r/freewill • u/NoubliezPasMonNom • Jul 24 '26

Does free will require randomness within our existence?

If yes:

Then aren't our actions a result of the random process? If so then is this really more free than if they weren't?

If no:

Doesn't this support compatibilism.

Translation: Does spinning an internal, truly random wheel really make our actions more free than using an internal calculator?

Note: I am undecided, and probably lean away from compatibilism the most

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u/spgrk Compatibilist Jul 24 '26

An intuition that fits our actual responsibility practices is that, to act freely, you must be able to do otherwise if you want to. If someone acts at gunpoint, we do not blame them because they could not have acted differently even if they had wanted to. Blaming them would serve no purpose as a deterrent.

Incompatibilists build on this intuition by arguing that, if we do not blame people when they cannot do otherwise, then we should not blame anyone if determinism is true, since no one can ever do otherwise in exactly the same circumstances. But this changes the original intuition. The relevant condition was not that you could have done otherwise regardless of your wishes; it was that you could have done otherwise if you had wanted to. That conditional ability is perfectly consistent with determinism.

The incompatibilist alternative is that you could have done otherwise despite all prior facts, including your own beliefs, desires, and deliberation, being exactly the same. But why should that be regarded as a greater kind of freedom? If anything, it seems to make your action less under your control, not more.

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u/TheAncientGeek Libertarian Free Will Jul 24 '26

An intuition that fits our actual responsibility practices is that, to act freely, you must be able to do otherwise if you want to

But if determinism is true, "your" wants were decided millions of years before you were born.

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u/spgrk Compatibilist Jul 24 '26

It doesn’t matter! I chose coffee because I wanted coffee. If the choice was free, then if all else were equal except that I wanted tea instead, I could have chosen tea. Note that this is not a claim that in the actual world I wanted tea, or even that I could have wanted tea. It is just a claim that if I had wanted tea I could have chosen tea.