In my opinion, your trilemma definitely does not hold. “Free will” is not a monosemantic term, but one that encompasses a range of different meanings both when used by different people and even the same person in different contexts.
is false, because the term is meaningful, but used with different meanings in different contexts;
is false, because you likely have free will in some of those senses and do not in others, and it may be unknown or unknowable in yet more;
is false for the same reason as 2.
For example: your mention of “blame” is a fairly common cluster of moral or pragmatic concepts attached to discussions of free will, but is largely divorced from any metaphysical aspects of free will.
Whether or not a sapient agent metaphysically could have acted differently in that specific moment is irrelevant to whether it is moral or useful to assign blame to that agent for the act (in such discussions, usually an act that harms others). Even under the most hardcore determinism and assuming immutable agents, they can be classified into those that would and those that wouldn’t have performed that act and so there is definitely some sort of distinction to be made. Whether you want to call it “blame” or not in such a world is a matter of opinion.
However, sapient agents such as humans in the real world are not immutable and can observe how such agents (possibly including themselves) are treated when they carry out certain acts, and can incorporate that into future decisions. This feeds into moral and pragmatic considerations regardless of the metaphysical nature of free will.
There are likewise many other concepts tied into such “free will” discussions that could be separated out instead of just lumping them all together under the same term.
In my opinion, your trilemma definitely does not hold. “Free will” is not a monosemantic term, but one that encompasses a range of different meanings both when used by different people and even the same person in different contexts.
is false, because the term is meaningful, but used with different meanings in different contexts;
is false, because you likely have free will in some of those senses and do not in others, and it may be unknown or unknowable in yet more;
is false for the same reason as 2.
For example: your mention of “blame” is a fairly common cluster of moral or pragmatic concepts attached to discussions of free will, but is largely divorced from any metaphysical aspects of free will.
Whether or not a sapient agent metaphysically could have acted differently in that specific moment is irrelevant to whether it is moral or useful to assign blame to that agent for the act (in such discussions, usually an act that harms others). Even under the most hardcore determinism and assuming immutable agents, they can be classified into those that would and those that wouldn’t have performed that act and so there is definitely some sort of distinction to be made. Whether you want to call it “blame” or not in such a world is a matter of opinion.
However, sapient agents such as humans in the real world are not immutable and can observe how such agents (possibly including themselves) are treated when they carry out certain acts, and can incorporate that into future decisions. This feeds into moral and pragmatic considerations regardless of the metaphysical nature of free will.
There are likewise many other concepts tied into such “free will” discussions that could be separated out instead of just lumping them all together under the same term.