Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Freedom and determinism essay
Freedom vs determinism
Reaction paper for mans search for meaning by viktor frankl
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Freedom and determinism essay
Freedom, is part of the human nature that we all seek to gain. Whether it be because of political reason or some other factor, human beings do are obliged to do things such as moving to a different country or hide to gain their most deserved freedom. Every human being has their natural born rights. However, some people believe that any freedom is conditioned and limited by a different and certain situations. In the book Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktore E. Frankl, the narrator, Frankl dreams of the day he was going to be free again. After being taken to the Auschwitz Jewish camp by the Nazi, Frankl found himself dreading his existence. Along with many others, Frankl experienced one of the most horrific experiences that existed in human history. …show more content…
Determinism states that a person is “completely and unavoidably influenced, shaped and controlled by his/her surroundings.”(Pg. 65). Followers of this idea feel there’s always a situation that might either limit or control their actions. However, Frankl is completely against the theory of determinism. Followers of the idea of determinism feel that people will always be conditioned to be free or have true human liberty. To counter argue that, Frankl questions “is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings?”(Pg. 65) Frankl feels that people have spiritual and emotional freedom to choose whatever they want to do. In Frankl’s situation he has no physical freedom. He gets severely abused and gets deprived of his natural born human freedoms, however, no one, not even the Nazi, could take Frankl’s spiritual freedom and his attitude. Frankl believes that attitude of choosing apathy, in his case giving up his food and offering to those that were suffering lets him overcome the issue of attitude towards different situations for a better
Six million Jews died during World War II by the Nazi army under Hitler who wanted to exterminate all Jews. In Night, Elie Wiesel, the author, recalls his horrifying journey through Auschwitz in the concentration camp. This memoir is based off of Elie’s first-hand experience in the camp as a fifteen year old boy from Sighet survives and lives to tell his story. The theme of this memoir is man's inhumanity to man. The cruel events that occurred to Elie and others during the Holocaust turned families and others against each other as they struggled to survive Hitler's and the Nazi Army’s inhumane treatment.
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, is an account about his experience through concentration camps and death marches during WWII. In 1944, fifteen year old Wiesel was one of the many Jews forced onto cattle cars and sent to death and labor camps. Their personal rights were taken from them, as they were treated like animals. Millions of men, women, children, Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, disabled people, and Slavic people had to face the horrors the Nazi’s had planned for them. Many people witnessed and lived through beatings, murders, and humiliations. Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish
Guilt is an extremely powerful emotion that can consume one from the inside out. In the novel Night, written by Elie Wiesel, everybody, including the Jews act out against each other and do not stand up for one another. In this story, Jews are forced from their homes and brought to concentration camps with rough conditions. Elie’s persecution occurred in the following concentration camps: Auschwitz, Buna, Gleiwitz, and Buchenwald. The Jews took on an overwhelming amount of hardships, but the most difficult obstacle to conquer was man's lack of humanity to man. Throughout the book, the inhumanity against man develops from widespread prejudice to terribly personal punishments.
In "Human Freedom and the Self" Chisholm rejects both determinism (every event that is involved in an act is caused by some other event) and indeterminism (the view that the act, or some event that is essential to the act , is not caused at all) on the basis that they are not contingent with the view that : human beings are responsbile agents. The main dilemma that he trys to resolve is as follows. If we adhere to strict determinism and indeterminism, then any act is either caused by a previous event or is not caused at all. Consider that we follow determinism and that we assume the act is caused by a previous event. If that is the case, and freedom conflicts with determinism, then the person who performed the act is not responsible for it. Also, if the act was not caused at all, the person cannot be responsible for it, that is, human responsibility and indeterminism conflict. So if either determinism or indeterminism were true, there would be no other alternate courses of action and people would not be morally responsible because they could not have done otherwise.
Every day, people are denied basic necessary human rights. One well known event that striped millions of these rights was the Holocaust, recounted in Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night. As a result of the atrocities that occur all around the world, organizations have published declarations such as the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights. It is vital that the entitlement to all rights and freedoms without distinction of any kind, freedom of thought and religion, and the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being of themselves be guaranteed to everyone, as these three rights are crucial to the survival of all people and their identity.
...gs of the meaning of freedom. While Yates’ quest for liberty lead him on a journey of solidarity, Borowski’s gruesome experiences in German concentration camps caused him to doubt the very existence of freedom itself. While Borowski believed that no freedom gained by the anguish of others is legitimate, Hitler sought to bring his chosen people freedom from ‘lessor’ humans by eradicating them. In a congruent WWII setting, three entirely different understandings of freedom arose, which begs the questions: is our understanding of freedom relative, and is there such thing as true freedom?
