More handpicked essays just for you.
Summary of freedom and determinism
A philosophical look at the relationship between determinism and freedom
Freedom and determinism
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Consider this argument: 'If the future is already determined, then it must be possible to know in advance what will happen. But, if that is so, then free will is impossible.' Do you agree? Is there any satisfactory way of acting freely if determinism is true?
The connection between free will and moral responsibility has been a heavily debated topic by early philosophers with many ancient thinkers trying to demonstrate that humans either do have ultimate control over our actions and are not made by external forces or that humans do not have control and that the trajectory of our lives is pre-determined. The most common argument and the one I will focus on in this essay suggests that free will can not be correlated with randomness and, therefore, all other possibilities are exhausted.
In this essay, I will explore the concept of free will by drawing a correlation to determinism and analyse if free will is dictated for us. I will argue that the future is
…show more content…
If a two-way communicator existed across time for this to be achieved the two metaphysical considerations must be met. Firstly, Lewis highlights the that “time is one dimension of four”, in the fourth-dimensional world, suggesting that time is just as perceptible as any place and potentially where the time traveller will send the message. Second, fourth-dimensional spectrum also considers causation and possible reverse causation, that is there must be awareness for earlier events to be causally dependable on the future events, and therefore how communication will take place between two different times. Lewis argues that his grandfather paradox can provide solidarity with the past, only if a time traveller was to travel to the past, they would not be able to make any changes that may potentially lead to them never
As a philosophical theory, determinism itself lays claim to truth, which therewith presupposes freedom, in accordance with what I have just said.
3. Discuss the issue between Baron d'Holbach and William James on free will and determinism?
In respect to the arguments of Ayer and Holbach, the dilemma of determinism and its compatibility with that of free will are found to be in question. Holbach makes a strong case for hard determinism in his System of Nature, in which he defines determinism to be a doctrine that everything and most importantly human actions are caused, and it follows that we are not free and therefore haven’t any moral responsibility in regard to our actions. For Ayer, a compatibilist believing that free will is compatible with determinism, it is the reconciliation and dissolution of the problem of determinism and moral responsibility with free willing that is argued. Ayer believes that this problem can be dissolved by the clarification of language usage and the clarification of what freedom is in relationship to those things that oppose freedom or restrain it. In either case, what is at stake is the free will of an agent, and whether or not that agent is morally responsible. What is to be seen from a discussion of these arguments is the applicability and validity of these two philosophies to situations where one must make a choice, and whether or not that person is acting freely and is thus responsible given his current situation. In this vein, the case of Socrates’ imprisonment and whether or not he acted freely in respect to his decision to leave or stay in prison can be evaluated by the discussion of the arguments presented in respect to the nature of free will in its reconciliation with determinism in the compatibilist vein and its absence in the causality of hard determinism.
A reading “The Dilemma of Determinism” by William James’s, he explains that everything that happens in the future is already predicted by the way things are now. In contrast, indeterminism allows some of the loose plays that we make among us, play among parts of the u...
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 as they contradict one another. In this essay I hope to find a solution to this problem.
All in all, each view about the philosophy of free will and determinism has many propositions, objects and counter-objections. In this essay, I have shown the best propositions for Libertarianism, as well as one opposition for it which I gave a counter-objection. Additionally, I have explained the Compatabalistic and Hard Deterministic views to which I gave objections. In the end, whether it is determinism or indeterminism, both are loaded with difficulties; however, I have provided the best explanation to free will and determinism and to an agent being morally responsible.
Furthermore, free will has been closely connected to the moral responsibility, in that one acts knowing they will be res for their own actions. There should be philosophical conditions regarding responsibility such like the alternatives that one has for action and moral significance of those alternatives. Nevertheless, moral responsibility does not exhaust the implication of free will.
The first argument for free will is what one could call the quantum mechanics argument. This argument is about the uncertainty principle and how human nature cannot be statistically determined because atomic physics and human behavior do not follow the same laws (Bolles 1963). Another argument described by Bolles (2002) is the sense of freedom of man. Man’s awareness is the creation of free will, so that alone would rule out determinism. Another problem with predicting human behavior is that people are all different artistically and intellectually, so everyone will react differently (Bolles 2002). In Bolles w...
