[Mark Balaguer][1] in *[Free Will][2]* shows how someone who accepts a physicalist view of the world can still be a libertarian with respect to free will. Balaguer references [Sam Harris’s][3] *[Free Will][4]*. His book could be viewed by a reader as a response to Harris. 

Balaguer rejects free will as something he doesn’t even want except for those few times perhaps every hour where the indeterminacy, that is, randomness, in our brains allows him to make choices that are not determined by any prior event.  Those few times are all one needs to claim we do have free will.

From Balaguer's perspective once one philosophically accepts physicalism the question of whether we have free will or not is a scientific question. However, that question is unresolved today and it will unlikely be resolved in our lifetimes. 

[Robert Kane’s][5] “Free Will: New Foundations for an Ancient Problem” *Proceedings of the British Academy*, 1962 (reprinted in *Free Will* Hackett Readings in Philosophy, 2009) takes a similar view.

---------------------

Although the above arguments should give a physicalist pause before asserting that we do not have free will it does not address the issue from a broader perspective where a different paradigm about who we are and what the world is is preferred.  

Such a different paradigm need not be a theistic paradigm although a theistic paradigm such as the one underlying Alvin Plantinga’s “[Free Will Defense][6]” would be one such paradigm insisting on our free will to avoid the logical problem of evil. The atheistic paradigm represented by [Thomas Nagel’s][7] article “Panpsychism” (in *Mortal Questions*, 1979) would also challenge the physicalist view of the world.

Is there any reason to even consider a different paradigm than physicalism? With the introduction of the dual and opposing explanatory ideas of *determinism* and *randomness* based on mathematically modeled, and hence deterministic, classical science and indeterministic quantum physics it makes one wonder if there isn’t something simpler underlying both of these principles. That simpler underlying principle may impact our view of free will.
 
-------------------------- 

Given the above there are at least two ways to motivate one to question the belief that we lack free will. 
 
First, there is the realization that given physicalism the scientific question of whether we have free will or not has not been resolved and will unlikely be resolved in our lifetimes. It is premature to say we do not have free will given physicalism. 

Second, there are other perspectives besides physicalism that might be closer to the truth about who we are and what our world is. 

One might add to those two a third perspective.  If we deny our free will we are accepting a particular rationalist description of the world and rejecting the evidence of our own experience that we actually do have free will. Is our free will an illusion or is the belief that we do not have free will a rationalist delusion? Are we rationalists or empiricists? 


  [1]: http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/balaguer/
  [2]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ICXP9GC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
  [3]: http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/harris/
  [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Will_(book)
  [5]: http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/kane/
  [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga%27s_free_will_defense
  [7]: http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/nagelt/