Speaker A argues believing in free will matters because it makes people feel capable, even if it's not real. Speaker B counters that ignoring evidence against it is willful ignorance. They circle back to whether questioning free will itself proves you have it.
Regardless of whether or not you actually have free will, it's a very important principle in my mind that you at least believe free will is a thing, because it's very empowering to, like, take agency in your life.
Sorry, are you just arguing that in order for free will to exist, we need to ignore the fact that it doesn't?
Well, you could interpret it that way, or you could interpret it that rather it doesn't matter if free will exists or not. It's what we will into action in believing.
Yeah, but if you insert ignorance within the equation of whether free will exists or not, all of a sudden you're contaminating it as if Like, is it— it's a super meta question, right?
Like, oh, is it free will to ask yourself if you have free will? Your ability to say yes to that is your expression of free will. You know, the summary in my mind is that I think that's something that's lacking for a lot of people and is a very sad truth in society, is, you know, giving people more of a feeling of like agency and competency and feeling like, oh, I can do things.
