Is 'free will' an illusion?

I've been studying determinism and libertarianism in Ethics recently, which has been rather brilliantly timed considering it made me think about in greater detail the thoughts that had already been in my head for quite a while. I'm on the roots to becoming a sociological determinist, essentially. And I've said previously that free will is, indeed, an illusion. It's not a wacky claim by any means; in fact it is entirely rational and a product of common sense. I shall now tell you why and develop that into a greater pondering on adjoining thought processes.

There are two aspects to human development or characteristics: nurture and nature. Before we are born, genes incline us towards certain things, or perhaps restrict us. After we are born, society nurtures and builds our character and (here lying the difference between determinism and libertarianism) our moral self. That is my belief, anyway. And bearing in mind from the moment we are born, and even before we are born in the case of genetics, we are externally built as an individual in both of these senses, how can we have free will? Our entire character has been built and shaped by society and to what I believe is a lesser degree, our genes.

I'd rather ignored the genes side of this argument, focusing more on the sociological side, which is what made me a sociological determinist, briefly. But there is an incredibly interesting article I read that focuses largely on genetics and free will. For instance, you know when you're just sitting down doing nothing of interest and just decide to tap your finger on the desk, randomly? Scientists can observe brain patterns and would be able to know that you were about to tap your finger on the desk before you'd done it, or thought of it. That presents the idea of us being products of our genes; and our actions being products of our genes further from that.

I'm less convinced by that whole segment, largely as I believe nobody knows enough about genetics to commit to an argument the exact implications they mean for the person we will become, or more pertinently the character we will go on to represent. I like to focus on the sociological side of things, really. I believe that free will is to a great degree a complete illusion as it is decided by our character. And this character has been built through exposure to external influences within society its entire life. It is the most inherent and pertinent influence on our being and it shapes, eventually, every action we will make.

I kind of extended this idea past ethics to a more socialist view on things. I already believed that society is irrelevant to any moral outlook, and no morals lie in society, and also that the role of society should be to ensure nobody is disadvantaged before they even have the chance of entering it. This is a very socialist view, I'm saying that as morals do not themselves lie within society; they are priori concepts made to be reached with the mind, the least a society can do is give everyone an equal playing field at the time someone is born into it, to give everyone an equal chance of achieving their potential; whether that be morally, or in any other sense of the word. I'm not condoning full blown communism here, I'm not saying that everyone should always be equal as we must reap the products of our actions, but I'm saying that nobody should be disadvantaged before they are born or have a chance to do otherwise.

Now, a hard determinist would say that things are always destined to be as such. They would say that due to the inherent chain of causation of the universe, which also applies to humans and human actions, external influences would destine a child from a family of smokers to always smoke, and (this is the political extension I made) a child from a poor family to always do worse.

Now, let me defend the hard determinist for a second. Of course the child from a family of smokers does not always smoke. But the cases in which they don't end up smoking would have to be due to another internal chain of causation; essentially to be a hard determinist you don't need or have the ability to predict things that will happen, but you recognise that there is and always will be a cause to everything- including human actions.

I am saying as an extension that whilst a child from a poor family will not always do worse in life, they are far more likely to. This is because society sets up a chain of obstacles that aren't present for the richer families to make life and fulfilling their potential far more difficult to do. Now clearly the child from the poor family will not always fail in life. Clearly not. But they are more likely to. Society disadvantages a child that should have equal rights at birth by throwing unnecessary obstacles in its way that it doesn't throw in the path of others. Not only is society the bane of all morality, it also irrationally screws people over.

Now really I'm a soft determinist as I'm saying that there isn't a definitive path and timeline laid out in front of everything. I'm saying that things are far more likely to happen, but they needn't necessarily happen. Either way, free will is the product of a character developed by society and thus is nothing more than a brainchild and will always have its limits. What is free will? Am I free to fly? I'm certainly free to have a go; but is the freedom of having the choice the concept of free will in itself?

This all presents itself rather nicely in John Locke's locked door analogy, where there is a man in a locked room that he does not know is locked, but chooses to stay sitting in the room and the question is asked of whether he is free to leave at that moment. He is certainly free to choose to leave. It will inevitably turn out that the door is locked, but he entirely has the free will to choose to leave. The external circumstances of someone locking the door are restricting him; like the external circumstances of me not having wings are restricting me from being free to fly and the external circumstances of a worse environment and financial disadvantage will restrict the poor child. Now the latter of these would be the one argued as not definite. In a way, yes. But it's surely undeniable that it is as disadvantage to not have these luxuries? Even if we're not saying that not having these luxuries definitively brings you a destiny of failure; nobody is saying that. The fact is that it is a restrictive external circumstance.

What's interesting is that I argued the libertarian perspective when this issue was raised. I'd argued that he was free. That just because the door is locked doesn't mean it will be locked when he gets up and decided to open it. So long as he has the illusion of a choice the choice is still there and there is still the chance of the door not being locked. Just because every time I drop a ball gravity brings it to the ground doesn't mean it will the next time I do it. I think he is free. This is all rather strange, of course. And doesn't combine my two beliefs to any degree.

So how can I argue free will is an illusion? Who knows. I can't believe it's an entire illusion, but I do to a large degree. Our choices are made by a character that is built by external circumstances. The inevitable chain of causation is ever more inherent and pertinent in this context. I believe that morality lies outside of society; so one can always be free to reason and as long as they reach beyond society then they can always be free in one sense. But the man in the room wasn't even doing this. So it's all very confusing.

Yes, I have many tangents to spring off from but I think I best restrain myself. In summary, and to justify myself:

Free will is, to a degree, an illusion as our character is built by a series of external circumstances and this is what makes our decisions.

Good day, one and all.