If we take an empirical point of view in which our ideas and concepts all derive from our observations, the relationship between Free Will and Determinism seems interesting.
Free Will is derived from the act of simply choosing, or you may say the illusion of making conscious decisions (depending on your position regarding Free Will). Or in other words Free Will is the extrapolation of our observation of a decision making act. To make things clearer, consider this, we observe numbers and large numbers, hence there is a concept of large numbers and we extrapolate this idea saying that there is an extremely large number the googol and there is the abstract idea of infinity, although we never observe this. This illustrates how the concept of Free Will may be generated empirically.
If Free Will is only a derivative concept and since the observation which it derives from is true, that yes there is an act of choosing in my world, then the idea cannot be simply dismissed, you cannot say that there is no free will.
This of course does not deal with the nature of free will.
Determinism can still be true. If determinism is true then the act of choosing is determined and not a conscious act. Then freewill becomes a subset of determinism since the act of simply choosing is a product of determinism, be it Divine or mechanistic.
This is not dealing with the well defined metaphysical concept of free will, but with our idea of free will, the free will shape that our mind has. This is what we can deal with naturally without any effort on studying what others define free will as. This is our Natural Empirical Free Will Thought Shape.
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