Yeah, it's a definitional issue on "free will." If it's true that all past and future events on the human scale are predetermined, that of itself does nothing to say the predetermined events were not "freely willed" by the human actors in question, in a manner -they- have implicitly predetermined. It reduces entirely to implicit choice of definitions, which obscures fuzzy arguments about consciousness and the nature of "will."
You can define "an action is freely willed iff it is possible that the actor will take a contrary action instead," but this is an unrealistically strict one which for example breaks down when we consider, say, how the assumption that an agent is rational and utility-maximizing implies they will necessarily choose a clearly superior option and cannot do otherwise without contradicting the assumption. But then again, is the implicit "decision" to be rationally utility-maximizing (in *any* given circumstance, not necessarily overall and in everything) genuinely a -decision- which such an actor "freely wills"? Or is it a compulsion, just like belief?
We certainly don't freely choose our beliefs. Claims of what -is- true, in contrast to those about what -ought to be- true, are independent of personal preference and reflect entirely how one sees the world. We can come to see the world differently as a result of our actions, what we do, what media we consume, what arguments we entertain and how well we try/are able to understand, synthesize, and extend them, sure, but factual belief at any given moment is not itself "chosen."
>If we are slaves to our nature
"Human nature" is an inherently mutable thing which changes depending on the conditions of our existence and upon the actions of others and ourselves, it's not some crystallized thing separate from and above human action. We can be "slaves to our nature" even when that nature includes free will, because we are affected in a definite way by any "chosen" action.
