Free Will

[Pyrrho]

I think a true understanding of the nature of our will will eventually come from neuroscience.  Different regions are responsible for different parts of decision making, but I'm guessing the answer will be somewhere in the cerebral cortex, which is a part of the brain that is a recent evolutionary step only seen in mammals.  

The problem I see with saying that we do have free will, even in the sense of the OP, is that we have no way of knowing if our will isn't beholden to our physical brain structure like other traits.  We feel like we make decisions when presented with choices, but we have no way to prove that we could have made a different decision.  We choose to drink that scotch, but unless we could exactly replicate that moment in time, we don't know that you could have chosen not to drink that scotch.  We have no way of knowing that the parts of our brain that are responsible for making that decision weren't structured physically in a manner that would require us to make a certain choice given certain circumstances.

I feel that at this point it's speculative to say either way on the issue, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the more we learn, the less likely it will appear that we are making any choices at all.

I am saying that an action is "free" if it is in accordance with what one wills.  Whether what was wills is causally determined by a rigid chain of events going back to the beginning of time (or going back infinitely in time if there was no beginning to time), or not, makes absolutely no difference for this.  It makes no difference if our will is completely determined by our brains.  An action is free if it is in accordance with what one wills.  That is what I mean by a "free action," and that is what free will is about, acting in accordance with what one wills.

This accords well with the ordinary definition of "free" quoted in the opening post.  It requires no metaphysical nonsense.