In “Meaning of Life”, Richard Taylor begins with questioning the meaning of life. He mentions this is rather hard to do and decides to define what meaninglessness is in order to understand the exact opposite: meaningfulness. Taylor asks the reader to recall the famous myth of Sisyphus to come about the definition of meaninglessness. He states that Sisyphus was condemned to roll a large boulder up a hill, only to have that boulder roll back down the hill, forcing him to repeat the task forever. Despite all his efforts, his existence amounts to nothing more than endlessly repeating the same task, which itself contributes to no greater goal or purpose. This, Taylor suggests, is the very image of meaninglessness. He defines meaninglessness as the following: “Meaninglessness is essentially endless pointlessness, and meaningfulness is therefore the opposite” (270).
When thinking of freedom, it’s the idea that people are able to act, speak, and have their own thoughts without any restraints. With oppression it’s the prolong of cruel treatment or control. I think the need for freedom and the overcoming of oppression is something that has been an issue since the time of slavery, maybe even before then it 's just that we’re not considered as property in this day in age and we’re entitled to the same rights as everyone else. When I think about it, are we really free and what are the reasons for someone suffering at some point in their life? Nelson Mandela’s reflection, “Working Toward Peace” and Ursula Le Guin, in her fictional essay “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” both discuss these themes throughout
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.
Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worse attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point were they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous example used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were. After being forced into concentration camps, Elie was rudely awakened into reality. Traumatizing incidents such as Nazi persecution or even the mistreatment among fellow prisoners pushed Elie to realize the cruelty around him; Or even the wickedness Elie himself is capable of doing. This resulted in the loss of faith, innocence, and the close bonds with others.
Nothing in life is guaranteed, but the one thing that humans demand is freedom. Throughout history, there are countless cases where groups of people fought for their freedom. They fought their battles in strongly heated debates, protests, and at its worst, war. Under the assumption that the oppressors live in complete power, the oppressed continuously try to escape from their oppressors in order to claim what is rightfully theirs: the freedom of choice. In Emily Dickinson’s poems #280, #435, and #732 and Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, freedom is represented by an individual’s ability to make their own decisions without the guidance, consultation, or outside opinion of others in order to find their true sense of self. Once an individual is physically and spiritually free, they can find their true sense of self.
If This Is a Man or Survival in Auschwitz), stops to exist; the meanings and applications of words such as “good,” “evil,” “just,” and “unjust” begin to merge and the differences between these opposites turn vague. Continued existence in Auschwitz demanded abolition of one’s self-respect and human dignity. Vulnerability to unending dehumanization certainly directs one to be dehumanized, thrusting one to resort to mental, physical, and social adaptation to be able to preserve one’s life and personality. It is in this adaptation that the line distinguishing right and wrong starts to deform. Primo Levi, a survivor, gives account of his incarceration in the Monowitz- Buna concentration camp.
Determinism is one of the three types of freedom. Determinism is the view that every event and human action in your life are brought upon us by previous experiences with the natural laws that govern the world. Determinism believes that human freedom is an illusion (BOOK). Some of the causes to why determinists believe that human freedom is an illusion is: human nature, environment, psychological forces, and social dynamics. An example of human nature is taking a vitamin or eating healthy food to balance your diet. We do this because we believe that our physical bodies have a causal relationship with a diet or taking a vitamin. An example of the environment is when you bring an umbrella with you to work because you know it is going to rain.
The term `freedom' is often associated with the notion of living free of restraint and having an unfettered liberty to engage in rational actions with a sense that that our actions will not be controlled or interfered with. Given the above definition of freedom and the principles of positive and negative freedom, this essay shall seek to demonstrate that while they do not experience freedom fully, the proles are more free than Winston in Nineteen Eighty-Four. This essay shall also discuss the reasons why we consider freedom to be important with a particular focus on our assumptions of human nature and its components.
The meaning of life, defined by Victor E. Frankl, is the will to find your meaning in life. It is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. He believes that if you are approached with the question of “what is the meaning of my life” or in this case, “life is meaningless,” then you should reverse the question to that person asking the question. For example: What are you bringing to me? What are you as an individual contributing to this life? This forces the person in question to take a look at themselves and to ultimately be responsible. Frankl says that if you are a responsible member of society than the meaning of life transcends from yourself rather from your own psyche. He also says that if we for some reason cannot find meaning within ourselves it has to be from some outside source. This is referred to as service. And an example of this is love. Victor Frankl describes three ways in which we can discover the meaning of life; Creating work-doing a deed, experiencing something-someone, and by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.