Your will is the faculty with which you decide to do things and make choices. The term free will means that means it is under your control. Deniers of free will say you are programmed (programmed means fixed) by hidden forces and causes to do what you so they control you and not you them. Some people hold that you are partly controlled but still have free will.
Free choice or free will means that I could do bad or good and nothing in me or outside of me makes me do what I do though it may have an influence. Choice or free will implies that nothing makes me do what I do but myself. So free will says I create good or evil and nothing programs me to do it.
We reject the view that there is such a thing as free choice or free will. You do choose things – there is no doubt about that - but you only imagine that you could choose other than what you did for the programming inside your head made you will what you willed. So strictly speaking you had no choice. It is a choice only in the sense that that the desires that control you could have made you do the opposite but if all the causes were the same you would do the same thing.
Our “choices” are either programmed or not so to say they are programmed means that we are denying free will. (programmed means fixed).
If we are not programmed or caused to choose what we choose then it follows that our choices are uncaused (come out of nowhere) and are us working miracles.
The doctrine that our choices are not out of programming but come out of nowhere does not defend free will at all though it seems to. If my choices come from nowhere then they are something that happen to me at random and are nothing to do with me. No attempt to explain how we can be to blame for what we do really works so free will is impossible.
We know that all people are programmed by their past and present environment and by their genes to do what they do and they cannot do other than that though they feel as if they can so choice does not exist. The thinking that we do before we act and the feeling free while we perform the act are part of the programming.
We feel free because we do what we desire and our desires are programmed so what we do is programmed too. It is vital that that feeling be respected for it is crucial to happiness. When desires cause actions it is only natural that we will feel free because we feel we do what we want to do. What we feel has no relevance whatsoever in resolving the free will dispute.
