difference, as long as we recognize first that there are limitations to our freedom. In the first place, "We are not . . . and never can be fully responsible for whether and how much we are responsible" (147). This conclusion is not only accurate, but it also liberates us from struggling to see ourselves as more free than we could ever possibly be. In other words, there are innumerable factors and circumstances in our world and in our lives which limit our free will.
However, Wolf is not writing merely of those factors and circumstances of which we are aware, but also those that escape our awareness. She writes that free will means nothing unless we are able to use right reason in assessing the choices before us as we prepare to exercise that free will:
It would be nice if there were a method for determining how much and what kinds of influences on our characters and values were consistent with right reason. . . . There is no such method, and so there is always the risk that aspects of our identities limit our status as free and responsible beings in ways we are helpless to discern and so equally helpless to remove (Wolf 146).
In her conclusion to the book, Wolf brings these questions and issues to bear on the real world.
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