ABSTRACT
This chapter devotes first to motivating and then formulating the free will problem. In doing so, it identifies several forms and dimensions of the problem. The chapter explains compatibilism and incompatibilism, and the free-will-accepting and the free-will-denying versions of incompatibilism. It considers first the appeal of free will and then the appeal of determinism. It is one thing to recognize a conceptual puzzle or problem, but it is another to see the motivation for why it is important to solve it. A fundamental divide among positions on the free will problem is marked by the distinction between compatibilism and incompatibilism. Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. The chapter concludes by situating the various positions one might take on the free will problem within the broader currents of philosophy, currents that can be appreciated by considering the general strategies philosophers might adopt when attempting to understand our place as human beings within the natural order.
