INTRODUCTION If anyone commits a crime or causes an accident when under the influence of alcohol drugs, they could and, by right, should be held responsible for their actions. Yet, this cannot be viewed from a one-dimensional angle alone, as many other factors, be it semantic or environmental, come into play and complicate the case at hand. In a way, the subject is both the direct and indirect cause of his/her transgressions. LEGAL PERSPECTIVE Assuming intoxication to be the direct cause of any criminal offense, the subject should be held responsible for his/her actions. However, they also deserve a chance to defend themselves and to tell their side of the story. In civil proceedings, a defendant may raise Intoxication as a means of general defense in order to …show more content…
It is the idea that events within a certain paradigm are controlled by causality, such that any state is completely established by prior states. In other words, determinism dictates that all events are ultimately determined by causes beyond human will. Hence, it could be understood that individual human beings would have no actual free will and cannot be held morally responsible for any of their actions. For instance, in cases of involuntary intoxication, the subject did not choose to be intoxicated, hence, it could be inferred that any of his/her actions that followed cannot find him morally responsible for whatever he has done. As he had no say in the matter of his intoxication, that which initiated his involuntary criminal behavior, thus overturning presence of ulterior motive. Any attempts at imputation would be invalid as n a way, the subject's involvement the accidental result of a cause beyond his/her control. Thus, the implications of his/her actions are collateral damage that he/she would have no foreknowledge or control over as
“There is a continuum between free and unfree, with many or most acts lying somewhere in between.” (Abel, 322) This statement is a good summation of how Nancy Holmstrom’s view of free will allows for degrees of freedom depending on the agent’s control over the situation. Holmstrom’s main purpose in her Firming Up Soft Determinism essay was to show that people can have control over the source of their actions, meaning that people can have control over their desires and beliefs, and because of this they have free will. She also tried to show that her view of soft determinism was compatible with free will and moral responsibility. While Holmstrom’s theory about the self’s being in control, willingness to participate, and awareness of an act causes the act to be free, has some merit, her choice to incorporate soft determinism ultimately proved to invalidate her theory.
Greg is an individual who has experienced a traumatic event while being intoxicated while being on the job. Greg was a paramedic and had come to a bad accident where a five-year-old boy was injured. The young boy had several injuries and Greg was responsible for providing him with the proper care. The unfortunate part is that Greg was intoxicated while on the job and he was not thinking clearly while making decisions involving the boys care; as a result, the boy’s death could have been prevented. This event turned Greg’s life upside down, this never would have happened if Greg would not have been intoxicated while being on the job.
ABSTRACT: There are good reasons for determinism — the option for pure freedom of will proves to be a non-tenable position. However, this collides with the everyday experience of autonomy. The following argument will attempt to show that determinism and autonomy are compatible. (1) A first consideration going back to MacKay makes clear that I myself cannot foresee in principle my own determination; hence fatalism has lost its grounds. (2) From the perspective of physical determination, I show that quantum-physical indetermination is not at all in a position to explain autonomy, while from the perspective of systems theory physical determination and autonomy is well-compatible. (3) The possibility of knowledge denotes a further increase of such autonomy. From this perspective, acting is something like designing-oneself or choice-of-oneself. (4) Consciousness of not being fixed in principle now becomes a determining condition of my acting, which appears to be determined by autonomy. This explains the ineradicable conviction that freedom of will is essential for human beings. (5) I conclude that the autonomy of acting is greater the more that rational self-determination takes the place of stupid arbitrariness.
Firstly, the determinist argue that “everything we do is cause by forces over which we have no control (James & Stuart Rachels 110). The free will this theory speaks of is most likely on the biological level, as there are many natural events that occur that people have no control over. For example, the act of cellular reproduction, this
PURPOSE: To persuade my audience NOT to drink and drive Every person is accountable for his or her own “right to drink”. Failure to treat this or any “right” responsibly has consequences. The person’s “right” can and should be taken away when the failure to act responsibly endangers others.
