Is free will an aspect of the mind? It is only when it is believed that we have free choice that we can be held morally responsible for our actions. If we "couldn't do otherwise" then praise and blame would be absurd, and therefore, there would be no such thing as ethics. The 'problem of free will,' as Ayer defines it, is that two contradictory propositions are commonly assumed, (1) that we are capable of acting freely and (2) that human behavior is entirely governed by causal laws. The conundrum is that we can't say every cause has an effect for everything in the universe except for minds and be consistent, and yet, if all human behavior is deterministically caused by our genes, then we don't really have free will.
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