In Beyond Good and Evil 21 Nietzsche argues that an autonomous agent requires being causa sui. The problem with this requirement is that nothing can be causa sui, Nietzsche says that, “the concept of a causa sui is something fundamentally absurd” (BGE 15) and because of this no one can be an autonomous agent. In the following line, Nietzsche asks, “Consequently, the external world is not the work of our organs?” If this is true, that causa sui is absurd and the external world is of our organs, then is it possible that we are autonomous agents or have any sense of agency and responsibility? Nietzsche would say so it seems.
In BGE 21 Nietzsche says, “the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one’s actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society involves nothing less than to be precisely this causa sui and … to pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the swamps of nothingness.” Causa sui requires
…show more content…
that all of our actions are controlled by our choice to do (or not do) something. The problem with causa sui, Nietzsche argues, is that our choices are determined by who we are, as in our physiology, our consciousness, and our culture (BGE 15, 16, 21). If this is the case, then can we really argue that our choices are our own? Our choices would have been made for us by both nature and our ancestors. Where we live, what we grow up believing, and how we think is all relative. It is The Uncomfortable Thought. Nietzsche frequently argues for things that are uncomfortable, it seems fitting that he would argue that we are not our own agents or causa sui. Ultimately then, an agent is not the author of their own will. It is a product of their environment and genetics. So, this argument is not strong enough for free will. Everything you do and say is determined by what you are. The driving forces behind what you are then, are either physiological facts about you, or facts about your unconscious drives or affects that can be and are created by your circumstances. Nietzsche “beg[s] of him” to forget the concepts of “free will” and “unfree will.” These, he argues, end up being a misuse of cause and effect.
If we aren’t causa sui then our “will” has already been caused by one of the factors behind our actions stated above or rather by the way we are (BGE 19). We see the will as consciousness in a sense. Nietzsche says, “That … ‘freedom of the will’ is essentially the affect of superiority in relation to him who must obey: ‘I’ am free, ‘he’ must obey.” (BGE 19). We identify with the command as opposed to the obeying. It gives us a sense of power. We forget that the “I” of “I will eat that” also includes the fact that “I” or my body must obey that command. We not only command, but we also obey. The idea that the will leads to actions comes from the “plurality of sensations,” “a ruling thought,” and “an affect of the command.” (BGE 19). Notice the specific need for a thought in this idea. People think they have free will because they have a thought, perhaps a conscious
thought. Nietzsche says in section 17 that, “a thought comes when ‘it’ wishes, and not when ‘I’ wish.” In the section prior to this, 16, Nietzsche takes on Descartes’ famous statement, “I think, therefore I am.” He compares the “I think” part to Schopenhauer’s “I will.” Back in section 17 Nietzsche says it is false, “to say that the subject ‘I’ is the condition of the predicate ‘think.’ It thinks; but that this ‘it’ is precisely the famous old ‘ego’ is … a supposition… not an ‘immediate certainty.’ After all, one has even gone too far with this ‘it thinks’—even the ‘it’ contains an interpretation of the process.” It seems that Nietzsche is saying here that the thinking is “the will,” not in the sense of “free will” or of being an agent, but rather, it is same as the will to power. After arguing that thinking and willing are the same and repudiating causa sui, Nietzsche argues that the will isn’t causal. We associate free will, or being free in any sense, with consciousness and consciousness with thinking. A thought is required in commanding for Nietzsche. Earlier, he argues that thinking is the same as willing. Thinking is not causal, therefore willing is not causal (BGE 16, 17, 19, 21). If willing is not causal, then something other than the will must cause the need to command (and obey). If something else gives the need to command, then the will is not a part of being an agent, and thereby exudes the doer from responsibility based on their will. Despite being exuded from responsibility based on the will, people still have responsibility. We cannot escape our physiology, our culture, our unconscious, nor the two-world view. Unfree we may be, there still lies some responsibility. Nietzsche critiques the two ends of the spectrum of responsibility, those trying to take full responsibility for everything and those who try to take no responsibility, so there must be a medium between the two. Nietzsche seems to see people simply as agents within a heavy set of constraints, such as the conscious hosts in Westworld. People may not have free will in a causa suian sense, but they still are agents as far as they are able within the constraints they are given. Everyone comes from somewhere. No one can “pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the swamps of nothingness.” (BGE 21). Thinking and willing are not causal and thus cannot be placed under the full weight of responsibility.
