Free-Will Vs Determinism

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

First of all, determinism is an event which is causally governed by the laws of nature. In his paper, Ayer outlines his dilemma of free will, there seems to be no free will, events happen out of either accident or determinism. His argument is that free will opposes to constraint, not causality, nonetheless still have free will. He tries to solve the problem considering whether an event was an accident or not. He claims that events are only free when: 1. I would have acted otherwise if I had chosen to, 2. my actions were voluntary, and 3. nobody compelled me to choose as I did. If we believe the event was not an accident, we are back to the idea of natural laws causing the events. Chisholm proposes that human beings are agents which do not

obliged to do it. For example: If I see a drowning child in a rushing

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.

Free will and determinism is a topic do we have a written out plan for us to fellow or is it that we can chose own on future.

In this paper, it will be argued that free will exists as a product of continued interaction between inherited biological capacities and the external environment. The present paper is concerned with finding an intermediary between free will and determinism that is based on neuroscience. The philosophical position that most closely aligns with neuroscientific evidence will be argued to be a type of compatibilism or soft determinism. The exercise of free will and deliberate action will be debated as having their origins in neural structures inherited at birth and that these neural structures provide basic capacities for free will. Specific neural structures will be argued as serving the biological basis for free will, but that these neural structures imbuing free will can change due to the agent selecting from amongst environmental influences. In attempting to conceptualize free will within neurological constraints, the present paper argues against the mereological fallacy, whereby psychological qualities cannot be attributed to the brain and its individual parts (Bennett & Hacker, 2014).

Do we choose to act as how we want or are our actions and demeanor a result of influences beyond our control? This question has preoccupied philosophers and theologians for centuries, evidently rising a vexing debate on the idea of picturing our lives in which we have no control over our actions. It is a puzzling notion if God knows what we going to do before we do it do we really have a free will choice. Well by definition free will is defined as the ability to make your own decisions rather than being controlled by God. However God controls us but God gives us the option to choose whether we want to live a righteous life over a sinful one, ultimately knowing our choices, which leads to the notion that we have semi- freewill. The idea of our

Determinism and free will are regarded as two opposite sides, because most people think that they are incompatible with each other. But actually they are not. Determinism draws a picture of causality in the frame of laws of nature. That is to say, every event has a cause. From deterministic point of view, free will is uncaused, so it rejects free will completely. On the other hand, opponents of free will reject determinism. However, there is a third option, a softer way to solve free will problem, namely, compatibilism. I believe compatibilism is a better way because it offers a solution which should be taken into acount.

Free will is clearly an ontological issue, but it is rooted in the metaphysical nature of reality. There are scientific arguments for determinism, which often involve matter and energy creating the universe and all of its interactions, predetermined by the initial conditions of the universe. There are also religious arguments for determinism that entail that God's omniscient nature implies God's knowledge of all things that were, are, and will be and therefore no action could be executed without God's prior

In conclusion, from chaos, determinism, soft determinism or total free will, soft determinism is the most likely answer. Through the movies, Minority Report and Adjustment Bureau, examples of veto power and chance in relation to free will were shown while the Free Will New York Times article discussed the Libet experiment. In summary, soft determinism hinges on the different aspects of the human mind, the veto power creating limited free will, and the idea that the more knowledge a person has the more control they will have in their life. The human mind has the potential to be more than a monkey riding a tiger of subconsciousness with the use of veto power and a firm understanding of causation to better predict outcomes thus making better decisions.

“God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us,” quoted by Niccolo Machiavelli. Living as humans, we lived in a world where our actions can determined the inevitable future. However, scientists are still debating whether or not free will is formulated within humans. With this provocative topic in my mind, I was confounded whether humans were free agents or living things predestined by God’s will. In spite of that, an epiphany struck inside me. Within my stream of consciousness, I occurred that free will is interdependent with our minds. Throughout my curiosity-filled research, I discerned that free will might be intertwined with neurophilosophy, which is a branch of neuroscience.

In today’s modern western world within the United States of America (US) there are opportunities with multitudes of decisions from the freedom of will and the freedom of choice in which most part of the society will experience within their life time. Although there are multitudes of choices available to choose from, individuals still have a say to choose or not to choose to buy products or services (e.g., buy, not buy). Choice is more than simply choosing from A, B, C or D, it is a mandatory process that holds one accountable for their decisions (Paul Hiebert, 2014).

It is interesting to hear you say that choosing to make decisions base upon pre-determined or free will can be tough. My question to you is that  how can that be tough, when it is two different things? Indeed, from my understanding free will is self voluntarily, which mean no one is pushing you to do something or making unwanted choices, while determined is basically making choices base upon an uncontrolled situation which you didn't expect. Nevertheless, talking about the likelihood a child who grow up in a abusive home would become violent in adulthood, I think that is by choice because there is a lot of children who grow up in a abusive home, and turn out to be great people and non-violent in adulthood. As it is stated in causality theory,

Since antiquity religion and philosophy have grappled with whether humanity truly possesses free will or if our actions and all the events in our lives are merely governed by fate. In the western pagan world the idea of fate laid down by various deities pervaded common thought on the subject. The introduction of Christianity saw this viewpoint wane slightly with its new focus on choosing to complete good deeds and living a christian life. These new ideas challenged the ancient view of fate, but it remained largely dominate under the guise of divine providence, or God’s plan. The emergence of the Reformation ideas of sola fide, or predestination, countered the Catholic ideas of free will contending that one does not have any say in one’s salvation as everything has been predetermined by God. It was not until the enlightenment that free will began to heavily advance in intellectual circles, eventually pervading most of liberal western thought down to the masses.

Though there is no singular definition of ‘free will’, the standard argument against it is the dilemma between determinism/indeterminism and the fact that these two concepts threaten the prospect or the existence of free will. Determinism is the basic philosophical principle that every event, including human decisions and actions, are the imminent consequence of prior events. Strict determinism would argue that free will does not exist due to the fact that our previous actions or past events, determine what our future actions will be. Thus creating the idea that a ‘present free will’ could not actually occur, essentially contending that human autonomy is impossible. A determinist would argue that ‘free will’ is essentially an illusion, arguing that preceding actions predetermine any choice we make in the future. Though determinism argues against the case of free will, it is a common misconception that most compatibilists are determinists. Though useful, determinism is somewhat unnecessary when deciding whether we act freely or not as it fails to explain why we act at will. However, the objection to free will that the deterministic approach takes is one that I will explore in this essay in regards to the different theories of compatibilism.