Free will, in humans, the power or capacity to choose among alternatives or to act in certain situations independently of natural, social, or divine restraints. Free will is denied by some proponents of determinism. Arguments for free will are based on the subjective experience of freedom, on sentiments of guilt, on revealed religion, and on the universal supposition of responsibility for personal actions that underlies the concepts of law, reward, punishment, and incentive (for additional discussion of free will and determinism, see moral responsibility, problem of). In theology the existence of free will must be reconciled with God’s omniscience and goodness (in allowing people to choose badly) and with divine grace, which allegedly is necessary for any meritorious act. A prominent feature of existentialism is the concept of a radical, perpetual, and frequently agonizing freedom of choice. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80), for example, spoke of the individual “condemned to be free.”

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problem of moral responsibility: Freedom and responsibility

Historically, most proposed solutions to the problem of moral responsibility have attempted to establish that humans do have free will....