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Free will is the capacity or ability to choose between different possible courses of action. [1] Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, and other judgements which apply only to actions that are freely chosen.
Jewish philosophy stresses that free will is a product of the intrinsic human soul, using the word neshama (from the Hebrew root n.sh.m. or .נ.ש.מ meaning "breath"), but the ability to make a free choice is through Yechida (from Hebrew word "yachid", יחיד, singular), the part of the soul that is united with God, [citation needed] the only being that is not hindered by or dependent on ...
The sovereignty (autonomy) of God, existing within a free agent, provides strong inner compulsions toward a course of action (calling), and the power of choice (election). The actions of a human are thus determined by a human acting on relatively strong or weak urges (both from God and the environment around them) and their own relative power ...
Free will in antiquity is a philosophical and theological concept. Free will in antiquity was not discussed in the same terms as used in the modern free will debates, but historians of the problem have speculated who exactly was first to take positions as determinist , libertarian , and compatibilist in antiquity. [ 1 ]
Spinoza argues that seemingly "free" actions aren't actually free, or that the entire concept is a chimera because "internal" beliefs are necessarily caused by earlier external events. The appearance of the internal is a mistake rooted in ignorance of causes, not in an actual volition, and therefore the will is always determined.
Libertarianism holds onto a concept of free will that requires the agent to be able to take more than one possible course of action under a given set of circumstances. Accounts of libertarianism subdivide into non-physical theories and physical or naturalistic theories.
Free Agents author Kevin J. Mitchell makes a neuroscientific case against determinism.
The neuroscience of free will encompasses two main fields of study: volition and agency. Volition, the study of voluntary actions, is difficult to define. [citation needed] If human actions are considered as lying along a spectrum based on conscious involvement in initiating the actions, then reflexes would be on one end, and fully voluntary actions would be on the other. [17]