Abstract

The notion of “will” is analyzed from a historical and contemporary perspective along with a cluster of closely related notions: practical reason, choice, decision, intention, motives, acts of will, free judgments of the will, and the notion of the “voluntary.” Three senses of “will” are distinguished: “desiderative will”, “rational will”, and “striving will”. It is argued that the “will” in all three of these senses must be involved in an adequate account of “free will.”