A free will is necessarily amoral

[CENTER]A free will is necessarily amoral. A determined
will is necessarily moral and non-accountable[/CENTER]

If human beings are truly in possession of a free will that is capable of making choices that are not compelled by genetic and/or environmental causes, and this free will therefore makes such choices for no reason other than to simply exercise its agency, such a free will must be necessarily amoral.

We can test the validity of this proposition by examining it within the context of a specific moral example; the choice of whether or not to steal. A person's free will that has chosen to not steal has, by definition, made this choice completely independent of any cause or reason other than to simply exercise its power to act. However, if the person's free will has chosen without having been compelled by moral considerations, the free will has made its choice amorally. The freely willed choice to not steal cannot be considered a moral choice because it did not rely on moral precepts as its basis or reason. Indeed, a free will that does not base any of its moral choices on moral precepts is necessarily amoral

One might here object that the person's free will could have considered some moral precepts relevant to stealing, and then freely and independently decided to not steal. However, this prospect is incoherent, or logically impossible; a will that chooses to not steal because it considers stealing wrong has based its choice on a moral precept, and this moral precept becomes the cause of the choice. Once a will makes a choice for a moral reason, indeed for any reason, the choice is immediately and completely rendered deterministic, and we can no longer deem the will that made the choice a free will.

Expressed in greater detail, once we have established any reason for a choice, in this case the moral aversion to stealing, we have demonstrated that the choice was made by a determined rather than a free will, and that the choice is therefore subject to a reverse causal chain that stretches back to a cause completely outside of the control of that will. In our example, the person's choice to not steal was caused by a moral aversion to stealing. To explain this moral aversion, we can surmise one of many possible reverse causal chains, such as the following: The person's moral aversion to stealing was caused by having learned from his parents the immorality of stealing. Since this learning was not freely willed or chosen by the person, his choice to not steal was therefore also not freely chosen. The cause of the person's not stealing is the person's parents' morality.

Conversely, if human beings are truly in possession of a determined will whose choices are compelled by genetic and/or environmental causes, and this will makes either moral or immoral choices, such a will must be necessarily moral in the sense that its choices are made according to, and reflect, either moral or immoral reasons. Such a determined will is, however, non-accountable, being neither credit- nor blameworthy for its choices, as explained generally by standard deterministic theory and its principle of cause and effect, and specifically by the above example demonstrating the deterministic nature of a will having chosen to not steal.

The only other case left to examine as we consider a will's morality and accountability is the possibility that humans possess an indetermined will, or a will that makes its choices according to an indeterministic process. An indetermined will must necessarily make its choices indeterministically, or randomly, and, as such, cannot be deemed to make those choices based on moral precepts. Thus an indetermined will cannot make moral decisions, and is, like a free will, categorically amoral.