QuestionsAre we free?You may chain my leg, but not my will
Are we free?Free without absolute free will

You may chain my leg, but not my will

The will not even Zeus can overpower; the inner citadel

Épictète 50 · 135A former slave turned Stoic teacher: he taught that we can act only on our judgements and desires, never on the rest.
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What it claims

One is fully free where it matters, in one's judgment and choice, even in chains, in prison or condemned to death.

Why

My body can be chained, but no one can impose what I judge and what I choose: that freedom stays whole.

The same idea through history
Chrysippe230 BCThe Stoics already held that everything happens by fate and yet that assent is up to us.
Épictète108Epictetus, a slave turned teacher, makes it a practice: accept what happens to the body and keep judgment whole.
In short

"You may chain my leg, but not my will" is an argument by Épictète (Discourses I, 1 and IV, 1 (as recorded by Arrian, c. 108), 108) on the question "Are we free?" (answer: free without absolute free will). Its claim: One is fully free where it matters, in one's judgment and choice, even in chains, in prison or condemned to death. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the conclusion does follow from its 3 premises. AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Discourses I, 1 and IV, 1 (as recorded by Arrian, c. 108)
Valid

Epictetus was a slave, and his master could chain him, send him to prison, kill him. In his lessons, taken down by his student Arrian (he wrote nothing himself), he answers an imaginary tyrant: "You may fetter my leg, but my will not even Zeus himself can overpower." For him the body, property and other people are not ours. But judging, accepting or refusing, desiring or avoiding cannot be taken from anyone by force. To be free is to live without compulsion or hindrance in that domain. Note: in these passages Epictetus does not discuss whether our choices have causes. He says where the freedom that matters lies, and accepts that the rest happens "as God may please".

P1The body and possessions are not ours: others can chain, imprison or destroy them.
P2What the gods gave us as our own is the power to use our impressions well: to desire or avoid, to accept or refuse. Whoever puts all his good there will never be hindered.
P3This power (prohairesis: choice, the faculty of judging and willing) cannot be overpowered by anyone, not even Zeus.
P4 · implicit premiseTo be free is not to be open to compulsion or hindrance in what one decides oneself; it is not to be exempt from all causes.
Therefore one is fully free where it matters, in one's judgment and choice, even in chains, in prison or condemned to death.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, one can accept P1 to P3 and deny the conclusion: if being free meant being able to do what one wants in the world, or choosing without any cause, the chained slave would not be free, even as master of his judgment.
The argument is valid. If choice is that faculty (P3), if it is given to all and cannot be hindered (P2), and if freedom consists in not being open to compulsion in what one decides (P4), then freedom is whole in choice. The objections target P4: is that freedom enough, and what is a choice worth if it is itself caused?
Analogy. A chess player locked in a cell. They can take his board, his light, his freedom to leave. They cannot take the way he decides on his moves in his head. Epictetus says that is the part of us that counts.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Immanuel Kant 1788 · attacks premise 4

Calling an action free because its causes are inside us (our own ideas, our desires), when those causes are themselves determined by what came before, is the freedom of a turnspit. Kant calls it a wretched subterfuge: the problem is solved by word-juggling.

a defender replies
No reply possible: objection raised in 1788, after the author's death (135).
Chrysippus (reported by Cicero) defender of the argument · 44 BC
The Stoics distinguished the causes that set things off from the causes that belong to the nature of the thing. An impression pushes my mind, but it is my nature as a rational being that decides whether to assent. The choice is still mine even if it has causes, as the cylinder rolls by its own shape once pushed. Cicero reports this image in On Fate, 41-43.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: Kant asks for a freedom able to begin a series of causes; the Stoics and their compatibilist heirs think being the author of one's judgments is enough. The disagreement is about what "free" must mean.
Arthur Schopenhauer 1839 · attacks premise 3

"My will depends only on me": but one may ask "can you also will what you will?" What I choose follows from my character and the motives I meet. The will nobody can wrest from me is therefore no freer than any other: it is only out of reach of chains.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in 1839, after the author's death (135).
The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary (a reconstructed reply, no Stoic could answer Schopenhauer): the question "can you will what you will?" assumes a free choice should come from nowhere. In Chrysippus' line, my character is not a foreign force pushing me: it is me, and a choice that follows from my judgment is mine. Schopenhauer would answer that this is exactly what he calls necessity.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: Schopenhauer thinks "mine" is not enough for "free"; compatibilists think the opposite. Neither camp has convinced the other.
I
Isaiah Berlin 1958 · attacks the conclusion

In "Two Concepts of Liberty", Berlin calls "retreat to the inner citadel" the attitude of Stoics and ascetics: the tyrant threatens my property, my freedom of movement, those I love; if I no longer care for any of this, he cannot touch me. Berlin compares it to a man who, to stop the pain of a wound in his leg, cuts off the leg instead of healing it: the desire is removed instead of the obstacle. For him freedom also needs room to act that others do not block.

Épictète replies
No reply possible: objection raised in 1958, after the author's death (135).
E
Epictetus (as recorded by Arrian) 108 · Epictetus (earlier text)
Epictetus does not ask us to stop wanting to act. With Helvidius Priscus he shows the opposite: when the emperor forbids him the senate, Helvidius answers "I must say what I think right" and accepts death. Inner freedom there lets one act without trembling, not give up.
The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: the Helvidius example shows action, but Berlin targets another part of the doctrine, where Epictetus asks us to desire nothing that is not up to us (Handbook, 1-2). On that point the reply does not cover the whole objection.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: Berlin thinks a freedom that protects only the inside leaves the essential aside; the Stoics answer that it grounds courageous action. The disagreement is about how much inner independence is worth compared with real room to act.