I think you have the beginnings of an answer in your characterisation of free will as “the process of your neural networks operating normally on a particular decision.” The keyword being “normally.” In both cases you cite the neural networks were functioning abnormally and in the case of Charles (at least) he exhibited some awareness that he was behaving abnormally. Now obviously, normal or abnormal, it’s all just biology. The normative component comes in with the concept of free will itself. Generally our cognitive concepts only apply to normal cases—for the obvious reason that they developed to describe normal cases—and there are borderline cases where they begin to break down. It’s probably best to think of the concept being inapplicable in those cases rather than imagining a tumour (or whatever) to be somehow infringing on free will.
If the concept become inapplicable because the implementing mechanism becomes broken, it still makes sense to think of a tumour as encroaching on the mechanism
I think you have the beginnings of an answer in your characterisation of free will as “the process of your neural networks operating normally on a particular decision.” The keyword being “normally.” In both cases you cite the neural networks were functioning abnormally and in the case of Charles (at least) he exhibited some awareness that he was behaving abnormally. Now obviously, normal or abnormal, it’s all just biology. The normative component comes in with the concept of free will itself. Generally our cognitive concepts only apply to normal cases—for the obvious reason that they developed to describe normal cases—and there are borderline cases where they begin to break down. It’s probably best to think of the concept being inapplicable in those cases rather than imagining a tumour (or whatever) to be somehow infringing on free will.
If the concept become inapplicable because the implementing mechanism becomes broken, it still makes sense to think of a tumour as encroaching on the mechanism