due to our genetics and our environment, which include our temperament, our character, our past experiences, our past decisions, our habits, the people we have been with, and the situations we find ourselves in, among other things. But the term “free will” totally ignores the fact that we are predisposed toward certain actions. The danger in this is that if we use the lexicon of free will, and believe in free will, then we are apt to judge others harshly for their actions since if they have free will then it would seem they bear both full responsibility and blame for their actions. But this seems unfair since each of us is predisposed to think, decide, and act as we do. The author proposes a distinction between having responsibility and deserving blame and praise. Specifically, it is argued that if we do have agency (or libertarian free will) then we are fully responsible for what we do, but due to our predispositions, which we necessarily and unavoidably have and are often largely out of our control, we frequently do not deserve full blame or praise. (shrink)

Free will and determinism; philosophy; history.

Do we have free will? In this interview, Helen Steward explains part of her very distinctive approach to the philosophical puzzle concerning free will vs determinism. Steward rejects determinism, but not because she denies that we are not material beings (because, for example, we have Cartesian, immaterial souls that have physical effects). Her reasons for rejecting determinism are very different.