Free Will Sociology

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.

On the surface, Brave New World may look like a simple book with insignificant meaning, but when readers dig deeper into the text, it holds dozens of lessons and morals for a “modern” society. The book addresses the problems of removing individuals’ identities and it also acknowledges how happiness often masks deeper problems. This novel discusses the dehumanization of humanity and the idea that technology can control society. Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World, investigates the consequences of a society where the government grants free will but not freedom.

The question of free will has been a never ending discussion by philosophers and ordinary everyday people for decades. In this paper I will be analyzing the case of Ethan couch, a 16 year old boy accused of manslaughter under the influence of alcohol, from the three different viewpoints of free will; a hard determinist, a compatibilist and a libertarian. Then I will discuss which view I agree best with under the specific conditions of this case.

In Brave New World Aldous Huxley, creates a dystopian society which is scientifically advance in order to make life orderly, easy, and free of trouble. This society is controlled by a World State who is not question. In this world life is manufactured and everyone is created with a purpose, never having the choice of free will. Huxley use of irony and tone bewilders readers by creating a world with puritanical social norms, which lacks love, privacy and were a false sense of happiness is instituted, making life meaningless and controlled.

To an extent, I think that free will is an answer to the questions of God’s existence and why there is still evil in the world. In order to have free will, one must be able to make a choice. A choice between good and evil, right and wrong, or moral and immoral. But another point that is brought up is interesting to me. What about the things that are not one’s choice? Things like cancer and sickness, natural disasters, and ultimately death from things that are out of one’s control. If a all powerful and loving God does exist, why do these things? Our book says “But once one recognizes that a natural order is required for meaningful human freedom, the possibility emerges that human beings might inadvertently get caught in the gears of nature’s mechanism.” Growing up in the christian church, I was taught that everything happens for a reason. Some verses that jump out to me are:

The philosophical battle of free will and determinism has been present for centuries, bringing with it a host of moral and ethical implications. However, since scientist’s production of the first recombinant DNA and its hybridization in 1972 (genome.gov) genetic determinism has taken on a new set of circumstances. “Since the 1970s, numerous authors have examined …ethical issues raised by the genetic modification of human beings” (Resnik & Vorhaus, PMC), Octavia Butler being one of them. In her imaginative science-fiction novel, Dawn, she examines the idea of how genetic engineering

We have the appearance of free will. We can only do so much up to a certain point. They are predetermined events that take place in our lives. These events act as tunnels that lead us to our path in life. These events shape our personalities and change the way we think as we move forward in life. We are governed by a set of rules, moral and spiritual. Free will can only be reached once freedom is achieved. Freedom can only be achieved once responsibility no longer exists. Thus free will can never exist which makes the Libertarianism argument invalid.

“’And that,’ put in the Director sententiously, ‘that is the secret of happiness and virtue--liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny. ’”(Huxley 16). This statement, made by the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, presents happiness as the main goal of the dystopian society in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World. To achieve happiness in Huxley’s society, morality, free will, and religion must be destroyed and remodeled through the power of a totalitarian government.

Determinism, libertarianism and compatibilism are three significantly different views on where unaccountability might stop and where free will and moral responsibility begin. Determinism is the strict opinion that every action and decision is the cause of an event, genetics or the environment prior to that action. Quite the opposite is libertarianism, which happens to be the genuine belief in free will as well as the denial of universal causation. Finally, deep self-compatibilism meshes both of these stand points together and introduces the idea that one’s action can be free if it stems purely out of personal, authentic desire. Since all three judgments have a backbone of convincing

society to think there is no cost of free will but in fact free will is never free. The idea

Many see the idea of free will as a saving grace of human existence, the choice to do as one pleases, to make up our own minds to forge our own destinies. It is true that free will is the greatest gift afforded to an individual as they are able to decide how they will go through their lives. However with free will comes with the price of the possibility of chaos. So in a way free will is one of the roadblocks for a utopia to exist. Some argue that sacrificing free will can create a utopia as everyone will be forced to be equal and not have a choice to do otherwise. However this is a flawed idea because in essence you are not creating a utopia you are only creating a lie. This idea of free will preventing paradise is explored throughout the

The best response to the problem of evil is the free will response. This response argues that God, although “All-PKG,” is not literally capable of doing anything. That is, God cannot do something against its own definition. For example, God cannot create a box which is round, because the definition of those two things makes them impossible to be the other. Following this logic, the free will response says that God created humans as beings with free will, so he cannot control the actions of humans based on the definition of free will.

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

Some people believe that no matter what a person does in their life, it will ultimately have no effect on the outcome ofa it. Existentialists find this to be true because they believe that no matter what they ever do, they will always die. Existentialists link the inevitability of death to the idea that there is no higher power. Additionally, existentialists hold the belief that no one should allow society to control how they live their life. Writer Albert Camus uses many existentialist themes his works like The Stranger and “The Guest”. The protagonists in both stories demonstrate existentialist beliefs in their actions. As a result, many existentialist ideas can be seen throughout out both novels. Camus uses the paradox of free will in order to illustrate the inevitability of death for everyone as well as the idea that in order to obtain free will, a person must reject society and face exile.

Casual determinism put simply, is the theory that all things happen for a particular reason and everything is predetermined. It is the idea all the events in one’s life can be explained, and each event has a particular reason for being. If everything is predetermined, then this therefore suggests that the future is fixed which further suggests that we can possibly predict the behavior of things. The theory of determinism ultimately suggests that we don’t the capacity to have free will because all future events are destined to occur, and furthermore we do not posses the knowledge to figure out whether it can be proved true or false (Hoefer). There has been three positions that have developed concerning the theory of causal determinism: hard determinist, compatibilist or soft determinist, and compatibilist.