That free will makes intellectual and emotional sense is clear to most of us. Some are still not convinced, but maybe it must be this way and let's leave for another occasion a survey of the arguments supporting a view that we are necessarily free from time to time.
Today, let me focus on one aspect of the issue and put the following to you:
To be a person, it is necessary for you to be free in your choice of action, thought or emotion sometimes. Thanks to philosophy, psychology, science and your own insight into your mind's workings, you know that in many situations you are not free. Whether it's nature, nurture or still other aspects of your existence and its context, you often seem to have no choice or be irresistibly directed in what you do, think or feel.
To satisfy the person condition, however, there must be at least one instance when you act, think or feel freely. And what's more, if the common human intuition is right and what the world's major teachers, sages and religions suggest is true, a continuation of your life and your eternal happiness in the World to Come depend, partly of course, on your free moral or interpersonal decisions.
So here is my bet: because it may be impossible to establish with certainty which of your acts are free and because there must be at least one act in your life that is free, treat each of your acts as if it were the act on which the whole of your eternal life and happiness depend. Or risk losing them.
