Well, your question asks on a few different levels. There is the personal level, the societal/community level, and the over-encompassing reality. On the perso

Well, your question asks on a few different levels. There is the personal level, the societal/community level, and the over-encompassing reality. On the personal level, we're restricted somewhat by our current situation, so you have free will like a stream has the ability to curve paths down a mountain. It could go left or right, but every decision branches, and if the stream is going quickly, there is less choice involved, whereas if it is running slowly or smoothly, there is a lot of directability. On the societal level, our basic premise here in the United States is that we are all entitled to life liberty and property, and conventionally we extend this to happiness. Actions that don't impinge on another citizen's path to these are considered alright, and I think that is a fine way to be: don't harm others. Why? Well you wouldn't want it to happen to you, and in the world of generalities (and overall reality) you could just as easily have been born on the other end of that string/strand. Then what would absolute free will be? Well, the ability to change your body shape, change your environment by thinking.. perhaps even with less effort than is involved in "thinking" with words and images. It's an interesting question, but in general free will is the ability to direct your flow, it doesn't necessarily entail being able to change the pre-existing flow, unless you mean gradually. I find the river and stream metaphor extremely valuable in this context, and have heard karma spoken of in a similar fashion. Everything dissolves, you can make skillful actions and direct your stream to goodness. Ideally, intelligent and sensitive people are directing their flows to unbound potential, because as you can see, it is easy to continue into a spiral that minimizes, whereas it is actually possible with effort to "flow back up" the mountain, coming to a place of total potential, where you might be able to experience or talk about an "absolute free will" Thus, in my simpleton opinion, free will is not an absolute unless you are directing your own capacities toward the experience of an absolute freedom. The Supreme Court thing... could you provide an example?