Internal and External Constraints on Free Will Essay

While it may just seem like semantics, free will and freedom differ. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines free will as a “voluntary choice or decision” or “freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention” (Free 1). Free will includes the ability to make simple, everyday choices. The definition of freedom differs from that of free will: “liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another” and “the absence of necessity, coercion or constraint in a choice or action” (Freedom 1). Someone with freedom can say, do, act, and feel however he wishes without the threat of outside forces.

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.

Free Will is the capacity of acting without the pressures of fate and the ability to act because of one’s discretion. It is an idea that most believe in, because it means that you are in control

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.

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

When it comes to free will scientists fall into three different groups: metaphysical determinists, neuroscientists, and compatibilists. Metaphysical determinists believe that decisions result from molecular-based electrical impulses and chemical substances transferred from one brain cell to another. Therefore, when discussing the topic of free will, metaphysical determinists are free will deniers, known as libertarian incompatibilists. Since making decisions without these electrical and chemical impulses is impossible, all of our choices are determined for us. Neuroscientists believe that there is some sort of neurobiological gap between reason and action and that “there is an irreducible non-Humean self which makes a reason effect by acting on it” (Banja) if we are to be free. However neuroscientists have found no room in the human nervous system for this noumenal self or gap, so there is no scientific evidence of humans having free will. Compatibilists believe they are the authors of their actions and can be held responsible for their actions and decisions. Since we have the ability to control the core decisions that determine who we are-- “such as persons with chemical dependency disorders enrolling

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.

The problem of freewill concerns whether it is possible to retain agency in a world where events are necessitated. For the sake of clarity, my definition of freewill is “the power of acting or not acting without constraint”. Universal causation or hard determinism (both terms I shall use interchangeably) is the belief that “events in the future are fixed, as a matter of natural law, by the past”. Indeterministic theories such as libertarianism preserve freewill by maintaining that not all events are determined by preceding causes. Both indeterminism and determinism are incompatibilist theories as they imply that universal causation erodes the prospect of freewill. Compatibilist theories, like agent-causalism assert that causation doesn’t necessarily mean we do not have free will.

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

Freewill is the ability to act on his or her own accord. It is a major factor that makes one human. Many born into this world know that they have the ability to speak and do things on their own without second thought. It is something that few rarely doubt. Majority of people believe that they truly do have freewill. To them freewill is like a comfort device. It gives them control over his or her own life. The word ‘freedom’ is also associated with freewill, giving one a sense of liberty and independency in the eyes of those who believe they truly have freewill. As well as being self-reliant and having self-responsibility.

Everyone believes himself or herself to possess the freedom of will. If we do not have free will, then that suggests that we lack any power or control over anything, therefore, nothing is up to us. This would impair our view and perception of our society, community and the world. The metaphysical issue of free will is if the initial conditions are fixed and all the laws of nature are deterministic, then the resulting outcome that will happen thereafter is also fixed, because of the laws of nature as well as the initial conditions. So do we actually have free will? This question has become a paradoxical topic, with issues arising from philosophical concepts, including causal determinism and fatalism. This creates a problem for free will

In order for one to reach happiness, one has to make many choices; these choices exhibit free will because one is choosing their path based off of their own ability to choose. Making a choice is free will on its own. Since there is more than one choice, then there is free will to choose.

Free does not mean caused, in any aspect. The problem of free will and compatibilism is that will is determined by prior events in the casual chain, which causes and determines the actions of those involved. It has been suggested that chance and random occurrences is an explanation for freedom, however if something was truly random then it would break the casual chain. It could then be argued that because of chance outcomes from an individuals action that they could not be morally responsible. It is common for philosophers to counter this argument by stating that chance is an illusion, Albert Einstein once stated “God does not play dice” implying that everything has a cause even if we have not figured it out