Essay On Free Will Vs Determinism

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.

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

Predestination: A main concept in Calvinism that stated that everyone’s life was predestined, for better or for worse

People believe that genuine freedom of choice is not always possible because our decisions and actions are determined by factors beyond our control. This view is known as Determinism. There is also an extreme form of determinism known as ‘hard determinism,’ in which they believe that every demeanor can be traced to a cause, although they may disagree about what those causes are. The idea of determinism poses a difficult issue to the concept of ‘free will’. Are we able to make free choices if all our thoughts and actions are predetermined by our own past and the physical laws of nature? Majority of us would like to believe that we have the freedom of will and are able to make decisions based on our own discretion but, I personally believe that the deterministic view holds true to a certain extent and that most of our actions are a result of a force that is beyond our comprehension. My purpose in this essay is to explain and critically analyze Baron d’Holbach’s view on determinism.

Although free will has been defined in multiple, conflicting ways, the present approach analyzes it as a psychological capacity including self-control, choices, planning, and the ability to assess and initiate things independently. These capabilities are useful for making human social life and culture possible, but they depend on a limited resource and therefore often fall short of optimal levels. Religion may be helpful to individuals and society in part because it supports both the exercise of free will and the belief in it.

The juxtaposition of predestination with the exercise of free will is an age-old question. In the pagan world, prior to the upsurge of Western development and Christianity, predestination was deemed a truth; pagan gods were superlative and dictated the lives and fates of subordinate humans. Around 524 A.D., a Roman writer, Boethius, published a tract entitled The Consolation of Philosophy. Changes in medieval times were formulated around this document. By delving deeper into the possibility of chance, Boethius proclaims that, should one identify philosophically that chance is random, there is no such thing. Because “… nothing comes out of nothing” (p. 116), it is an impossibility that, with God maintaining security, there are acts of arbitrariness. Given that humans are rational creatures and cannot exist without reason, the presence of free will is a plausible assumption because philosophy acknowledges that there is freedom for cogent beings.

“On Friday noon, July twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below.” This tragedy led Brother Juniper, a Franciscan from Italy, to seek an answer to whether or not fate is completely random or if it is controlled by a higher power. However, as Thornton Wilder once stated, “the business of literature is not to answer questions, but to state them fairly,” the inquiry is never revealed, only left to flourish in the reader’s minds for many years to come. Speculation may lead individuals to pursue an answer for themselves, yet an answer is nearly impossible to find. Even knowing that an answer is unreachable, individuals still possess their own beliefs about fate. One may personally believe that fate is neither random or destined, but controlled completely by the individual.

One of the biggest debate topics that has philosophers and scientists at each other’s throats: Free will versus determinism. Scientist believe they have proven that free will is a mere illusion. Philosophers think other wise. With many experiments and arguments included, both have a different view about this topic. One who believes that all thing, including human behavior, are already determined are people who believe in determinism. Others who believe in free will, believe that our actions are caused by free will and are not controlled. Believing in free will means that people’s actions are not determined but also that they have a limited amount of control over themselves. These arguments are followed by questions, experiments, and very precise data. With this being said, is it possible for our own thoughts and behavior to be controlled or are our actions a result of free will?

I began the discussion by taking the determinist point of view and stated that human behavior can be determined by the laws of nature if we have access to all relevant variables. If we were to know someone's genetic make-up, the environment in which they are raised, the family they are raised by, etc., we can make valid conjectures about their behavior. For instance, if we know that a child has a very active limbic system (which is associated with emotion and aggression), is raised in a very poor and stressful environment and does not receive much affection from the parents, it is valid to project that such a child will behave violently and criminally in its adolescent and adult life. In fact, such

As the world becomes further secularized and the reaches of scientific logic continue to exceed their grasp, many of the world’s intellectuals identify “truth” on a scientific scale. Science does not support the theory of morality, because it can’t be proven to exist. The notion of “free-will”, something which world religion and philosophies alike recognize as a fundamental part of our human anatomy, is called into question in a few simple and logical ways. Science supports the theory of determinism as the only logical explanation of the unfolding of the actions of our lives.

in Tommy’s journey as he changes through the guidance of Izzi’s from fearing and fighting death, to acceptance and grace in its inevitability. This journey is central to the film as the lighting -dark to light-, colours -black to white- and shapes –triangles to rectangles to circles- all symbolically represent this movement from fear, denial and blindness to enlightenment, acceptance and grace. It is in the climax of this journey that the conflict between free will and determinism is addressed as through Izzi’s book, a manifestation of her feelings (the queen is under attack as she is battling cancer while Tommy her conquistador attempts to save her from death), Tommy is allowed one more chance at self-examination and reflection. Through the insertion of himself into Izzi’s book he does this exactly, seeing the consequences of Tomas’ actions as they parallel his own. It is in the belief that the conquistador is acting freely that Tommy can ascribe moral responsibility to his actions; if Tommy accepted determinism as true the conquistador would be absolved of all moral agency, his action already determined through causality. In doing so Tommy recognizes that acting selfishly will only leave him unfulfilled; the idea of free will is most explicitly affirmed as Tommy revisits the past with this understanding, acknowledging he deprived his wife of his time in the valuable last moments of her life. Instead of pursuing the incessant

The fatalism framework assumes that human action is necessitated and therefore, it negates free will. Fatalism questions the necessity of free will and its compatibility with divine foreknowledge. Much of medieval philosophy returns to this question, attempting to reconcile these two seemingly conflicting truths.

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

For a substantial part of the Christendom history, there have been wide divisions regarding the determining agent of human temporal fate and his eventual destiny. While some Christians hold on to the assertion that Scriptures testify of man’s possession of free will, a significant number assert that man has no claim to free will. The latter group stands for predestination. Among this group are John Calvin and Martin Luther. These two protestant reformers developed constituted two different theories of predestination. While Calvin composed the “Double Predestination Theory.,” Luther composed the “Single Predestination Theory.” Looking at the two theories, Luther’s theory seems to be more consistent with itself and the scriptures than Calvin’s theory.

Human’s free will is one of the most debatable problems in the field of both philosophy and ethics. Does everybody has a control on his choices and actions or it all was determined in advance. According to the Scottish philosopher David Hume on the problem of free will: “the most contentious question of metaphysics, the most contentious science” [1]. Free will is defined as the ability of humans to take decisions that are not determined by divine intervention or caused by a preceding cause [2]. It is agreed by philosophers who dealt with the problem of free will that a human is not free to make a choice unless he could have done otherwise, in what is known as the principle of alternative possibilities [3]. The free will problem arose in the Greek mythology in many instances such as the tragedy of Oedipus in its different versions as Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. Opinions are divided into three main standpoints regarding the problem of free will.