we really can often, in some sense, do what we don’t do, this decision by itself does not entitle us to say that we have Free Will.
And the first point about which we can and should be quite clear is, I think, this: namely, that we certainly often can, in some sense, do what we don’t do. It is, I think, quite clear that this is so; and also very important that we should realise that it is so. For many people are inclined to assert, quite without qualification: No man ever could, on any occasion, have done anything else than what he actually did do on that occasion. By asserting this quite simply, without qualification, they imply, of course (even if they do not mean to imply), that there is no proper sense of the word “could,” in which it is true that a man could have acted differently. And it is this implication which is, I think, quite certainly absolutely false. For this reason, anybody who asserts, without qualification, “Nothing ever could have happened, except what actually did happen,” is making an assertion which is quite unjustifiable, and which he himself cannot help constantly contradicting. And it is important to insist
