Compatibilism

Compatibilism is the view that free will and determinism are not actually in conflict — that being "free" means acting from one's own unforced reasons and desires, rather than being uncaused. On this view, a choice can be fully determined by prior causes and still count as free, so long as nothing external coerced it and the agent acted from their own values.

It is the majority position among professional philosophers surveyed on the question, largely because it lets ordinary moral practice — praise, blame, promising, regret — keep functioning without needing to settle physics first. Its standing cost, pressed by hard incompatibilists, is that redefining "free" this way explains why choices FEEL responsible-making, but not why anyone is ultimately, deeply responsible for a choice that was already fixed by causes reaching back before they were born.