Free Will
Notes
An good definition of free will does not seem to be in standard usage. Perhaps the most precise that one can get about the concept, while maintaining agreement between all parties, is that for a person to have free will, they must have the ability to choose their actions.
Some consider that a belief in free will or agency necessarily presupposes a denial of determinism, generally under the assumption that if the universe is deterministic in nature, then one's choices are also deterministic, and therefore, not independently free. Reasoning thus, free will under such a system might be considered an illusion. I would counter-argue, that if determinism is denied, and our choices have an fundamentally probabilistic nature, then this does not make the exercise of our wills any more free, so denying determinism does not actually resolve the issue it is intended to resolve. I would suggest instead that the problem itself only arises because of a flaw in the way that some have defined free will.