THE FUTURE IS NOT WRITTEN. WE AUTHOR IT.
"The future is not decided in advance, and human beings, as agents, can change it."
The proverb says "where there's a will, there's a way." This page turns it around: because the way (an open future) really exists, the will means something. That position has a name. Philosophy has argued about it for centuries, physics for a hundred years.
Last updated 2026-09-20 / Sister site: FREE WILL WATCH (automatic paper tracking)
The names differ by language, but they point at the same thing: determinism is false, the future is open, and agents make it.
| Language | Name of the position |
|---|---|
| English | libertarian free will / libertarianism (about free will)agent-causal libertarianism / event-causal libertarianism / the open future / incompatibilism / anti-fatalism. "The future is not written — we author it." |
| 日本語 | リバタリアン自由意志論 (metaphysical libertarianism)Components: 行為者因果論 (agent causation), 非決定論 (indeterminism), 開かれた未来 (the open future), 非両立論 (incompatibilism), 反運命論 (anti-fatalism) |
| 中文（简体） | 自由意志论 (libertarianism within incompatibilism)行为者因果论 / 非决定论 / 开放未来 / 反宿命论 |
| 中文（繁体） | 自由意志論行為者因果論 / 非決定論 / 開放未來 / 反宿命論 |
| Français | le libertarianisme (sur le libre arbitre)le libre arbitre libertarien / l'indéterminisme / l'avenir ouvert / l'antifatalisme |
| Deutsch | der Libertarianismus (zur Willensfreiheit)die Willensfreiheit / der Indeterminismus / die offene Zukunft / Agentenkausalität |
| Español | el libertarianismo (sobre el libre albedrío)el libre albedrío libertario / el indeterminismo / el futuro abierto |
| 한국어 | 자유의지론 (리버테리언주의)행위자 인과론 / 비결정론 / 열린 미래 |
Note: this has nothing to do with political libertarianism (small government). It is a philosophical term for the view that free will is real and incompatible with determinism (if determinism were true there would be no free will; determinism is false, so there is). Combine that pillar with "the open future" and you have the whole picture.
FREE WILL WATCH tracks the papers automatically every week. Here is only the skeleton of each theory.
The standard objection says indeterminism doesn't give you freedom, only luck (the "luck problem"). Kane answers with self-forming actions: in the big choices that divide a life, when you genuinely want both paths and settle on one through effort, that decision inside the wobble is the moment "you made yourself." Luck doesn't decide; the person making the effort does.
Key book: The Significance of Free Will (1996).
Drop the assumption that a cause must always be an event. O'Connor argues that the agent as a substance causes the decision, guided by reasons but not reducible to them. He is the most careful modern defender of a line that runs back to Chisholm, and it connects directly to the metaphysics of what a person is.
A neuroscientist at Dartmouth. By resetting synaptic weights, the brain can rewrite what it will use as its next decision criterion (criterial causation). A neuroscience-flavored libertarianism that defends freedom inside physical law without leaning on quantum fluctuations.
An experimental physicist at the University of Geneva. Because quantum correlations cannot be reproduced with real numbers, he argues the future is not fully written by the present state. Probability is not a measure of human ignorance but evidence that "not yet decided" is a real feature of the world. Time really flows; the future is not yet written. In 2026 he published on the physics of open neural dynamics.
Popular book: Quantum Chance (2014).
Compatibilism keeps freedom while granting determinism. These two instead doubt determinism itself. Steward argues that agency, including animal agency, collides with determinism; List derives the falsity of determinism from the reality of free will (Why Free Will Is Real, 2019).
In 2025 Springer opened a Synthese topical collection, Agency and Free Will in an Indeterministic Universe, calling for work on agency in a non-deterministic world. New defenses that combine agent causation with event causation (Moore 2025, Inquiry) are appearing. This is not a quiet minority; it is a moving one.
These theories are still a minority view, and the deterministic reply (isn't the wobble just noise, not freedom?) is strong. This section states the editor's hope openly; it is not a neutral literature review. The papers themselves, defenders and skeptics side by side, are tracked at FREE WILL WATCH.