Introduction

Few issues in philosophy are as interesting, both to lay person and professional, as the problem of the freedom of the will (or freedom of action – the two descriptions I take to mean the same thing). For, as noted in the Preface (and as we will see), the central issue here concerns the ability to initiate (or possibility of initiating) action: that is, of there being (genuine) actions at all. Merely being able to will certain actions, actions not then performed, would be indistinguishable from just wishing for impossible outcomes. And would be accommodated to the degree that such wishing itself counts as action.

Equally, over the years, few problems have seemed as intractable to philosophical solution as the problem of free action. In what follows I will both lay out the central issues involved in this philosophical problem, and consider various ways in which human concerns with freedom, responsibility and the understanding of other people are involved. Further, I shall offer (in later chapters) some thoughts on possible lines of solution. However, as a beginning, it is important to understand what the issue might be, or, more exactly, why there is an issue here at all.

Two important distinctions for understanding human activity

When we consider the world around us, and our place in it, we regularly note two related contrasts whose closer identification will take us into the question of the freedom of the will.