Just How Free Is The Question Of Free Will For Many Millennia

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.

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.

Over the years, both philosophers and average people alike have contemplated the concept of free will. Usually, people would not contemplate free will. The common man usually just makes choices and does not wonder if this choice is truly a free one. Like many principles, the question of free will is not answered in consensus. This leads to the question “what are humans able to do?” Van Iwagen discusses free will in his essay The Powers of Rational Beings. He states that free will and determinism brings about a mystery.

I want to argue that there is indeed free will. In order to defend the position that free will means that human beings can cause some of what they do on their own; in other words, what they do is not explainable solely by references to factors that have influenced them. My thesis then, is that human beings are able to cause their own actions and they are therefore responsible for what they do. In a basic sense we are all original actors capable of making moves in the world. We are initiators of our own behavior.

Do we really have free will or is it as mythical as are the gods and most just simply don’t know it yet? As I am not a philosopher I do not know for sure, but I would assume that it is a question that has been a plague to their thoughts for a while. There are many ways to talk about this topic though this will only be covering a few aspects. The inspiration for this was a combination of the popular Greek play called Oedipus by Sophocles and a paper written by Mrs. Cysewski containing instructions for a report which her class was going to write. Back to the topic at hand: do we make our own personal decisions or is that just what we think?

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.

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

Humans are bond to make choices everyday, from trivial things such as “What should I have for lunch today?” to choices that hold significance such as ‘Which program should I apply for?”. I believe this thinking process is caused by the fact that humans are granted with an ability called the “Free will”, therefore they are able to make their own decisions based on the conscious mind.

From the Benjamin Libet article, “Do We Have Free Will?” Libet talks about his experiments showing that human free will does not exist. His experiment involved the use of electroencephalography to measure electrical activity in the brain of the volunteers participating in his experiment. The way he did this was by telling the volunteers to do a simple movement, like moving their wrist, whenever they felt like it. They were told to look at a timer the moment they consciously wanted to make the movement.

Whether we have free will is widely controversial. The absence of a universal definition poses a primary problem to this question. In this essay, I shall base my argument on a set of three conditions for free will: 1) that the actor is unconstraint in his action, 2) the actor could have acted otherwise and 3) the actor must be ‘ultimately responsible’ (Kane, 2005: 121) for his action. After I have explained them, I shall apply these conditions to three scenarios that cover most, if not any, circumstances that occur when taking choices. The purpose of this essay is to show that if my conditions are true, none of the scenarios is based on free will and thus we do not have free will.

First we will break down the definition of free will, second, how moral responsibility and free will accompany one another throughout human life, and lastly why free will is important in one’s life.

First, I will present the argument in favor of the notion that free will exists. Philosophers such as Harry Frankfurt argue that true free will is the ability to favor a certain will or, in Frankfurt’s words, “The statement that a person enjoys freedom of the will means (also roughly) that he is free to want what he wants

Free will is freedom of the mind from causal determination. Many advocates of free will argue the irrelevancy of the law of causality: “Every effect must have a cause; the same cause always produces the same effects.” Since a choice is not an effect, advocates of free will argue that the law of causality is irrelevant; however, it must be recognized that the one’s choices are limited by their heritage and environment. Moreover, a choice is affected by what one desires, which we affirmed were determined by heritage and experience; therefore, we can soundly conclude that one’s choice is determined.

One of the oldest questions in psychology is whether humans have free will. That is, are we capable to decide what want will with our lives?

The topic of free will is an interesting and thought-provoking debate. As a child, I always believed that I had freedom to make my own choices, but now I am not so sure. To start, we must first define the term ‘free will.’ According to the Oxford English Dictionary, free will is “spontaneous or unconstrained will” or the “inclination to act without suggestion from others” (“free will”). There are four major views on the topic of free will. One is fatalism which is the view that all things are determined to happen but prior events do not influence these events. Another view, determinism, is the belief that all choices are already established due to prior events. The compatibilist view is one where determinism and free will can coexist. And the last is libertarianism, the belief that we have free will and nothing determines the choices that we make (Class Notes). Philosophers like Barron Holbach (determinists) argue that there is no such thing as free will, while William James (libertarian) and G.E. Moore (compatibilist) beg to differ. I agree with Moore and the compatibilist view.