Are we really in control of our actions, or are they predetermined by our brains? In a series of articles for The Chronicle of Higher Education, six academics from diverse fields of study debate “what science can and cannot tell us about free will.”

For centuries, the idea that we are the authors of our own actions, beliefs, and desires has remained central to our sense of self. We choose whom to love, what thoughts to think, which impulses to resist. Or do we?