After finding that disregarding the causes behind my motives would not leave me free in my post Free Will Part 1, I had to think of a new way to define free will that was not inherently contradictory. Trying to think of a better concept of freedom made me remember my own experiences around free will to see if that would yield any insight.
I have experienced both being compelled by motives and causes and being in situations where I have felt more free to chose. For example, once when a horse stepped on my toes I yelled in pain, and there was no choice involved in whether I yelled or not. It just happened to me. However, when I am shopping in the grocery store it feels like I have the capacity to chose.
Naturally any conscious choice I do make will still be due to the causes and motives at work in me. Last time I visited the store I bought bagels and cream cheese because I noticed them, remembered how tasty they are, and decided it was worth it to spend the money. Despite still being ruled by cause and effect, having my consciousness involved and participating in the process affects it in interesting ways.
Consciousness is frequently referred to as the “hard problem” of philosophy because describing and explaining it is still a work in progress for philosophers. I do not know how or why we are conscious either, but I think it is reasonable to state that as conscious beings we are capable of being aware of ourselves and our motives.
If I am aware of my motives and causes for action, I can think about them, and that gives me an opportunity to affect them in addition to their affecting me. As an example I am moved to act based on my concept of what is good, and in a previous post I consciously explored what I think of as good, both defining and changing my motive for action.
Any conscious thought I have is still subject to causes and motives, but a twist is that I can attempt to explore any motive or cause, even my ones for wanting to explore motives and causes in the first place, or why the idea of free will moves me to write so much about it. Once I have explored a motive, I can begin the hard work of making my conscious choices an essential part of why I act.
I should note that there are many aspects of ourselves that we do not have conscious control over. I can understand the causes of why my fingernails grow, but they are still going to grow anyway and I cannot will them not to. According to my new concept of freedom, there are a variety of ways in which I am not free such as in my basic biology, being subject to the laws of physics, and any behavior, feeling, or thought of mine that my consciousness does not participate in.
Making a distinction between merely being aware of a motive and doing the work to consciously participate in it is essential. When I could not stop myself from lying, I did not have free will when it came to what I said. My consciousness only observed the process, it was not participating as an essential part of the chain of cause and effect. In the same way a person could be aware of their habit to bite their fingernails, but consciously changing that still takes work.
The picture that creates for me is that freedom lies in striving to consciously participate in my actions and the causal process. I become free when my consciousness is an essential element in what causes me to act, not through escaping from determinism or letting myself be passively carried along.
Thinking about free will as conscious participation in my actions transforms the role cause and effect play in the question of free will. Instead of being a great contradiction with the idea of free will, determinism and cause and effect are the vehicle through which human freedom is possible.
Humans have the potential for freedom because of our capacity for consciousness, but free will itself is not something we have, it is something we create. Another implication that fits my experience of freedom is that the extent to which I am free can grow over time, and I look forward to it.
The Thoughtful Thought 