We usually can't know how, and we probably should not even ask, how our lives contribute to a better world.
Allen W. WoodWe can establish empirical criteria for free actions, and investigate human actions on the presupposition we are free.
Allen W. WoodFor the utilitarian, there is a fact of the matter about the good (the general happiness, or whatever conception of the good the utilitarian adopts) and about which actions or moral rules would contribute to maximizing the good. For the rational intuitionist, there are truths about which actions should be done and not done.
Allen W. WoodWe can never prove that we are free or integrate our freedom in any way into our objective conception of the causal order of nature.
Allen W. Wood