Free Will in A Clockwork Orange and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

Free will is a right given to us when we are born as human beings. However, depending on different circumstances that right can be easily taken away based on where you live, or the actions that one can do to them. In A Clockwork Orange, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the characters throughout both novels and films have controlled free will because of different circumstances.

There are various definitions of free will. Merriam Webster Dictionary defines free will as “voluntary choice or decision, or freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention”. (Merriam Websters Dictionary) Shaun Nichols, writer for Scientific American writes the following about free will:

“The debate over free will is one example in which our intuitions conflict with scientific and philosophical arguments. Something similar holds for intuitions about consciousness, morality, and a host of other existential concerns. Typically philosophers deal with these issues through careful thought and discourse with other theorists. In the past decade, however, a small group of philosophers have adopted more data-driven methods to illuminate some of these confounding questions. These so-called experimental philosophers administer surveys, measure reaction times and image brains to understand the sources of our instincts. If we can figure out why we feel we have free will, for example, or why we think that consciousness consists of something more than patterns of neural activity in our brain, we might know whether to give credence to those feelings. That is, if we can show that our intuitions about free will emerge from an untrustworthy process, we may decide not to trust those beliefs.” (Nichols)

In both...

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All of these are examples of how both Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep/Blade Runner and A Clockwork Orange are tied together. The reason that these two are so well tied together is because of the impact that the government has on the two films and novels impacting free will on all of the main characters. It is interesting about the theme, which ties these two together, and how the impact that the government has on free will and how it can be very relatable to the world today. It’s also interesting to read these two novels and watch the two films and then look what is happening in countries around the world and see how other governments control their free will and think about how the government played huge roles on free will in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep/Blade Runner and A Clockwork Orange for the main characters.