Over two-thirds of Americans are Libertarians about Free Will

Based on a representative, random survey of 1,000 Americans, approximately 69% of the US believes in incompatibilist free will (often called libertarianism, though it is unrelated to the political position). Libertarians believe that the future is not predetermined either by science, God's foreknowledge, or the principle of sufficient reason, claiming that individuals could have done other than they would have done, making choices that are non-deterministic.

These views are very consistent with the participant's responses from elsewhere in the survey. Over 90% of Americans said they either agree (44%) or strongly agree (46%) with the statement that free will exists (which approximately corresponds to the sum of the share of compatibilists and libertarians, who both claim that different kinds of free will exist).

Additionally, around 20% of Americans said they either agree or strongly agree with the statement that our choices are determined by physical, chemical, and biological processes, roughly corresponding to the total hard determinists and compatibilists combined (it is slightly lower, possibly due to people who are determinists due to God's foreknowledge instead of physical laws). This seems to indicate that a majority of Americans are fairly consistent in their view that libertarian free will exists.

What Philosophers Mean By Free Will

The debate in philosophy around the topic of free will can be summed up in the following three intuitive claims, which cannot all be held at once:

1. The universe follows deterministic laws (laws of physics, plan of God, cause and effect etc.).

2. Free will is the ability to do other than you are determined to do by these laws.

3. Free will exists.

Because you cannot hold all of these propositions at once, you must choose one of them to reject to remain logically consistent. Hard determinists reject the last premise, claiming that free will does not exist. Compatibilists reject the second premise, and offer a different explanation for what makes actions free (being free of coercion for example). Libertarians (once again referring to metaphysical libertarians, not to be confused with political libertarians), reject the first premise and argue that because we have free will, the universe is not actually deterministic. This study shows that a majority of Americans fall into the third of these camps. For more on these positions and their corollaries (incompatibilism, freedomism, and determinism), check out this series.

Religion, Race, and Philosophy Education Associated with Views of Free Will

There are several demographic characteristics that are associated with beliefs about free will. The most prominent is religion, though not in the way that the problem of evil and the free will defense might lead us to expect.

One argument against the philosophical problem of evil (how can an all powerful, all knowing, all good, God coexist with evil?), is the free will defense (even the omnipotent can't make logical contradictions, free will is a greater good than the harms it causes, free will is logically incompatible with forcing people to choose the good, and all evil is caused by free will). There are many issues with this defense, but one of the most prominent is that it requires a libertarian view of free will (as otherwise, God could have simply created a world where people always freely choose the good). Therefore, one might expect for religious individuals to be more likely to be libertarians about free will.

However this is not the case, in fact those with no religion are 17.4%*** more likely to be libertarians using a linear probability regression. Christians are 8.5%*** less likely to be libertarians, while those of other religions are 20.3%*** less likely (possibly since some of these other religions don't have the problem of evil since they don't believe in a single, all powerful god).

Christians are in fact 11.5%*** more likely to be compatibilists, while those of other religions are 17.8%*** more likely to be hard determinists. This might be connected with the impacts we see based on race as well (given that many who are of other religions are non-white). Non-white people are 8.3%*** more likely to be hard determinists and 11.1%*** less likely to be libertarians.

Another demographic difference we see has to do with philosophy education. Americans with a philosophy degree, either an undergraduate (major or minor) or graduate degree, are 11.1%*** more likely to be hard determinists and 12.4%*** less likely to be libertarians based on basic linear probability models. Conversely, those who have never taken a philosophy class are 5.5%*** less likely to be determinists, and 4.5%* more likely to be compatibilists.

Views on AI Consciousness and the Afterlife Closely Linked to Views of Free Will

There are a number of other philosophical questions on this survey that are closely linked to views on free will. Some of these are predictable, as noted above. Those who think free will exists are more likely to be libertarians and less likely to be determinists. Those who think physical processes determine our actions are more likely to be determinists or compatibilists and less likely to be libertarians.

Others are more surprising. Using a dominance analysis, the strongest predictor of determinism (above even denying the claim that free will exists or the claim that our actions are determined by science) is a belief in AI consciousness. Agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement "AI LLM's (like ChatGPT) have consciousness" increases your chances of being a determinist by 36%***. Those who said normal computers and smart phones have consciousness were also significantly more likely (30%***) to be determinists using a linear probability model.

