I cannot resist a quick eye roll, because this debate is largely semantic. Much depends on how one defines free will. Clearly we make choices in our lives. We individually use cognition to arrive at those choices. That is far more than instinctual reflex. So....free will.

However, we are shaped and influenced by countless environmental and experiential factors, most of which fly under the radar of our awareness. So none of us is conscious of all the factors or reasons that lead up to our choices. So... there is no such thing as absolute freedom and no such thing as absolute free will.

So we have free will in practice, and it serves us no constructive purpose to try to act as if we don't. At the same time, we are never absolutely independent and never objective in our reasoning.

On a separate point, I completely disagree with Dennet's assertion that humans' decision-making process is fundamentally different than that of other animals. We ARE animals, and the differences in our thinking are by degree, not categorically set apart. Other higher developed animals employ reason in varying ways and by varying degrees, and some also seem to have a degree of self-awareness. As alluded to above, our own self-awareness is not without significant limits.

I heard somewhere that the classic Greek position was that we don't know I we have 'free will' or we don't. (Sorry I don't have a source for that.)

So since I don't have any way to test if my will is free or not, I might as well assume to myself that it is free. That's the choice that I've made as long as I've been able to think about the question.