How I understand compatibilist free will

2025-04-14T08:39:00.001-04:00

Free will seems like a kind of like a map, where who I am and the decisions I have made have a 1:1 correspondence. It is possible and fair for Jesus/God to judge me because my choices describe who I am and whether I could do otherwise is irrelevant because the thing *I did do* is what describes me. Although the decisions were deterministically caused, they are a reflection of who I am as a person. If I was better and less evil, I would have made different choices, but the fact that these are the choices I made means I am, in fact, evil.

The only way out for me is to claim my childhood was an undue influence on me, which although some really bad things happened to me, I was still way more privileged and healthy than others who have made better decisions under worse circumstances. I've said before that the mixture of privilege and pain I experienced was the perfect condition to create the monster I am today. I guess that's just an excuse, though.

What do you think?

I am certifiably a monster, but it's unclear to me how I could be the cause of that. Did I make a bad choice before I was a monster? Why would I choose that if I wasn't already somewhat monstrous? Is it really fair to place the blame on me? If I'm just a blank slate when I was born, it seems like the only thing that could have turned me into this monster was my experiences. If you subtract the experiences, do you still get a monster? I don't see how or why. After all, what am I? What is the self, without its experiences?

It's a conundrum. I am conflicted. Tell me what I should believe. The first paragraph or the latter two.

EDIT: I guess it could be about how I reacted to those experiences, and even though there was only one way I could react, that specific reaction defines what kind of person I am. It's as if the soul has hidden attributes and a hidden personality of its own that you discover by seeing how it reacts to things. It's either that or you're only seeing how a person would react who has been programmed by early life experiences, and it would make more sense to judge those experiences than the person. I certainly feel like I was a blank slate with no hidden personality within my soul, and by all retrospective accounts, my actions and choices can be perfectly accounted for without hidden soul-variables. If I do have an evil soul, then I don't see how I am responsible for that, either.

EDIT2: I guess the question in my first edit could be restated as, "Are my choices a reflection of who I am fundamentally, or are they a reflection of what I've been through." On the surface, the latter seems much more plausible. However, I suppose 'both' could be construed as the correct answer, although I have to wonder what % is me and what % are the things I've been through. I'm also skeptical of this hidden variable or hidden soul-personality because I can't see how that could provide moral responsibility. Also, what *is* the % that is me? When I make a choice of food, how does it make sense that it's something other than my past experiences determining it? Maybe that's a bad example. Let's say the choice to cheat on my taxes...is it because of some hidden variable in my soul of greediness? If it's not my past experiences that made me greedy, why am I greedy, and how am I responsible for that attribute? It seems like it's 100% past experiences to me still. Perhaps it was prior choices that gradually made me greedy and each was a reflection of who I am. What exactly are they a reflection of? Is it the innate self or the learned self?

Cosmology and Metaphysique

How I understand compatibilist free will