I’ve never found the topic of “Free Will” to be a super interesting branch of philosophy on it’s own.
Much like “ethics”, “free will” felt to me to be one of those “downstream” topics in philosophy that would would only be resolved after addressing more fundamental branches of philosophy like metaphysics, epistemology and phenomenology.
In other words, how can we really be clear about free will if we’re not first clear about what a “self” is, what it’s relationship to reality can be, and how we know about reality beyond what it appears to be?
This is why, when discussing with people who are adamant that free will is an illusion, I just don’t really find their conclusion very interesting, regardless of whether ultimately it’s true or not.
A way into this topic that I find more relevant to our actual experience of the world is with an inquiry into a more fundamental principle – cause and effect.
In materialist frameworks, the truth of cause and effect is the evidence that free will does not exist, since no effect could arise without a cause, and – more essentially – no cause comes to be in total isolation from other causes. We can not create a cause out of thin air, nor in separation from previous influences – whether they be social, cultural, psychological, biological, etc.
This topic of cause and effect could be considered the heart of Buddhist philosophy and psychology. The first noble truth, that “life is suffering”, is the Buddha’s diagnosis of our default unconsciousness. When we are unconscious of our part to play in our experience of life, we experience life as victims at the mercy of both external (environmental, social) and internal (psychological) circumstance. When we are unconscious of our part to play in our experience, we unknowingly perpetuating the very habits of thinking and behavior that keep us in suffering.
The third noble truth, that “freedom from suffering exists”, is premised on one’s waking up to a more conscious perception of cause and effect within their own experience.
What this looks like, practically, in our experience is succinctly summarized by Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor known for his poignant analysis of human nature from within concentration camps.
Frankl wrote: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Similarly in Buddhist psychology, all of our mental states, and associated behaviors are the effects of previous mental habits. In so far as we take the contents of our experience as a given, we unconsciously play out this domino effect of past actions on current reactions. Where Buddhism differs from the materialist determinism implicit in our culture is that there is an alternative relationship to this “cycle” known as samsara that we can cultivate, through practice. This alternative relationship is a conscious relationship to this matrix of cause and effect instead of a purely reactive one.
In effect, we can will new causes to, over time, bring to fruition alternative effects than our habitual ones. Through practice, attention and effort we can engage with this realm of cause and effect consciously rather than consciously to liberate us from being condemned to the trajectories laid out for us by our past behaviors. (Not only are there alternative trajectories to be cultivated, but alternative ways to play with the very medium of causality itself. For more information on this, look into the difference between the causal logic of tantrayana and sutrayana.)
Can we say that the arisal of one’s desire to overcome causality, or karma, or determinism itself arises from within that very realm of causality. Yes! But can we also say that the aim of that desire transcends the system? I think the answer is yes. And then could we say that one who has achieved this aim of transcending karma has effectively achieved free will? I believe so. But what does this “achievement” actually entail; where is this place beyond the realm of causality. That was a misleading question, in fact, because we must be aware of our implicit conceptual assumption to make the absence of something a thing. The transcendence of karma is not some untouchable “place”, but is more like a process that ceases. Indeed the etymology for the word for this liberation, Nirvana, translates to to extinguish. When this process ceases, one may re-enter the realm of causality, ie. form, identity and action, but instead of being reactive to it, they enage non-reactively, allowing them the freedom to play rather than be forced to enact. Is this freedom to play not free will?