“Free will is the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion” (Dictionary.com). The novel Slaughterhouse five portrays the idea of not having free will. The award winning author, Kurt Vonnegut, tells
On Evil, Guilt, and Power by Friedrich Nietzsche is one mind blowing story!! I have to say every sentence within the story has multiple meanings. I am extremely excited and terrified to analyze this story. First, because I like to go in depth in the meaning of the sentence and as I stated in my previous journal; I like to look at the back story, character mind set, and different points of view. In this story my opinions are endless. (I am going to have to walk away from this story multiple times before I go insane.) When reading the story in truth is not like a story; but more like the rambling of a politician, religious leader, or anyone trying to be an authority figure. I came across a few meanings for “master morality” and “slave morality”.
There is much debate over the issue of whether we have complete freedom of the will or if our will caused by something other than our own choosing. There are three positions adopted by philosophers regarding this dispute: determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism. Determinists believe that freedom of the will does not exist. Since actions are events that have some predetermined cause, no actions can be chosen and thus there is no will to choose. The compatibilist argues that you can have both freedom of the will and determinism. If the causes which led to our actions were different, then we could have acted in another way which is compatible with freedom of the will. Libertarians believe that freedom of the will does exist.
Human beings always believe that what they want to do is ‘up to them,' and on this account, they take the assumption that they have free will. Perhaps that is the case, but people should investigate the situation and find a real case. Most of the intuitions may be correct, but still many of them can be incorrect. There are those who are sceptical and believe that free will is a false illusion and that it only exists in the back of people’s minds, but society should be able to distinguish feelings from beliefs in order to arrive at reality and truth.
"The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces"~Philip Zimbardo. It is hard to not cross the line between good and evil because if someone is getting you mad, you might want to harm them in some way. But you have keep your cool and let it go. Being good or evil is your own choice. Even if you are good, you always have an evil side. This quote fits perfectly because it talks about how evil is really only in people under certain situations. People are essentially good, but under certain circumstances, turn evil.
Nietzsche believed we create the self through our experiences and our actions, and in order to be a complete self, we must accept everything we have done. I agree with him in this sense. Although it is easy to learn from the mistakes of others, there is no greater lesson than learning from our own mistakes. He also believed there is much more to the self than we know about. This is another example about how we learn about ourselves through our experiences and actions.
There is so much evil in the world such as: murder, child mortality, torture, rape, assault and more. So how can there be an all loving God if these things are constantly happening? In this paper, I will be arguing that there is in fact no such thing as an all loving and all powerful God due to Evil. When I think of an all-loving God, I think of God as someone who would never allow a child to be kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed. I think of God as someone who would not allow anything bad or evil to happen in this world. I am not saying people would not get their fair share of misfortune now and again, but they would never experience evil, pain or suffering. That being said, there would be no evil or vindictive people in this world
Morrison has said, "I can easily project into other people's circumstances and imagine how I might feel if...I don't have to have done this things. So that if I'm writing of what I disapprove of, I can suspend that feeling and love those characters a lot. You know, sort of get inside the character because I sort of wonder what it would be like to be this person..." Both her novels, The Bluest Eye and Sula, speak to this statement.
