Does Free Will Exist?

Free will- the idea that we as individuals have the ability to make their own choices freely, rather than being forced into making choices against what is truly desired. Many have argued both for and against the idea of whether free will truly exists or not, and though both sides raise valid points I agree with the former assertion.

I believe that to some extent, every individual has free will which therefore makes it existent within our society and world. For example, a student has the free will to study for a test or watch TV, an employee has the free will to quit their job or continue working, and a driver has free will to speed or not. However, there are certain factors that have been implemented within our society that may inhibit people from having complete free will over their actions.

For instance, laws can inhibit our ability to simply make a choice purely out of free will. If a person completes an action that breaks any given law they understand there will be subsequent consequences for those actions. This can prevent them from making a choice out of free will given they must take into consideration the possibility of future punishments. However, even in this case free will still exists. Though a person may be punished by a choice to break a law, committing that act is a choice of free will in it of itself. Even if an outside factor may drive a person to make a certain decision, they exercise complete free will in deciding whether or not they make a choice regardless of the effects of the outside factors. Therefore, even in a circumstance where free will may seem to be suppressed, free will still exists even if in small amounts. As a result of this understanding, it can be inferred that free will does exist, regardless of the way that free will is chosen to be yielded: for good or evil.