This short essay is going to address the assertion that free will can be given or assigned to an individual, and that after, it can still be considered free will. The proposition can be evaluated by asking and then answering the following three questions: First, what is free will? Second, where does free will come from? and third, can free will be given or is it innate in conscious beings? In the proposed answers, this essay will venture to provide a purely monist-materialistic account of the origins of free will, despite the fact that this question of origins cannot be definitively answered, and prove that the assertion that free will can be given, is in fact false or at least logically inconsistent.
The fundamental question of, what is free will? has been answered by many philosophers, from Socrates to Bertrand Russell, all of whom provide varied accounts of the concept’s nature. Because of this, it is difficult to approach the question without regurgitating their arguments. Nevertheless, here’s an honest attempt at defining free will: Free will is intrinsically tied to the ability of a conscious and communicating being to choose. To choose anything and everything against or with their morality, their ethics and the reality in which they live. In other words, free will implies that you can choose, for no rational reason at all, the least ethical, the least probable and the worst option out of a sea of seemingly proper and logical choices, and accept your choices’ negative outcomes willingly. Free will also implies, in fact it demands, that your choice sometimes go against popular wisdom, against facts and against reality. Thus, free will can be considered to be an irrational impulse. This definition kind of makes sense if we consider humanity’s irrational and emotional nature. When people go against common sense and reality to make certain decisions, it is excellent proof of innate free will. Free will also implies doubting and questioning truths. This questioning, however, must exist in a reality free of blackmail, coercion and fear. For example, if silence in questioning certain dogmas is fear induced, the reality is then not predicate on free will.
Therefore, the answer to the question, where does free will come from? cannot be that it comes from an external authority. Thus, one cannot say, ‘You have free will because I say you have free will’. The concept of given free will then negates free will entirely. For example, when religious people say that, “God gave us free will”, they inadvertently impeach their own ability to choose a right action from a wrong action as they say that the ability to choose is in fact a gift. Additionally, in particular with the religious argument, some people say the following: “God gave you free will, yes, so you can make a choice. You side with God and all is well, or you renounce God and you go to hell.” This argument is one sentence off from Pascal’s wager. And it shows that most arguments that suggest free will to be a given impulse are laden with moral blackmail. It’s an attempt to coerce people, something quite opposite of what free will ought to be, in choosing one answer over the other. Very often coercion is enforced through fear, as Pascal’s wager demonstrates.
Thus, one must assume that free will is an innate impulse in all conscious and sentient beings, even if it is suggested that a supreme unknowable being has given free will as a gift to its creation. Because if it is not innate, then it is not free will. The ability to choose cannot be simultaneously superimposed on someone and at the same time be considered free will. If indeed this impulse has been superimposed on us, then all of our choices are pre-determined and we have no clue as to what free will actually is.
In conclusion, although we may not positively know what free will is or where the impulse actually comes from, these questions do not necessitate and answer. It suffices to know that we have free will and we can exercise it despite blackmail, despite coercion and even in circumstances of imprisonment. Also, free will cannot be superimposed or given, either as a gift or as a curse, for in such a case it is not free will. The origins of free will must also be necessarily independent of a creator, since if free will did not exist before God, then how could God have chosen to do anything. Thus, free will is innate, it is not given and is free from moral blackmail and coercion through fear. It is an eternal concept for all conscious beings.
