The True Freedom Of Free Will

Diametrically opposed to hard determinism is a philosophical viewpoint with which free will is closely compatible: libertarianism. Proponents of this position, such as philosopher William James, maintain that humans are all free and therefore, liable for their actions. When making a decision, people “choose which path to take, and (…) are as a result responsible for that choice”. With this in mind, “the testimony of our direct, lived experience” is what offers “the most compelling grounds” for this argument; according to James, evidence of free will cannot be found through scientific study. Rather, the existence of free will should be determined by the average person’s “assumption that personal freedom and responsibility are valid concepts”. In short, the argument that libertarians assert is that free will should be believed in simply because the majority of the population believes in it. The existence of freedom will most likely never be definitively proven or

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

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.

The debate between free will and determinism is something that will always be relevant, for people will never fully admit that we have no free will. But, while we may feel that we control what we do in life, we simply do not. The argument for free will is that individuals have full control and responsibility over their actions, and what they become in life as a whole (The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility by Galen Strawson, page 16). Determinism, on the other hand, is saying that we have no control over our actions and that everything we do in life is determined by things beyond our control (Strawson, page 7). After analysis of The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility by Galen Strawson and Freedom and Necessity by A. J. Ayer,

There is humanly no possible way to merely or easily define what “freedom” truthfully is, as every distinct person and each social order has opposing restrictions for what this belief is. Bureaucrats and social researchers, for example, have vastly diverse philosophies of what institutes freedom. This primeval belief has been ingrained into mankind since the beginning of time. Century after century mankind has fought in numerous wars for this concept of “Freedom”.

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 Idea that freedom gives you the right to stand out among everyone, the right to be strange, the right to be an abomination and the freedom to fail.

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

Hard determinism claims all the actions of human beings or consequences of events are determined by external conditions, with such conditions satisfied there will be no choice of the results available any time. Spinoza, the philosopher who stood for Hard determinism was convinced that no free wills were available for anything in the universe. Those “Free will” existed in people’s mind were built on illusions, since they had ignored the actual causes to them. The hard determinism could apply to everything we neither might encountered in the past nor in present time. But I think the laws were found or formed by ourselves since the evolutions of the human societies in thousands years, it 's not correct to say that no choices are ever made by ourselves. And the key point is that most of the causal laws were found through scientific methods, but sciences has enhanced our power on predicting and even changing the progress that will result in a different end by discovering more causal laws as time passes.

Does determinism imply that there is no free will, as the incompatibilists argue, or does it allow for free will, as the compatibilists argue?

What do I mean by this? Well, firstly I need to be entirely clear about what I mean by freedom. The Oxford English Dictionary defines freedom as “the state or fact of being free from servitude, constraint, inhibition, etc.; liberty.” This is true; however, any reasonable person can determine that that does not even begin to cover what “freedom” really means. There is emotional value in the word that simply cannot be captured by such a clinical definition. When I say freedom, what I really mean is the reasonable ability to make choices about one’s own actions and one’s own life. This does not have to be free from consequence, but it has to be a reasonable possibility on a de facto level.

One of the strengths of the determinist viewpoint is that it is hard to argue against. There are definite patterns and connections throughout the physical universe and the biological realm. There is no denying that fact. Just look at modern chemistry or how everything is made up of waves. Also, you can’t prove that you ever had more than one choice since there can only ever be one choice. In other words, once the moment is gone it is impossible to say that things could have been different since there is no going back. It is also hard to deny that some of our actions are a result of certain causes. You can always argue that something in your past affected your choices in the present.

The word freedom is often associated with the idea of an unfettered liberty to select from a range of alternatives coupled with a sense that our actions will not affect our natural state.

Today we accept that freedom is a basic right human right but what exactly is freedom. 1On one hand, there is physical freedom. People who are not imprisoned or enslaved are free. On the other hand, there is freedom as a the right to act, speak or think what you want. People cannot reach their full potential if they are not free in both senses of the word.

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