Research Paper On Determinism

Or is each action pre-determined? These are interesting concepts that will bring us to the issues that will be discussed throughout this paper. Do we truly have free will on our actions or are they previously determined for us? Free will and Determinism offer us different views on how we can perceive the ultimate course of our actions and life.

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.

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

Over the course of time, in the dominion of philosophy, there has been a constant debate involving two major concepts: free will and determinism. Are our paths in life pre-determined? Do we have the ability to make decisions by using our freedom of will? While heavily subjective questions that have been answered many different authors, philosophers, etc., two authors in particular have answered these questions very similarly. David Hume, a Scottish philosopher from the 18th century, argues in his essay “Of Liberty and Necessity” that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that they can both be accepted at the same time without being logically incorrect. Alike Hume, 20th century author Harry G. Frankfurt concludes in his essay “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” that the two major concepts are compatible. These two authors are among the most famous of Compatibilists (hence the fact that they believe free will and determinism are compatible ideas) in philosophical history. The question that then arises in the realm of compatibilism particularly, is one dealing with moral responsibility: If our paths in life are not totally pre-determined, and we have the ability to make decisions willingly (using free will), then how do we deem an individual morally responsible for a given decision? Frankfurt reaches the conclusion that we are held morally responsible regardless of

Determinism is the idea that everything we do as humans is determined by events prior to us being born and events that have happened in the past. Decisions that you may think are based on your desires, are actually based of things beyond your control. But the big question is, if determinism is

Suppose that every event or action has a sufficient cause, which brings that event about. Today, in our scientific age, this sounds like a reasonable assumption. After all, can you imagine someone seriously claiming that when it rains, or when a plane crashes, or when a business succeeds, there might be no cause for it? Surely, human behavior is caused. It doesn't just happen for no reason at all. The types of human behavior for which people are held morally accountable are usually said to be caused by the people who engaged in that behavior. People typically cause their own behavior by making choices; thus, this type of behavior might be thought to be caused by your own choice-makings. This freedom to make

The aim of this essay is to prove the reliability of and why Libertarianism is the most coherent of the three Free Will and Determinism views. It refers to the idea of human free will being true, that one is not determined, and therefore, they are morally responsible. In response to the quote on the essay, I am disagreeing with Wolf. This essay will be further strengthened with the help of such authors as C.A. Campell, R. Taylor and R.M. Chisholm. They present similar arguments, which essentially demonstrate that one could have done otherwise and one is the sole author of the volition. I will present the three most common arguments in support of Libertarianism, present an objection against Libertarianism and attempt to rebut it as well as

Determinism (as defined by Webster) is “A doctrine that acts of the will, natural events, or social changes are determined by preceding events or natural causes”. Likely, the most radical definition of determinism would state that all events in the world are the result of a previous event, or a combination of previous events. Within the realm of the all encompassing radical determinism there are philosophies that are somewhat better thought out or backed by science. One example of this is Genetic Determinism. We know that people are in some way determined by their genes both physically and behaviorally, as the human DNA is applied. Two categories of genetic determinism are Genetic Fixity and Innate Capacity.

The discussion of free will and its compatibility with determinism comes down to one’s conception of actions. Most philosophers and physicists would agree that events have specific causes, especially events in nature. The question becomes more controversial when philosophers discuss the interaction between human beings, or agents, and the world. If one holds the belief that all actions and events are caused by prior events, it would seem as though he would be accepting determinism. For if an event has a particular cause, the event which follows must be predetermined, even if this cause relates to a decision by a human being. Agent causation becomes important for many philosophers who, like me, refuse to

The question of our freedom is one that many people take for granted. However, if we consider it more closely it can be questioned. The thesis of determinism is the view that every event or happening has a cause, and that causes guarantee their effects. Therefore given a cause, the event must occur and couldn’t occur in any other way than it did. Whereas, the thesis of freewill is the view that as human beings, regardless of a cause, we could have acted or willed to act differently than we did. Determinism therefore, states that the future is something that is fixed and events can only occur in one way, while freewill leaves the future open. Obviously a huge problem arises between these two theses. They cannot both be true

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

In the discussion of free will, one controversial issue has been that we do not have free will. On the one hand, determinists argue that every event has a cause and that concept of free will is false reality because it cannot be explained by the scientific process. On the other hand, libertarians believe the opposite is true. Whereas, others like compatibilists argue both beliefs is correct in the sense that we have to change the meaning of freedom. My own view is that the position of the compatibilists solves the problem.

Around the world there have been many massacres and crimes conducted by people who have mental disabilities, personality disorders, and behavioral conditioning. In philosophy the argument between free will and determinism is if criminals should be held responsible for committing a crime. I believe that you cannot punish someone and hold them responsible if they have any mental illness or disorder that does not make them think straight and cautiously about their actions, this stand would be considered hard determinism.

     Before one can properly evaluate the entire debate that enshrouds the Free Will/Determinism, each term must have a meaning, but before we explore the meaning of each term, we must give a general definition. Determinism is, "Everything that happens is caused to happen. (Clifford Williams. "Free Will and Determinism: A Dialogue" pg 3). This is the position that Daniel, a character in Williams’ dialogue, chooses to believe and defend. David Hume goes a little deeper and explains in his essay, "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding of Liberty and Necessity," that determinism is this: "It is universally allowed, that matter, in all its operations, is actuated by a necessary force, and

In this essay I will explain why I think the strongest position of the free will debate is that of the hard determinists and clarify the objection that moral responsibility goes out the door if we don’t have free will by addressing the two big misconceptions that are associated with determinists: first that determinism is an ethical system, and secondly that contrary to common belief determinists do believe in the concept of cause and effect. I will also begin by explaining my position and why I believe that the position of the indeterminist does not hold water as an argument and the third