She calls her view of free will the Asymmetry of Reason View, giving people “responsibility depend(ing) on the ability to act in accordance with the True and the Good.” Wolf believes that when an individual is faced with a decision between right and wrong, if they arrive to making their choice, right or wrong, based on “psychological determination,” then that constitutes as freedom in a deterministic world. This freedom can still exist if there are no alternative decisions available, Wolf argues. In her Deep Self View, Wolf uses the source of ones decision making to determine one’s responsibility for their actions. Deep-self, or a person’s moral responsibility, is what makes one responsible for their actions. This only applies if this person’s actions, however, are “within the control” of his will, and these desires then have to be acknowledge by or “deeper” self. The acknowledgement and decision making process of acting on these desires is what makes us responsible for our actions, Wolf asserts. Sane deep-self, the way to control one’s desires of the deep-self, is proposed by Wolf after the problem of JoJo the Dictator. JoJo’s father was his role model, and when he grows knowing no other way to control his people, and uses the same methods his father used when he was dictator. Wolf believes that JoJo cant be held responsible for these terrible things because
Neither a systematic philosopher nor a rigid thinker, Nietzsche offers his own nihilistic spin on the topic of free will. The three different approaches to free will by Nietzsche, Hume, and Descartes all obtain their strong suits as well as their pitfalls. Nietzsche insists free will is created by theologians and therefore denies its existence, while Descartes embraces free will, and Hume individualizes the meaning of free will. With the “Design Argument” in Meditations on First Philosophy to ignite his proclamation on the topic of free will, Descartes summons free will to be given entirely through the creator, God. With his robust belief in God, Descartes concludes that free will is attributed to God’s creation of a person.
The second, and more complicated, of Campbell’s requirements is to define what constitutes a “free act.” There are two parts to this definition. The first necessitates “that the act must be one of which the person judged can be regarded as the sole author” (378). This point raises the question of how one can determine authorship. For certainly “the raw material of impulses and capacities that constitute [one’s] hereditary endowment” cannot be determined by the individual and surely have an impact on his inner acts (378). Further, the individual cannot control “the material and social environment in which he is destined to live” and these factors must influence his inner acts as well (378). Campbell allows that, while these aspects do have an impact on one’s inner acts, people in general “make allowances” for them, and still feel morally responsible for one’s self (378). In other words, one recognizes the effects of hereditary and environment on his inner acts, but acknowledges that his self can and should still be held morally responsible, as it can overcome these factors. Thus, Campbell claims, sole authorship of an act is possible. The second part of this definition of a “free act” requires that one could have acted otherwise because one could have chosen otherwise (380). With this final presupposition, Campbell states that an act is a free act if and only if...
Free will is a problem that has been occupying the minds of many philosophers. The classical debate is whether we have free will or we are determined and therefore free will in an illusion. There are many views that philosophers have brought to the table in order to tackle this debate. Some of which are determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism. Harry Frankfurt’s general intake on the debate is that free will is not about having the ability to do otherwise. Instead, free will is about having the ability to make judgements about our desires. The purpose of this paper is to expound and asses Harry Frankfurt’s semi-compatibilist view, his concept of a person, and how it relates to the freedom of the will.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) is referred to as the most popular existentialist of the twentieth century and was born out of the third force movement in psychology. The third force movement of the twentieth century consisted of a diverse collection of psychologists and philosophers that did not all share universal principles, but were all reacting to the new orientation of psychology, which differed from behaviorism in that it did not reduce psychological processes to reactions to mechanical laws of physiological events but acknowledged the mediating and active role of the mind (Brennan, 2003). Despite the diversity of the third force movement, there were commonly shared views amongst its pioneers. One of these views was the focus on personal freedom and responsibility in terms of decision making and fulfilling ones potential (Brennan, 2003). The mind was considered to be active, and dynamic and a place where an individual could express their uniquely human abilities of cognition, willing, and judgments (Brennan, 2003). There was an emphasis on the self, and an acknowledgement of the strive of humans toward individually defined personality development. Existentialism holds that an individual is free to define his or her life course through his or her choices and decisions, but individuals are responsible for the consequences of their personal choices and decisions, and therefore freedom is a burdensome source of anguish (Brennan, 2003).
Immanuel Kant’s theory of ethics is rooted in deontology. Describing Kant’s ethics as deontological means that they are derivative of mankind’s moral duty. For Kant, this critical component of ethics is an extension of Hume’s fork as it creates a third category, which is synthetic Apriori. This category is comprised of math, ethics and causality. His rules-based ethics revolves around the good will, as deontology in its nature revolves around adhering to the rules. Kant says that intelligence is great by nature, but means very little unless you apply them in virtuous and good will. In order for something to be truly good, it must be intrinsically good and without qualification.
will is making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances such as fate or divine