How does Free Will manifest itself in human nature?

Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

September 8, 2023

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min read

Question: How does Free Will manifest itself in human nature?

Answer: Consciousness is a natural, emergent capacity of the brain/mind, and it manifests itself volitionally in three ways, I think. One is the issue of intensity. We all have the capacity to kind of dial up the intensity, so to speak; to let our minds be more relaxed, or sort of thinking or attending to things more with concentrating, so that's under our control.

Another is the range of focus. We can focus in, very tightly on particular things or let our minds, our perceptual capacities also expand out to take in more info, think of the zoom lens on a camera.

The third thing is this issue of initiating action or not. We can think abstractly, imaginatively, in hypothetical mode so to speak. We can also decide to pull the trigger and act on the basis of our ideas.

About the author:

Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

Stephen R. C. Hicks is a Professor of Philosophy and a Senior Scholar for The Atlas Society.

He is author of The Art of Reasoning: Readings for Logical Analysis (W. W. Norton & Co., 1998), Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Scholargy, 2004), Nietzsche and the Nazis (Ockham’s Razor, 2010), Entrepreneurial Living (CEEF, 2016), Liberalism Pro and Con (Connor Court, 2020), Art: Modern, Postmodern, and Beyond (with Michael Newberry, 2021), Eight Philosophies of Education (2022), and Lectures on the Philosophy of Politics (Spanish translation, Publicaciones del Orden Espontáneo, 2026). He has published in Business Ethics Quarterly, Review of Metaphysics, and The Wall Street Journal. His writings have been translated into 20 languages.

He has been Visiting Professor of Business Ethics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Visiting Fellow at the Social Philosophy & Policy Center in Bowling Green, Ohio, Visiting Professor at the University of Kasimir the Great, Poland, Visiting Fellow at Harris Manchester College of Oxford University, England, and Visiting Professor at Jagiellonian University, Poland.

His B.A. and M.A. degrees are from the University of Guelph, Canada. His Ph.D. in Philosophy is from Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

In 2010, he won his university’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

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