I don't know very much about the positions on free will that important philosophers have expressed, so here's my question:
One could argue if we discuss the topic "Do we have free will", the "hidden" question we actually discuss is "Do we have free will, and if not, how should we change our behaviour as a consequence?"
Expressed in the latter way, the question seems to become futile, because the implied ability to change behaviour (even if only in our way of thinking) also implies free will (at least to me). And if there were no free will, we could not change our behaviour whatever the answer, so that the question becomes pointless in each possible case.
Maybe one could reject the hidden question and be interested in the free will problem as a purely academic exercise. But I'm not sure if that would be so easy, since even deciding to deal with the free will problem or trying to convince others of a view on it could be regarded as changing behaviour.
Since all that seem pretty obvious thoughts to me, I assume it has been discussed before, and/or contains a flaw in the reasoning. Can you point me to examples where philosophers have discussed this?