compatibilism

It's right there on page 98 of "Freedom Evolves" by D. Dennet. He tries, and actually does a pretty good job, of explaining that we, as humans, have free will, but yet, also, our choices are determined by who we are, biologically, and by what we have experienced. The only alternative to that is completely random behavior, and that really isn't possible.

If you are going to be a psychotherapist, or if you are going to be in therapy, then you have to believe this. A large part of the job of being a therapist is to figure out why people are doing what they are doing, even when they say, as my clients did last Thursday, that they didn't mean to behave that way.

Take any confident, healthy 40 to 55 year-old man who has been married for a long time, dangle in front of him an attractive, eager, willing, smitten woman, and he is going to have trouble saying no (right, Bill?). It's partly biological.

But what about free will? Is the poor guy responsible for his behavior?

Of course he is. That's because we, as humans, have the capacity for thought and reflection. We can think about what we are doing AND, what we are going to do. Thinking is an experience. It adds to the long time of other experiences you have had that influence your behavior.

Therapy, to a large degree, is thinking. You think about how you feel and what makes you feel that way. You learn, hopefully, to think more before you act. You learn to make connections between actions and feelings. You learn to anticipate -- which is really what intelligence is all about. So, if you come to therapy you get smarter.

That is why our lives are determined by everything we are and everything that has happened to us, BUT it is still compatible with our having free will, and the responsibility for our actions and decisions.

If you want your life to improve, think about what you are doing. It's that simple.

But, of course, that isn't simple a all.