INTRODUCTION A verage persons, unschooled in philosophical reasoning, assume that when they make a choice they are free to choose from among various alternatives , the simplest of which are to assent or deny - to say yes or no - to some simple action. Humans everywhere have what Immanuel Kant called "The Idea of Freedom" in his great work Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals . Kant based his "categorical imperatives" - without which morality and responsibility would be impossible - on the presumed fact that freedom is a universal idea. Now determinists generally deny both freedom and moral responsibility , while compatibilists generally assert a special form of free will compatible with determinism that allows them to defend responsibility . But note the curious fact that all the participants in the free will debates are in basic agreement with Kant that there exists an Idea of Freedom , even as some deny that there is something phenomenally and ph...