| 20192 | Aristotle assesses whether people are responsible, and if they are it was voluntary [Aristotle, by Zagzebski] |
| 20833 | A swerve in the atoms would be unnatural, like scales settling differently for no reason [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
| 7672 | The free will problem was invented by the Stoics [Stoic school, by Berlin] |
| 1854 | We must admit that when the will is not willing something, the first movement to will must come from outside the will [Aquinas] |
| 6213 | A man cannot will to will, or will to will to will, so the idea of a voluntary will is absurd [Hobbes] |
| 2358 | Freedom is absence of opposition to action; the idea of 'free will' is absurd [Hobbes] |
| 2384 | Those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntary [Hobbes] |
| 2385 | If a man suddenly develops an intention of doing something, the cause is out of his control, not in his will [Hobbes] |
| 21802 | An act of will can only occur if it has been caused, which implies a regress of causes [Spinoza] |
| 4837 | 'Free will' is a misunderstanding arising from awareness of our actions, but ignorance of their causes [Spinoza] |
| 4843 | Would we die if we lacked free will, and were poised between equal foods? Yes! [Spinoza] |
| 4844 | The mind is not free to remember or forget anything [Spinoza] |
| 4871 | A thing is free if it acts only by the necessity of its own nature [Spinoza] |
| 12494 | Men are not free to will, because they cannot help willing [Locke] |
| 19367 | Saying we must will whatever we decide to will leads to an infinite regress [Leibniz] |
| 19413 | If we know what is good or rational, our knowledge is extended, and our free will restricted [Leibniz] |
| 2222 | The doctrine of free will arises from a false sensation we have of freedom in many actions [Hume] |
| 5296 | Kant made the political will into a pure self-determined "free" will [Kant, by Marx/Engels] |
| 4176 | We all regard ourselves a priori as free, but see from experience that character and motive compel us [Schopenhauer] |
| 2291 | A thought comes when 'it' wants, not when 'I' want [Nietzsche] |
| 2871 | Wanting 'freedom of will' is wanting to pull oneself into existence out of the swamp of nothingness by one's own hair [Nietzsche] |
| 4414 | Philosophers invented "free will" so that our virtues would be permanently interesting to the gods [Nietzsche] |
| 7135 | 'Freedom of will' is the feeling of having a dominating force [Nietzsche] |
| 2624 | I cannot prepare myself for the next thought I am going to think [Ryle] |
| 23076 | If people always acted without words we would take them for robots [Cioran] |
| 9268 | If free will miraculously interrupts causation, animals might do that; why would we want to do it? [Frankfurt on Chisholm] |
| 3446 | For Hobbes (but not for Kant) a person's actions can be deduced from their desires and beliefs [Chisholm] |
| 15821 | Determinism claims that every event has a sufficient causal pre-condition [Chisholm] |
| 22352 | Out of more than a hundred planets, Earth is the only one with the idea of free will [Vonnegut] |
| 2176 | There is only a problem of free will if you think the notion of 'voluntary' can be metaphysically deepened [Williams,B] |
| 2181 | It is an absurd Kantian idea that at the limit rationality and freedom coincide [Williams,B] |
| 7978 | There is no need to involve the idea of free will to make choices about one's life [Baudrillard] |
| 3196 | Free will isn't evidence against a theory of thought if there is no evidence for free will [Rey] |
| 3195 | If reason could be explained in computational terms, there would be no need for the concept of 'free will' [Rey] |
| 5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
| 5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
| 7509 | Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions [Pinker] |
| 4925 | Brains can initiate free actions before the person is aware of their own decision [Edelman/Tononi] |
| 9276 | The will hardly ever does anything; most of our life just happens to us [Gray] |
| 23532 | The delusion of free will brings a sense of guilt [Berardi] |