When considering free will it become necessary to define terms and determine what free will is? In life, we make decisions in the long and short time that impact us in different ways. Deciding whether these decisions are indicative of free will is paramount when defining free will. We could decide what to eat for dinner, for instance, under a basic understanding of free will this decision would provide enough evidence that our choices are our own.
However, under further review, it becomes clear that several factors limit our decision. We may have preferred to eat something that is out of season or unhealthy, perhaps the meal we wanted was too expensive. Is it possible to call our selection free will if there was a possibility for a more appealing decision? The limits placed on us by our humanity and society clearly challenge the concept of free will or at least unmitigated free will. If we decided as a species that free will was impossible or even unlikely, it would necessitate a change in our ideologies.
Complete lack of free will would suggest that our actions as individuals are insignificant. It is possible or even likely that in the larger picture we don’t matter as individuals. No free will would also imply that controlling outcomes is impossible, this would mean that any attempt to improve our lives would be futile.
