1) The absence of human coercion or restraint preventing one from choosing the alternatives one would wish.
2) The absence of physical constraints in natural conditions which prevent one from achieving one’s chosen objectives.
3) The possession of the means or the power to achieve the objective one chooses of one’s own volition.
To be completely free, or to do something of your own free will, it is essential that you could have acted otherwise. If you cannot avoid acting in a particular way, then your action is not free. While it is generally understood that human beings have the ability to think and act freely as rational and moral agents, the common causal laws by which all human activities and responses are governed are incontestable. It is this conflict that provides the real problem of how we are free.
It is hard to refute determinism in a world where almost all scientific disciplines depend on physical cause and effect. Scientific and philosophical views seem to object to the idea of indeterminism, and Hume’s compatibilism (we’re simultaneously both determined and free) does not seem to work either. Original agent causation through the power of the will is also no solution, offering only the even more difficult problem of mind and body dualism. With no clear answer, and only garrulous analytical disputation in sight, it is easy to see why the mainstream media redefines ‘freedom’. It has an answer.
