QuestionsAre we free?Being free is being able to do what one wills
Are we free?Free without absolute free will

Being free is being able to do what one wills

Voltaire 1694 · 1778Crush intolerance with reason and irony.
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What it claims

Our will is not free, but our actions are: we are free whenever we can do what we will, even though everything is necessary.

Why

Everything has a cause, so my will does too; but I am free whenever I can do what I want.

In short

"Being free is being able to do what one wills" is an argument by Voltaire (Ignorant Philosopher, 13; Philosophical Dictionary, Liberty) on the question "Are we free?" (answer: free without absolute free will). Its claim: Our will is not free, but our actions are: we are free whenever we can do what we will, even though everything is necessary. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the conclusion does follow from its 5 premises. AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Ignorant Philosopher, 13; Philosophical Dictionary, Liberty
Valid

As a young man, Voltaire defended free will. He changed his mind reading Locke and Collins, and says so himself: "The ignoramus who thinks in this manner did not always think the same." His final thesis is simple: everything has a cause, our volitions too. But that does not make us slaves: being free is being able to do what one wills, and we often can. "Your will is not free, but your actions are."

P1Nothing happens without a cause: an effect without a cause is an empty word, and "chance" is only the name of unknown causes.
P2There is no middle ground between necessity and chance: if there is no chance, everything that happens is necessary.
P3Our volitions are no exception: I always will by virtue of my judgement, which depends on my ideas; that judgement is necessary, so my will is too.
P4Being truly free is having power: when I can do what I will, that is my freedom.
P5We often have that power: walking when I want to walk, and I do not have gout.
Therefore our will is not free, but our actions are: we are free whenever we can do what we will, even though everything is necessary.

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.
Valid, with no hidden premise: P1, P2 and P3 give the first half (the will is necessary), P4 and P5 the second (actions are free). So the debate is about the premises. Defenders of free will dispute P2 (a cause that inclines without forcing, a "moral necessity") and above all P4: for them, calling the mere power to do what one wills "freedom" changes the meaning of the word. Note: Voltaire says the same as Hobbes and Hume. He is not a "hard determinist": he does not say freedom is an illusion, he redefines it.
Analogy. A train runs on its rails: it does not choose its track. Yet we say it "runs freely" when nothing blocks the line, and that it is stopped when a tree has fallen on it. For Voltaire, our freedom is that of the train whose line is clear, not that of a train that would invent its own rails.

Objections

3

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

B
B, in the dialogue of the article "Liberty" attacks premise 4

If freedom is only the power to do what one wills, my hunting dog is as free as I am: he wants to run after the hare and he can. You reduce me to the state of the beasts.

Voltaire replies
Voltaire A, in the dialogue
You are a thousand times freer than your dog, for you have a thousand times more power of thinking. But you are not free in any other way than he is. You eat and sleep like him: why would you want to be free in another way?
Samuel Clarke (against Collins) 1717 · attacks premise 2

One must distinguish physical necessity, which pushes a stone, from moral necessity, which inclines a mind without forcing it. Man is an agent who starts his actions himself: his motives do not compel him like a mechanical cause.

Voltaire replies
Voltaire
Voltaire holds that in Clarke the preacher stifled the philosopher. A queen of England will not strip naked on the altar at her coronation: we call that a moral necessity, but it is at bottom a physical necessity, as sure as her death. Moral necessity is only a word: everything that is done is absolutely necessary.
Kant (Critique of Practical Reason) 1788 · attacks premise 4

If our freedom is only the power to act on desires and ideas that are themselves determined, it is no better than that of a turnspit which, once wound up, turns by itself. It is a "wretched subterfuge": morality requires a freedom that is not the last link in a chain of causes.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in 1788, after the author's death (1778).
The debate goes on (our summary) A compatibilist answers that Kant asks for a freedom nobody can conceive: willing without a reason would be, as Voltaire says, "an effect without a cause". Kant answers that he does not conceive it within nature, but must assume it as soon as he judges himself responsible. The debate continues today.