The problem of free will and determinism is a mystery about what human beings are able to do. The best way to describe it is to think of the alternatives taken into consideration when someone is deciding what to do, as being parts of various “alternative features” (Van-Inwagen). Robert Kane argues for a new version of libertarianism with an indeterminist element. He believes that deeper freedom is not an illusion. Derk Pereboom takes an agnostic approach about causal determinism and sees himself as a hard incompatibilist. I will argue against Kane and for Pereboom, because I believe that Kane struggles to present an argument that is compatible with the latest scientific views of the world.
No one can deny that driving drink has caused traffic deaths and injuries. Drunk driving is one of the most frequently committed crimes in the United States, killing someone approximately every 48 minutes. Drunk driving is “A time when humans willingly enter cages of glass and steel that move in such great numbers at such terrific speed, that subtle turn of the steering wheel can easily result in death” (Thomas). What possesses a person to get ...
The National Minimum Age Drinking Act was signed into law on July 17, 1984. This law was carried out at the federal level and forced all states to raise the minimum drinking to 21 or face cuts in federal-aid cuts in their highway funding. I believe this law must be repelled and that the drinking age should be lowered to 18. We must decriminalize the notion of underage drinking because why must 18 through 20 year olds be treated like children but charged as adults?
Determinism currently takes two related forms: hard determinism and soft determinism [1][1]. Hard determinism claims that the human personality is subject to, and a product of, natural forces. All of our choices can be accounted for by reference to environmental, social, cultural, physiological and hereditary (biological) causes. Our total character is a product of these environmental, social, cultural, physiological and hereditary forces, thus our beliefs, desires, values and habits are all outside of our control. The hard determinist, therefore, claims that our choices are determined by these factors; free will is an illusion because the choices and decisions we make are derived from our character, which is completely out of our control in creating. An example might help illustrate this point. Consider a man who has just repeatedly stabbed another man outside of a bar; the other man is dead. The hard determinist would argue that there were factors outside of the killer’s control which led him to this action. As a child, he was constantly beaten by his father and was the object of ridicule and contempt of his classmates. This trend of hard luck would continue all his life. Coupled with the fact that he has a gene that has been identified with male aggression, he could not control himself when he pulled the knife out and started stabbing the other man. All this aggression, and all this history were the determinate cause of his action.
Therefore we are not free to act as we wish due to our actions being
This is established by the fact that according to Bimber, hard technology determinism is not definite because of the arising uncontrolled consequences that even the definite path, sequence, or deterministic sense of technology could not have anticipated. To this effect, “soft” technological determinism nuances argue that technology is at least partially autonomous; that it is responsible for determining certain social effects, but not all. This is further echoed by Lawson, who states that from Marx’s perspective, it would occur that some, but not all technological developments provide the necessary impetus for social development to occur.
Freedom is a human value that has inspired many poets, politicians, spiritual leaders, and philosophers for centuries. Poets have rhapsodized about freedom for centuries. Politicians present the utopian view that a perfect society would be one where we all live in freedom, and spiritual leaders teach that life is a spiritual journey leading the soul to unite with God, thus achieving ultimate freedom and happiness. In addition, we have the philosophers who perceive freedom as an inseparable part of our nature, and spend their lives questioning the concept of freedom and attempting to understand it (Transformative Dialogue, n.d.).
Intoxication: This means that the parties to the contract should not be under the influence of any alcoholic product such as drugs or drinks at the time of making of the contract. The case of Blomley v Ryan can be a good example of Intoxication. In this case Blomley was to purchase a farm from Ryan and at the time of contract Ryan was under the influence of alcohol so the contact was not enforceable.
The act of homicide or accidents Performed after consumption of substance of abuse might not be committed with full insight, but these acts are still punishable by law.
It states that humans do not have free will, which means that if someone does something it does not matter if it is bad or good, it was because that is how God wanted it, because people can not choose what to do. Determinism does not make any sense because how are we supposed to punish someone who had no choice over his actions, and how would we be able to determine if the person really had no other choice. If someone kills some other person they would not be punished because they had no choice, and then people would be killing people like crazy because they might not being punished. When it comes to death penalty, maybe they would kill a lot of people because if it happens for their head, is because we do no chose bad or good, but we are driving by bad. If we were to follow determinism a lot of innocent people would die and a lot of people who deserve to be punish will be found not guilty or