Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“I have long believed in what philosophers call ‘libertarian free will.’ This isn’t about political philosophy, but philosophy of mind. Holding all physical conditions constant, determinism holds that there is exactly one thing that I can do. Libertarian free will holds, in contrast, that there is more than one thing that I can do. Not ‘in a manner of speaking,’ or ‘given imperfect information about physical conditions,’ but literally, genuinely, truly. On my view, for example, I am, holding everything else in the physical world constant, able to write this post … or not. I am writing this post because I freely choose to do so. … As Descartes famously aphorized: ‘I think, therefore I am.’ My own mental existence is indubitable. Even when I think, ‘Maybe I don’t really exist,’ I am ipso facto thinking and existing. The physical world, in sharp contrast, is dubitable.” (06/24/25)