A specific categorical imperative
My question is whether there is a concept of free will and whether we can ever attain individuality, or whether lack of free will constrains us from ever achieving the individuality that we wish to achieve.
On the one hand, we believe that we are gifted with the ability to choose happiness and liberty would we so wish and create ourselves into the individuals that we believe is necessary for our life's liberty and contentment. On the other hand, certain aspects seem beyond our control. Some are born handicapped and others in ghetto-like poverty. Still others are born in rigid, fundamentalist type backgrounds where they are indoctrinated and socialized in a certain type of thinking that causes them to perceive aspects in a certain way, to judges, a and act accordingly. The question can be extended to any and all, civilizations without going to the extremes of turning to religious or socialist regimes for illustration. After all, we all live in a hub of geo-historical circumstance that makes us revolve on a certain wheel and turn around with the fads and norms of the time.