What is free will? Do we have free will? To what extent do we have it?
Change, transformation of phenomena, appearance, disappearance, development etc go on ceaselessly. This is the characteristic of the world of experience. The ability to effect the changes; if that is a phenomenon which can be called ‘free-will’, then certainly we have it. It’s limitations are therefore marked by the extent of the consequences. Interestingly and significantly, the full extent of the consequences of our actions may never be evident in any form comprehensible to our intellectual capabilities. But if we all share the experience of something we denote as ‘free-will’, then of course it exists. It’s simply part of the fabric of reality.
One does not have to either deny it’s existence (which would go against ordinary experience) nor reify it’s existence in terms of ultimate reality (which would be elevating a designation for a relative phenomenon to absolute reality- which cannot be presented in relative concepts). If we experience the phenomenon of wanting to do something and then acting according to that want, then that is free will- and that is a sufficient description of it too.
The question about the significance of this phenomenon called free-will with regards to the totality we call the self-and-world is not, I think, ever likely to have a clear answer. Still less for ultimate reality which might not even be approachable through dualistic ideas like freedom or determinacy.
Perhaps we could talk less speculatively and with greater relevance and practicality about the relation of free-will to society, to social change and movements. This is a question that involves notions of goals, of future, of teleological time and history. Whatever else time may be, it is always present. All concepts of past and future are necessarily abstract from the present existence, or to use Zen master Dogen’s elucidation, of Being-Time. If there are things we want to do now, then now is the only time to do them (to put it in the bluntest and hence most realistic terms I can!)
Relatively speaking, or speaking in terms of practicality (which is the proper and prime use of intelligence) certainly such goals as universally benefiting and ameliorating the suffering in people’s lives, of transforming the character of social organisation, and of constantly insisting on justice and exerting benevolence- in whatever ways the fluctuations of phenomena called the world may present – these are completely sound and justifiable.
But we must remember that they are all within relative existence, and so belong to the unfathomable web of causes and conditions and interrelationships that manifest as the present. We should acknowledge that these goals have their place, but ultimately the entire world of ordinary ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ human consciousness is only a shimmer and an aspect of reality.
Does history move in comprehensible ways? Certainly. But history is a form of projection from within the world and so naturally it accords to our ways of understanding. What I'm getting at here is not some kind of contrarian view or ‘post-modernist’ criticism of grand narratives. At least, it's not intended that way. Only to point out the ineffable character of much of what we consider self-evident, the unsolvable intricacies of even our own world of limited human experience, nevermind the ultimate field of cosmic existence! Planning and building according to rational goals is certainly within the remit of human competence. But I think claiming to represent universal existence in these human terms is immodest, unrealistic and decidedly humanocentric.
The inescapable problem of the human condition (inescapable that is through discursive thinking or intellectual effort) is that we exist in/as a reality which we can know about only through limited intelligence and which we can effect within limits (necessary frustration) while not actually having a clear understanding of those limitations (necessary confusion) and yet being aware that reality extends beyond those limitations (necessary ignorance). These afflictions I call necessary because without human limitations, we would not be human. I'm thinking here of Confucian philosopher Tu Weiming’s idea of “enabling contraints”; limitations that also serve as creative vistas of possibility.