While it may not be immediately apparent, this makes a certain degree of sense. If you think that there is something special about human minds that gives us both free will and consciousness, you might be less likely to think that an AI has consciousness. Put another way, if AI systems have consciousness, but are fully dependent on deterministic processes (in a clearer way than human minds are) it becomes harder to distance human minds from deterministic processes and assert libertarian free will.

Libertarianism and compatibilism were more predicted by views on the afterlife. Being a non-moral afterlife exclusivist (those who think that getting into the good afterlife only requires believing in the right religion) increased the chances of being a compatibilist by 22.8%*** and decreased the chances of being a libertarian by 11.1%***. Conversely, skepticism about the afterlife overall increased the chances of being a libertarian by 19.9%*** while decreasing the chances of being a compatibilist by 13.1%*** and decreasing the chances of being a determinist by 6.8%***. The full dominance analysis for Libertarianism and Determinism can be found below.

Methodology Specifics

Before leaving, here are the specifics of how the question we have been focusing on was asked. This study was conducted in March of 2026 on a representative sample of Americans. For more on the overall methodology of this survey consult this blog post. As we publish more blogs on this survey the information on the questions for the other philosophical positions will come out. The best attempt was made to make the statements succinctly represent the three positions, while still being accessible to a general audience without too much philosophical lingo. Of the statements, 1 corresponds to determinism, 2 corresponds to libertarianism, and 3 corresponds to compatibilism.

Which statement best describes your view of free will and the future?

1. The future is predetermined and so people do not have free will (you cannot choose to do other than what you would always have done).

2. The future is not predetermined, so people do have free will (you can choose to do otherwise).

3. The future is predetermined, but free will means something other than being able to do otherwise (e.g. not being coerced).

To validate these data we also used two Likert statements "Free Will Exists" and "Physics, chemistry, and biology completely determine the choices you will make"

Data like these are a public good that can help us all understand how normal people view important philosophical questions. Our goal is to put out more surveys like this in the future, but we need your help! Have you ever wanted to ask a philosophical question to a representative sample of Americans? Have you ever been curious about how normal people see questions that are important to philosophers? You now have the chance to get your question on our next nationally representative survey! We need around $2,500 to conduct another survey, hopefully in the next few months. Visit our Patreon page to find out more. Here's how you can help:

• Raw Data $10: If you want access to the raw data from the survey we just finished, it is available! You can use it to run and publish whatever analyses you want, just 1) don't publish the raw data yourself and 2) make sure to give credit to Carneades.org. We'll even throw in the data from our pre-survey of 100 people.

• Likert Statement $30: Want to see how much Americans agree or disagree with a certain statement? For just $30, you can add a statement to our Likert question, where participants will respond to it with Strongly Agree, Agree, Neither Agree or Disagree, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree. The statement must be about philosophy, less than 150 characters, and safe for work. We'll include the raw data from the next survey.

• Multiple Choice Question $150: Want to design and ask your own multiple choice question? You can have up to 1000 characters in the question and up to 500 characters in each of the answers. Only up to 10 answers are allowed. The question must be about philosophy and safe for work. We'll include the raw data from the next survey. We will even throw in a Likert statement (as described above) and the raw data from the next survey for free!

  
  

We reserve the right to edit any statement for grammar, spelling, or to clarify any philosophical ideas for the respondents. We also reserve the right to reject any statements, but will give a full refund for any that are rejected.

Notes:

All graphs show the total sample cut first by the free will question first, then by the demographic group or other philosophical question. So, when a graph shows 70% for Afterlife Pluralism and Libertarianism, it means that 70% of Afterlife Pluralists are Libertarians, regardless of which value is used for grouping vs color. All margins of error are calculated at the 95% confidence level.

Dominance analysis is run with all of the views in the study converted to binary or Likert scales. All likelihood estimates are created using a linear probability model with both dependent and independent variable treated as binaries.

*Significant at the p < 0.1 level

**Significant at the p < 0.05 level

*** Significant at the p < 0.01 level

How to Cite this Report:

Carneades (2026). Over two-thirds of Americans are Libertarians about Free Will. Experimental Philosophy. https://www.carneades.org/post/over-two-thirds-of-americans-are-libertarians-about-free-will