Free Will is an illusion

I made a previous post arguing that free will doesn’t exist. This is my second favorite argument for why free will doesn’t exist. This is the same argument I heard Alex O’ Connor make on YouTube. Although free will isn’t directly related to religion, the free will debate is important because the non-existence of free will would directly conflict with most Abrahamic religious doctrines.

The argument:

Premise 1: the only possible reasons for why you would ever choose to do something is because you either want to or are forced to do it.

Premise 2: you cannot choose what it is that you want to do or are forced to do.

Conclusion: therefore, free will doesn’t exist.

Let me defend the first premise that “you only choose to do things because you want to or are forced to”

There are no counterexamples anyone can give where they have chosen to do something even though they didn’t want to and weren’t forced to. Even in situations where it seems like you have done something even though you didn’t want to, it was still chosen because of a stronger competing desire.

For example, say someone feels sluggish and yet still goes to the gym and works out. Some people may cite this as an example of someone doing something even though they didn’t want to. But this doesn’t solve the problem. The only reason why a sluggish person would decide to go the gym is because of some more powerful competing desire (they want to look better, lose weight, etc). Did the gym goer choose the fact that their desire to look better, lose weight, etc was stronger than their desire to stay home? No!

This brings me to the second point: you have no control over what you desire to do the most. Do you choose whether your desire to make money at your job is stronger than your desire to stay home? Do you have control over whether you want to have chocolate ice cream more than vanilla?

One potential objection: some might say that we do have (at least some) control over our desires. For instance, an alcoholic has an immediate desire to drink, but may go to rehab and practice discipline so he doesn’t have as strong of a desire for alcohol. But this counterexample doesn’t solve the problem. Because, even if the alcoholic can control his base desire to drink, the only reason why he would choose to control his desire for drinking is because he wanted to control his desire to drink. Does the alcoholic who goes to rehab choose the fact the he wants to control his desire to drink more than he wants to drink? No!