What are the different ideas about freewill and determinism?

Freewill and determinism are ideas about the extent to which human beings are capable of having their own thoughts, making their own decisions and acting upon those decisions. There are often said to be three broad schools of thought on this issue. 1) Libertarianism 2) Compatiiblism/Soft Determinism 3) Determinism. Within these groups, there is a big variety of opinion and different people justify their positions in different ways. This can seem confusing and a bit unclear, but I will try to give you a brief outline or map of some ideas below. 1) Libertarianism. People who are classed as Libertarians believe that humans are free. They believe that we are able to generate our own thoughts and make decisions based on those thoughts and act upon those decisions. In this case every individual is thought to have complete responsiblity for their actions. 2) Compatiblism/Soft Determinism. Compatibilism is to some extent a middle way between Libertarianism and Determinism. This is why some determinists have called it 'Soft Determinism' in the past - they thought it was a weak version of determinism. This term was often used as a put down so it is best to call this view, or set of views, Compatibilism. Compatibilists generally think that humans are free to some extent and determined (dependent on factors other than our own will) to some extent. There are lots of different ways that this is explained.One way of explaining this is that the thoughts we have and the decisions we make are free, but there are factors that stop us from being able to act on those decisions. For example, you may have the thought that you do not feel well and make the decision that you should go home from school, but there may be rules in place that make this difficult or impossible for you to do. This is a type of social factor that determines what you do. Another way of explaining Compatibilism is that the thoughts we have and the decisions we make are based on things that have happened to us in our lives and our particular psychological and genetic make up - this is called psychological and genetic determinism. However, once we have had those thoughts and made those decisions, we are completely free to act out those decisions or not to and in this way we are free. 3) Determinism Determinism is the opposite to Libertarianism. While libertarians think that we are free in our thought, decisions and actions, determinists think we are not free - but determined - in our thought, decisions and actions. To think that something or someone is determined in this way is to think that they could not think, decide or act other than they do. Even if they think they want to do other than they do, there was never a possiblity that they would have done.Different determinists have different ideas about how we are determined or what determines us. Some people think that our genetics and psychology  determine everything that we think, decide and do. This is sometimes called biological determinism. Other people think that society and the people around us - our parents, friends, teachers and even the media - determine how we will think, decide and act. This is sometimes known as social determinism. There are lots of different people with ideas that fit into different parts of these categories and some that seem to fit into more than one of these categories. This can be confusing, but I hope that I can help you work through those people's ideas, get a really clear idea of what it is they are saying and then consider them in relation to these categories. This will help you to really understand the complexity of the issue we are dealing with.