Free will, determinism, and embodiment

Here, we cover three views about the nature of free will and determinism: libertarianism (you are free and not determined), determinism (you are determined and not free), and compatibilism (you’re both free and determined). We will first take those groupings of theories and suggest that embodiment offers some interesting complications to what seems fairly straightforward. For instance, if you think the mind extends beyond the body (see Chapter 4 ), then it's not easy to distinguish between individual and environment, which is typically presupposed in discussions about determinism and free will. But if we take our ideas about embodiment as fundamental, then new questions open up about the nature of agency and how to formulate questions about freedom in the first place.