Free will is harder to define and has religious, ethical and scientific implications. In religion, man's free will coexist with God's divinity. Ethically, man's free will implies that man can be held morally accountable for his action and scientifically, free will is just a matter of predicting human behaviour. Hobbes is quoted as saying that man is perceived as being free as an unimpeded river (Ross, 2012) and for one to be free is to act as one will but to be un-free is to be forced by others. One could take this to mean that the river would always flow downstream but is free to flow within the river bed unless forced by external forces, such as flood, to overflow its banks or by drought to stop flowing. However, does this really mean being free, as floods and droughts are pre-determined as they are acts of nature. If the river was truly free it would flow where it wanted, how it wanted and when it wanted. Therefore one could reason that using Hobbes' definition and trying to reconcile it with determinism, man is free so long as he acts within the confines of determinism and if his actions are forced within the confines of determinism he is then not free. Hume states that being free is to act as one will but that one's passions, motives and desires provide us with a reason for our actions (Ross, 2012). .

             One's passions, motives and desires are predetermined by genetic makeup, familial and societal factors (Ross, 2012). One could argue that familial and societal pressures and genetic pre-disposition then leave little scope for an individual to act freely. In traditionalist societies, such as a traditional Indian society where arranged marriages are the norm, it is expected that every individual marries. Who he/she marries is determined by the parents based on the compatibility of the two parties' horoscopes or star signs, the time of the marriage is determined by the priest. So how much freedom does the individual really have in this life choice? Dennett defends his thesis of motivated freedom and distinguishes between determinism and inevitability.