Given our modern scientific view of the world, how is freedom of the will possible? That is the classical problem of free will. Strategies for addressing this problem include the flat denial of free will, as well as various attempts to render free will consistent with a physically deterministic world. Among these latter, there’s a tendency to redefine free will in a way that dissolves the apparent tension between freedom and determinism.

In his new book, Why Free Will is Real (Harvard University Press, 2019), Christian List defends a robust conception of free will according to which it requires intentional agency, alternative possibilities, and causal control. He argues that humans indeed have free will, and this free will is consistent with a naturalistic and scientific world view.