The self-referential nature of the free will problem

7th January 2025

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I was recently talking with someone about the problem of free will, and I realised that for many years now I have always had the same response, without really ever soliciting broader critical feedback. The notion of free will here refers to a naive, libertarian, non-strictly-defined approach of "when I feel I make choices, I really had a choice", and all of the associated implied moral philosophy (laziness is a thing, I can be blamed for my choices etc.)

The starting assumption is that I want to believe in true things (I leave open the question of whether this epistemic duty is itself justified or not). I propose a trilemma, where exactly one of the following propositions holds:

1. Either the notion of 'free will' is meaningless, or
2. It is meaningful, and I do have in fact have free will, or
3. It is meaningful, but I happen to not have it

If (1) is true, then the whole discussion is moot: nothing can be true or false, and whatever I believe is equally justified. If (2) is true, then I want to believe in having free will (since it is true that I have it). If (3) is true, then "should" is a meaningless concept - there is no way I would be able to change my view one way or the other.

So, the only possible world where I get to make this choice is a world in which free will is true, so I should believe in it - and mostly ignore the debate about compatibilism, the nature of physics, dualism etc. Which is what I do.

One potential issue is that (1) can be true or false depending on the precise definition (but then what even is a precise definition?). Still, I suspect that no matter which one I instantiate it with, as long as it is sensible, the general (self-referential) structure of the argument will stay the same.