Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future

by Pete Buttigieg

For example, in a philosophical debate over the nature of free will, we were required to confront just how difficult it is to define what “free will” even means. We considered one definition: that a freely chosen act is one taken by someone who could have done otherwise. It felt intuitively like a good way of describing free will: if I did something, and could have done something else, then clearly I made this choice freely. But then, another philosopher pointed out, what if you chose to stay in a room all day because you wanted to, but without your knowing it the door was locked from the outside? It turns out you could not have done otherwise, but we also would believe this choice was a free one, so clearly a more precise definition had to be found . . . and the refinements and arguments would go from here.