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Philosophical zombies may lack a consciousness, but does this preclude the ability to have a free will? Why does consciousness matter, for agency, or at all, if determinism is real?
(I've framed the question, as such, to make room for more than a Hume answer to my inquiry.)
Chalmers runs a (semi-serious) site Zombies on the Web with lots of (serious) references, where he makes a 3-way distinction:
Hollywood zombies. These are found in zombie B-movies...
Haitian zombies. These are found in the voodoo (or vodou) tradition in Haiti. Their defining feature seems to be that they lack free will, and perhaps lack a soul...
Philosophical zombies. These are found in philosophical articles on consciousness. Their defining features is that they lack conscious experience, but are behaviorally (and often physically) identical to normal humans.
...One might make the case that philosophical and Hollywood zombies lack free will and are thus a sort of Haitian zombie, although both claims would be controversial. In any case, many believe that Hollywood zombies are a sort of corruption of Haitian zombies.
Free will can manifest without consciousness on modern understanding of volition in both compatibilist (with determinism) and libertarian (without determinism) accounts. This attitude is relatively new however, and motivated by the rise of the philosophy of the unconscious, first in the works of Schopenhauer, Hartmann and Nietzsche, and later in Freud's psychoanalysis; Wittgensteinian and Heideggerian critiques of the rationalist view of action (the rule-following regress and the "embodied-embedded" approach); and recent neuroscience experiments (e.g. Libet's), which showed that people often can not accurately time formation of their "intentions", or even "fill them in" after the fact. See the review How Does Neuroscience Affect Our Conception of Volition? by Roskies.
In hindsight, it seems implausible that every letter in a voluntarily said sentence is separately "willed", and therefore that exercise of will requires awareness. But traditionally it was a very common philosophical position, aligned with "common sense", which is still implicitly or explicitly held by many rationalist philosophers and scientists (including Libet himself). In modern accounts conscious and unconscious wills are usually explicitly distinguished.
To summarize, unless one makes a question begging definition that free will is conscious will there is no logical connection between will and consciousness in either direction. Compatibilists describe how deterministic creatures can be conscious, and anti-conceptualists describe how non-conscious creatures can will. For more discussion and references see What counters are there to Spinoza's argument that acts of free will create infinite regress?
Free will does not exist.
My personal theory, that I have only now just finalized from absorbing all your various comments is that, "THERE IS AND ISN'T FREE WILL" Which then means it does not actually exist, because it cannot become a choice, therefore the closest title or definition we as human beings can describe it as is " AN ILLUSION " Anyone that may believe that they are exercising thier own "free will" by reading this comment, or in fact any action they have ever done, I regret to inform them that they are wrong. Any action that has ever been done has needed a stimulus. Go back to Newtons third law of motion, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Think about it, every action to this day that any living organism has ever done was because of another action. Even plants which are living entities that some may believe don't have a "conscious " still germinate, grow and feed because of another action.
Before I conclude, I want those that can to digest my following statement:
FREE WILL??? To be free is to carry out instructions or actions without any intent or reason (according to me). Will, is to carry out instructions or actions with a goal or a purpose.(in my own words).
Which may mean "free" is the intangible act and "will" is the tangible act. None exists without the other
A simple example is eating. We all eat, or rather we know the act of eating. We cannot see or touch "hunger" however, we respond to it by "eating". And vice versa if we carry out the action of "eating" we intern do not feel "hunger".
Intangible needs tangible to exist and vice versa.
Therefore that it is why I have stated that free will doesn't not exist, because if anything can be something and something can be anything than it cannot be called anything and on and on and on it goes. That's just want I think, it may be complete crazy talk I don't know.
