(October 12, 2015 at 3:31 pm)Darkstar Wrote: I have always treated free will as pertaining to whether or not your will is free (hence the name). If your will is not free, then you don't have a free will.
As for your definition, I suppose the one question that comes to my mind is whether or not it is possible to do other than what you will (and by extension whether or not it is possible to not have free will by your definition). For example, if a gunman demands you hand over your wallet, you obviously don't want to lose your wallet, but you don't want to die, either. In that scenario your will to live trumps your will to retain your wallet, and thus from a certain perspective you are still doing what it is your will to do by handing over the wallet to preserve your own life. The only exception to this rule that I can think of is a situation in which you are literally given no choice at all.
It's free will, technically, in that you are given two options--your money or your life--but it's not a free choice. I get frustrated in my discussions (weekly!) on this topic, since I can't seem to get the Christians with whom I am having the discussion to understand the difference. Just because I am able to choose either option without physical or mental compulsion (free will in the technical sense), it does not make it a free choice, which is what they're actually implying. There are unacceptable penalties someone else has attached to one of the choices-- rather dire ones, such that it's really one powerful being exerting its will over another's, to the point that the latter doesn't realistically have an option.
Given the OP's definition of "not under the will of another", I'd say that free will is inapplicable to a situations where an outside agent is involved in creating a scenario that imposes its will, and leaves the chooser no real option.
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
