ABSTRACT
A materialist worldview leads to certain stark conclusions, notably that humans lack free will. A free will is responsible for its actions, that is, it is able to respond rather than merely react to situations. It responds by identifying possible courses of action, deliberating about their probable effects, assessing those effects in light of one’s purposes and values, and in the end choosing a course of action. A free will chooses one course of action over others not by being ineluctably determined to do so and not as a matter of pure spontaneity, but as a rational response to a situation. The rationality at play here can be conscious, but it can also operate unconsciously. An act of free will presupposes a rationally controlled ability to do otherwise so that distinct courses of action constitute genuine possibilities or live options not reducible to purely irrational forces.1
