The faculty or power of using one's will to make conscious choices and decisions. The act of making a deliberate choice or decision through conscious intent.
From French 'volition', from Medieval Latin 'volitio', from Latin 'velle' meaning 'to wish' or 'to will'. The root appears in words like 'volunteer' and 'voluntary'. Entered English in the 17th century as philosophers developed more sophisticated concepts of free will.
Volition sits at the heart of philosophical debates about free will - it's that mysterious capacity to choose that seems to separate conscious beings from mechanical processes! The word captures something profound about human agency: not just having preferences, but actively willing outcomes into existence.
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