I think those thought experiments, while helpful in their own way, ultimately miss the thrust of the issue. In other words, does your account of human action reveal an acting agent, or passive behavior, or one or the other depending on the action considered? If there is an acting agent, in what sense is that agent "free" at all? If it is all merely passive behavior, then there is no sense in which it is free.
Merely saying that choices are made does not really show that those choices are free. How would you differentiate a free choice from a non-free choice? What is the criteria for freedom? Someone mentioned knowledge, and that seems to be the only thing approaching a rational account of it all. Anyone else think that knowledge about the action and the objects involved have something to do with freedom?
Maybe we should distinguish those sorts of questions from fate vs. "freedom" vs. compatibilism?
Merely saying that choices are made does not really show that those choices are free. How would you differentiate a free choice from a non-free choice? What is the criteria for freedom? Someone mentioned knowledge, and that seems to be the only thing approaching a rational account of it all. Anyone else think that knowledge about the action and the objects involved have something to do with freedom?
Maybe we should distinguish those sorts of questions from fate vs. "freedom" vs. compatibilism?