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Question of the Month

How Are We Free?

The following answers to this central philosophical question each win a random book.

To be completely free, or to do something of your own free will, it is essential that you could have acted otherwise. If you cannot avoid acting in a particular way, then your action is not free. While it is generally understood that human beings have the ability to think and act freely as rational and moral agents, the common causal laws by which all human activities and responses are governed are incontestable. It is this conflict that provides the real problem of how we are free.

It is hard to refute determinism in a world where almost all scientific disciplines depend on physical cause and effect.

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