Determinism is the theory that everything is caused by antecedent conditions, and such things cannot be other than how they are. Though no theory concerning this issue has been entirely successful, many theories present alternatives as to how it can be approached. Two of the most basic metaphysical theories concerning freedom and determinism are soft determinism and hard determinism.
Although the tradition of western philosophy was once famously called a series of 'footnotes to Plato' (A.N. Whitehead), there seems to be at least one major philosophical debate that owes it s heritage neither to Plato nor to any of his ancient compatriots. The problem of free will and determinism seems not to have been a major issue directly exercising the minds of philosophers of the ancient world. There are probably two main reasons for this. First, 'the prevailing view of the universe in their day did not presuppose an omnipotent deity. The Olympians were certainly magnificently superhuman but they fell far short of total power. Even Zeus, the greatest of the gods, did not have everything his own way as many a myth testifies. However, once the Judaeo-Christian notion of the Almighty came to dominate the thinking of Europe, then doubts emerged about the scope of human freedom. For, if God is the omnipotent creator of all, then his created beings may well enquire whether they are his totally passive automata or endowed with independent choice and responsibility. Second, the Greeks lacked a deep-seated belief in scientific determinism. Scientists and non-scientists alike, we children of the modem world cannot escape strong conditioning into the belief that all physical events have physical causes, that we live in a universe governed by inexorable laws of nature. Once we apply this general principle to human behaviour we are bound to ask whether our actions are the expression of our free will or simply mechanistic reactions to stimuli. In this essay I intend to examine a central doctrine of Aristotle and in the course of this examination show that, although Ar...
Free will is a term defining the capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action, and is what we, as humans, are naturally inclined to accepting as something that we have. In other words, there is a wide consensus among philosophers that we are free agents; we choose to act or not to act according to our own independent decision-making methods. But this is a commonly debated topic, and many questions have been posed in response to the free will and determinism debate – questions such as: are we but mere puppets to a determinative force? The libertarian standpoint argues that any necessitating causal laws do not govern human actions. Thus, humans have a real notion of responsibility and freedom. However, contrasting standpoints such as determinism argue against this, claiming that everything is determined in one way or another. For example, our actions may have been predetermined by a mysterious, transcendent force (i.e God). In this paper, I will be investigating views of libertarianism in order to ascertain to what degree it is the most convincing standpoint. In doing so, I will briefly be comparing libertarianism to its opposite: determinism. Firstly, I will discuss the views of philosophical thinker Robert Kane and how he supports libertarianism through his Garden of the Forking Paths story. This will be followed with an examination of Pierre Simon de Laplace’s deterministic arguments via Newton’s cited astronomy predictions. Finally, I will turn to Jean-Paul Sartre’s libertarianism to investigate the significance of individuality and how this supports libertarianism. This examination will show the significan...
Great human minds have pondered whether free will exists for millenniums. Augustine and Plato, groundbreaking philosophers of their time, had similar ideologies in regard to man’s freewill, which encompassed that knowledge can be achieved from eternal and absolute things. The paper will discuss Plato and Augustine’s ideologies about man’s free will and how they coincide with one another.
The concept of free will has developed slowly, though ancient philosophers did address the subject when trying to reconcile intentional action with religious concerns about human and divine freedom. It wasn’t until the end of medieval times that the modern-day understanding of freedom as a completely undetermined choice between alternatives was introduced. However, it is unclear how to reconcile contemporary science that acknowledges the in...
The dilemma of determinism is an issue that has led to widespread debate over whether or not people have free will. The dilemma of determinism follows as such; (A) if determinism is true, we are not responsible, since our choices are determined by factors we can’t control, (B) Indeterminism is true, we are not responsible, since every choice happens by chance, (C) But either determinism or indeterminism is true, (D) Therefore, we are not morally responsible for what we do. Simply, the dilemma states that we cannot be free and therefore are not responsible for our choices. This dilemma has been approached by some people called compatibilists who believe that we can be responsible for our choices even though the choice was determined in advance.
Free Will Analyzing our individual free will can be very intriguing and can almost reach the point of being paradoxical. Ultimately, free will determines the level of responsibility we claim for our actions. Obviously, if outside forces determine our choices, we cannot be held responsible for our actions. However, if our choices are made with total freedom than certainly we must claim responsibility for our choices and actions. The readings I chose offered two quite opposite theories on individual human freedom, determinism vs. existentialism.