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Originally Posted by asaris
10100 etc: I agree with you to the extent that I think the ability to act otherwise is necessary for free will. But I don't think it's the essence of free will. I come to free will through morality. We tend to believe, and I think rightly, that we are morally responsible for some of our actions but not for others. So my most basic definition of free will is "whatever it is, the presence of which makes us responsible for some actions and the absence of which makes us not responsible for others". As a note, this is all I want to stipulate to when talking about free will. I claim to have arguments for the rest. Anyway, given this, it seems clear that the essence of free will must be that our actions are up to us.
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Concepts can be accepted and even applied to the world around us without their actual existance. People simply have faith that freewill exists. Thus it allows us to judge people based on their choices. This is important because it absolves in administering a punishment/judgement. The concept of freewill allows us to become intruments of justice. Thus the guilty party is throwing themselves on the spear of justice by making a "choice" to act as they did.
The system works to a large degree. Yet whether we judge others based on morals, laws, cocial codes, etc. the existence of freewill is a faith based belief. So I have to say Asaris, that you will find no freewill in watever it is the "presence of which makes us responsible for some actions and the absence of which makes us not responsible for others". That presence might not even be there.