Free Will : Causal Determinism, Fatalism, And Compatibilism Essay

In this paper, I am going to discuss and argue about free will and determinism. What is free will, and do we have it? Free will is simply the power to act with no constraint, in other words, to act freely with no one holding us down. The controversial argument of this topic is if we have free will or not. According to physical determinism, “If our brain is in a certain state, then our next move is determined. Therefore, we do not have free will” (Holbach). According to others, we do have free will. In my paper, I will talk about the views of Holbach, Stace, and Ayer concerning free will. I will then argue that Ayer has the best view because he has a more serious sense of moral responsibility than Holbach and Stace, and that his view better fits with our normal view of free will.

In this paper I will defend W.T. Stace’s position of compatibilism in respect to the problem of free will, as presented in Religion and the Modern Mind. I will explain Stace’s position on how free will and casual determinism are compatible. I will consider the following two objections against Stace’s position of free will: compatibilism is too weak a notion of free will that it conflicts with determinism, and there is no real difference between free and constrained action.

There are 3 basic views that can be taken on the view of determinism, (1) deny its reality, either because of the existence of free will or on independent grounds; (2) accept its reality but argue for its compatibility with free will; or (3) accept its reality and deny its compatibility with free will.In this paper I am going to be defending the view compatibilism, specifically W. T. Stace’s view of compatibilism.

When discussing the topic of compatibilism, several aspects of the concept must be considered, such as free will and determinism: those who are skeptical and criticize this philosophical position and or stance, are typically weary or concerned with the reality of both free will and determinism flowing freely together.

The subject of freewill and determinism has been a matter of intense debate in the philosophical community for ages with the topic of compatibilism and incompatibilism. This essay will be reviewing and critiquing the work of a very well-known philosopher Peter Van Inwagen and his article “An Argument For Incompatibilism” and what does he mean by freewill and determinism.

The aim of this essay is to prove the reliability of and why Libertarianism is the most coherent of the three Free Will and Determinism views. It refers to the idea of human free will being true, that one is not determined, and therefore, they are morally responsible. In response to the quote on the essay, I am disagreeing with Wolf. This essay will be further strengthened with the help of such authors as C.A. Campell, R. Taylor and R.M. Chisholm. They present similar arguments, which essentially demonstrate that one could have done otherwise and one is the sole author of the volition. I will present the three most common arguments in support of Libertarianism, present an objection against Libertarianism and attempt to rebut it as well as

Determinism is a doctrine suggesting that for every event there exist conditions that could cause no alternative event. Free will is a philosophical term describing a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Understandably, the dichotomy between these two concepts is a topic philosophers have debated over for many years. As a result of these debates, a number of alternative philosophical perspectives arguing for the existence of free will, namely libertarianism and compatibilism, have emerged, existing in stark contrast to determinism. In order to ascertain the extent to which free will is compatible with determinism, one must first consider these different approaches to

In this paper I will present an argument against free will and then I will defend a response to that argument. Free will is defined as having the ability to make our own choices. Some will argue that all of our decisions have already been dictated by our desires therefore we never actually truly make our own choices. The purpose of this paper is to defend the argument that we have free will by attacking the premise that states we have no control over what we desire. I will defeat this premise by showing how one does have control over his/her desires through the idea of self-control. I will then defend my argument against likely rebuttals that state that there is still no way to control our desires proving that we do have free will.

Ever since taking the decision to take a philosophy course I wonder if it was truly my own decision to take it or if it was determined by external factors. Now and then I keep in mind if my actions and thoughts are truly free or not. Is my daily routine of waking up in the morning, eating breakfast, driving to school, going to philosophy class, talking with friends, my own decision or not? In this paper I will present how Derk Pereboom argument against compatibilism does succeed. Furthermore, explain the reason why I agree with Pereboom’s defense on how hard incompatibilsm does exist, and explain why compatibilism does not.

Compatibilism believes in both free will and partial idea of determinism. compatibilism claim that even though everything is determined, however humans have free will in determined life. Both determinism and compatibilism agree with the idea of everything is predetermined, but they disagree on the idea of free will. Determinism believe that there is no free will and Everything is determined while compatibilism no indeed there is free will in determined life, and humans are completely free and responsible of their actions. Compatibilism conclude their argument by our desire and goal are already determined by previous event and casual low of nature, but humans are free and responsible for their

Some proponents of free will argue that by choosing to do something, one causes oneself to act. One could have caused oneself to act in another manner, and therefore the act, although caused by that person, is still a free choice. However, that notion is held under scrutiny because a person who acts freely has no evidence that they have acted of his or her own accord. For all one knows, one’s actions and choices could have been causally determined, and although one thought one was acting out of free will, one is not. There is no definite proof to show that one’s choices are made freely. As A.J. Ayer stated in his essay, Freedom and Necessity, “…but from the fact that a man is unaware of the causes of his action, it does not follow that no such causes exist” (Ayer 272). Since there is no way of knowing if one exercises free will, determinism poses a serious threat to the concept of free thinking and free acting human beings.

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.

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.

William Rowe defines gratuitous evil as an instance of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.(Rowe 335) In a world with so much evil it raises the questions If God is all powerful, all knowing and all good, how can he allow bad things to happen to good people? Can God even exist in a world with so such gratuitous evil? These are questions that has afflicted humanity for a very long time and has been the question to engross theologians for centuries. The existence of evil has been the most influential and powerful reason to disprove the existence of God. It is believed among many theist that God is the creator and caretaker

For years philosophers mauled over mankind 's free will and its connects to moral responsibility. In such discussion they have come up with multiple theories. The three I’ll address today are determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism; are we products of our past unable to choose another course, or are our actions free from the chain of causality and thus our own? I believe that you can’t take these two questions as black and white. In my opinion compatibilism - which attempts to merge free will and determinism - explains our situation as humans, with a sense of moral responsibility, more clearly.