Free-Will Vs Determinism

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.

One of the main questions that we face is whether or not, we as humans have genuine freedom. Are we free to make our own choices? Do we decide what happens in our lives in the future? Or are our lives set pathways in which we have no say at all? Are all our choices already decided? In other words, do we have free will or are our actions pre-determined, or both? Hard determinists, libertarians and soft determinists all set out to provide answers to these questions, holding different views on whether or not free will and determinism are compatible. Both hard determinists and libertarians believe that free will and determinism are incompatible but hard determinists

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.

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

Now, the argument for freewill states that nothing is determined and everything happens based off our own random actions and nothing is linked. Determinism takes a different route and believes every action is pre-determined and nothing is random because it has already been put in place to happen.

It has been debated over centuries whether us humans have control over our destiny, and if we are really able to decide on our own. The controversy between free will and determinism has been argued about for years. If we look into a dictionary, free will is define as the power given to human beings to be able to make free choices that is unconstrained by external circumstances or a force such as fate or divine intervention. Determinism is defined as a philosophical doctrine that every event, act, and decision is the inescapable consequence of antecedents that are independent of the human will. Determinism states that humans have no free will to choose what they wish. Due to this fact, contemporary philosophers cannot agree whether free will does exist, let alone it be a divine influence.

A question which still puzzles many people is do we have free will or is our every decision predetermined? I believe that our every decision is based on free will because when we make the decision to do something, we risk our lives everyday doing what we want rather than just letting things happen such as fate. I think our every decision is based on free will because we decide whether we want to go out and party on a Saturday night or if we want to stay in the house. We decide whether we want to be friends with someone or if we want to keep them as enemies. We decide whether we want to have a boyfriend/girlfriend or if we want to be single and do what we want. We make decisions ourselves, and we do not let things just happen.

Imagine that there is clear reasoning behind every event in each and everyone of our lives that we cannot control nor manipulate in any way. This is where the argument of “free will vs. determinism” comes into play. The concept of determinism states that outside factors affect our decisions and “free will” and “motivation” are just illusions that conceal the true beliefs towards human behavior (McLeod, 2013). This concept has a lot of support and most behaviorists argue against free will. To put it simply “free will” is the idea that most of our decisions come from within our minds and we are able to change our behaviors (McLeod, 2013). The argument between free will and determinism has scientific evidence for each creating a good amount of

According to Greene and Cohen’s article, the problem of free will pertains to the conflicting definitions of free will and determinism. Free will can be defined as the freedom to decide one’s next state; having free will means that one’s choices do not depend on past events. Oppositely, determinism states that every condition in the present depends on past events and all conditions are entirely based on physical laws. Determinism thus claims that there is only one predetermined way a given agent will act. Based on the definitions of free will and determinism, it appears that free will and determinism cannot both be right. If one’s choices are independent of past events, then physical laws and previous conditions do not determine those choices. If the opposite is true, then free will cannot exist. For most people, aspects of both free will and determinism seem correct even though it cannot be so. This is the problem of free will.

Everything happens for a reason. This is a belief accepted by many humans all over the world and is the basis behind decision-making. However, many humans also believe that actions in life are pre-determined by causes external from the will, this belief is the idea behind determinism. Philosopher David Hume believes that both free will and determinism can co-exist even though the two concepts seem to contradict each other. I believe that Hume is correct to believe that free will and determinism can co-exist because determinism explains the outcome of a humans actions and free will explains the motives behind a humans actions.

If life was purely driven by determined events or causes, then there would be no reason for a person to do or apply themselves to anything. If it has already been determined that a person will be a doctor, then under Determinism, they would not need to put forth the effort to do anything, because it would already be determined that it would happen. However, this can be easily proven to be untrue. No matter what previous events, if a person does not actively use their free will and make a choice to study and pursue being a doctor, then there is not a way that they could ever become one. From this it can be determined that, even if there are past events that may lead to this being a good possibility, such as parents that are doctors, or a natural affinity for medicine, that may seemed determined, free will must still come into

The idea that the future is already determined is known in philosophy as determinism.  There are various definitions of determinism available; but in this essay, I shall use the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy definition, which is ‘the metaphysical thesis that the facts of the past, in conjunction with the laws of nature, entail every truth about the future

The difference is that our choices and actions are largely “determined to occur as a function of our particular psychological makeup and tendencies, and/or mental events and processes that occur beyond the level of conscious awareness and over which we have no or very little control” (Williams & Arrigo, 2008, p.51). For me, this is the most influential factor as we are molded by so many attributes throughout our lives that are not in our control. Under psychological determinism, one is molded at a very early age through the interactions with their parents, family members, educationally and functionally. Ogletree and Archer (2011) argue that a person’s personality is developed at such an early age that it sets our life course more-over, it develops permanent traits that dictate how we think, feel and choose. Similarly, if psychological factors are essentially out of our control, much like biological factors, does it make one any less capable of being held accountable for their actions for something that they had not ability to control? We will explore that

Fate vs free will? The universe vs your mind? Who or what is responsible for the life you lead? Some people believe that the influences in their lives are not reflected in their choices, they are wrong because: the place a person was born in or lives in limits their options of ways to contribute to the world; the personality type and status of friends and family of a person affects his or her decisions in life;