The will is the faculty by which we become the primary cause of some of our actions, which might thus be said to come about through our own impetus, emanating from us and us alone.

To better understand the will, let's examine a voluntary action and its different phases.

1. Every voluntary action begins with a conception of one or more ends to be achieved.

2. This end conceived, we consider our reasons for acting – the conception of motives.

3. Because not all motives have equal value, we compare them to decide which are strongest – deliberation.

4. We then choose the motive we prefer and in so doing decide to act in a specific way – the decision.

5. Finally, we carry out this decision – the phase of execution or action.

An action has to pass through all five phases to be considered truly voluntary. Otherwise it is not a willful action and must have some other cause.

Is there such a thing as free will? This question dominates every discussion of this topic. But to answer it, we first have to ask another: What is freedom?

Kant defined freedom as our capacity to set in motion a series of actions. For him, the distinctive character of the will is precisely this capacity.