Free Will And The Human Brain And Our Emotions

Human factors are involved wildly in human behaviors and various social systems, including social laws and religion doctrines. Just like what I mentioned previously, scientists believe that the human life is pre-determined and human’s behavior is inevitable. They consider that if someone has all the information of one person, he or she may get to know how he or she is going to change in advance. But from the point of view throughout the history of human society people often turn to emphasize personal responsibility. Law and legal penalties for criminals act based entirely on the idea of individual “free will”. Most Jewish and Christian also believed that individuals should be responsible for the crime and suspects should be punished. We can imagine a psychology professor who believes determinism would say to a student: "You have to concentrate to your study, otherwise you will get nothing!" You can see the contradiction of human behaviors from this typical and ironic statement above, and notice that there exists a deviation between theoretical knowledge and actual human behaviors.

Their wills, which are believed to be freely gained, are actually the result of a causal chain originating from birth. The fact that humans are governed by their genes and environment means that the ability to make moral decisions as free agents is illusory. For these reasons, the hard determinist position, which is a sound, science-based theory, seems to be incompatible with the concept of free will.

Determinism is the idea that everything we do as humans is determined by events prior to us being born and events that have happened in the past. Decisions that you may think are based on your desires, are actually based of things beyond your control. But the big question is, if determinism is

There are those who think that our behavior is a result of free choice, but there are also others who believe we are servants of cosmic destiny, and that behavior is nothing but a reflex of heredity and environment. The position of determinism is that every event is the necessary outcome of a cause or set of causes, and everything is a consequence of external forces, and such forces produce all that happens. Therefore, according to this statement, man is not free.

The debate between free will and determinism is something that will always be relevant, for people will never fully admit that we have no free will. But, while we may feel that we control what we do in life, we simply do not. The argument for free will is that individuals have full control and responsibility over their actions, and what they become in life as a whole (The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility by Galen Strawson, page 16). Determinism, on the other hand, is saying that we have no control over our actions and that everything we do in life is determined by things beyond our control (Strawson, page 7). After analysis of The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility by Galen Strawson and Freedom and Necessity by A. J. Ayer,

It also depends on how we explain free will; free will in this case is how one acts out on their own will. Our genetics can determine how we can act. When our

The deterministic view has its strengths and weaknesses and some of the popular explanations of human behavior that exemplify the determinist view are human nature, the environment, psychological forces and social dynamics. The human nature is based on the view that our actions are a direct consequence from our inborn nature and whether we do good or evil in life is beyond our control and we cannot alter our fundamental character. The environment explains that behaviors are direct products of the

The first matter to be noted is that this view is in no way in contradiction to science. Free will is a natural phenomenon, something that emerged in nature with the emergence of human beings, with their

As humans, free will is something we commonly assume we have. When evaluating what free will is, we become less certain. David Hume calls it “the most contentious question of metaphysics.” In simplistic terms, free will is having the ability to determine your own plan of action. There is a relationship between free will and freedom of action and causal determinism that must be evaluated to have a complete understanding of free will. There are compatibilist views that believe in free will and incompatibilist views that imply there is no free will. Free will is also related to both theological determinism and logical determinism.

This essay is to describe Sigmund Freud’s and Carl Rogers’ differing concepts of human psychology concerning determinism. Freud is known to be a determinist. This means that he believes that humans don’t have free will, that there are forces beyond the individuals control which control their actions and underlying reasons behind behaviours. (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/). Rogers is known as a non-determinist. This is the belief that humans have free will, that they control their own behaviours, desires and are not bound by laws (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/free-will?q=free+will). However a new idea which mostly stems from the cognitive approach has been created called “Soft – Determinism.” This is the idea that people have a degree of free will. That our behaviours and desires are mostly determined however we can choose specific ways to act in particular situations.

In part five of the textbook, Philosophy: The Quest For the Truth, the concept of freedom of the will and determinism is discussed in great lengths. The argument of free will and determinism between psychologists and philosophers has existed for centuries. People who are determined assume that outside, as well as internal forces, determine behavior. In addition to this they understand that although this is true in their eyes, people are free to choose their own behavior. According to the textbook, Philosophers assume that people seem to accept determinism, which is defined as being, “the view that events are determined or necessitated by preceding physical causes and the laws of nature (394)”. This being valid brings up many questions that

Do you believe that humans have free will in their decisions, or are they entirely a product of their personal environment, circumstances, upbringing, etc.

Whether we have free will is widely controversial. The absence of a universal definition poses a primary problem to this question. In this essay, I shall base my argument on a set of three conditions for free will: 1) that the actor is unconstraint in his action, 2) the actor could have acted otherwise and 3) the actor must be ‘ultimately responsible’ (Kane, 2005: 121) for his action. After I have explained them, I shall apply these conditions to three scenarios that cover most, if not any, circumstances that occur when taking choices. The purpose of this essay is to show that if my conditions are true, none of the scenarios is based on free will and thus we do not have free will.

Partly due to this being a critical part of everyone’s lives and also partly because determining if there is free will helps to address if a person is responsible for their actions, especially when they go against what is perceived as morally correct by society. The three theories about free will handle this issue in different ways. The first to be addressed will be the determinist. The determinist does not believe that there is free will, due to the belief that every action comes about due to a previous cause and cannot come about for no reason (Rachels 97). This would go against what is known about the world through our understanding of science. Therefore, this theory asserts that since a person cannot control the previous causes that would bring about their current action, there must not be free will. This has led some of its proponents to argue that man is not accountable to his actions, as he cannot control the circumstances that have led to an immoral action. One of these proponents, B.D. Skinner, believed that people’s choices were based on the conditioning they had been subjected to in their lives, and that this conditioning should also be to blame for the actions of people. He proposed that, since the actions had been determined by the conditioning of the person, that free will is not possible and punishment should be based on new conditioning

     Before one can properly evaluate the entire debate that enshrouds the Free Will/Determinism, each term must have a meaning, but before we explore the meaning of each term, we must give a general definition. Determinism is, "Everything that happens is caused to happen. (Clifford Williams. "Free Will and Determinism: A Dialogue" pg 3). This is the position that Daniel, a character in Williams’ dialogue, chooses to believe and defend. David Hume goes a little deeper and explains in his essay, "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding of Liberty and Necessity," that determinism is this: "It is universally allowed, that matter, in all its operations, is actuated by a necessary force, and