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The importance of responsibility and accountability
The importance of responsibility and accountability
An Essay on Free Will
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Free Will
In this paper, I will argue that we have free will for our actions and our moral responsibilities. Free will is a big part in life. We have free will, but there are times where there is no free will. In the world we live in today, we really don’t always have free will.
If we have free will then we have choices and we make a choice by reasoning. We also have free will to choose how we behave in a good way or a bad way. We can choose by emotion. Emotions can be extreme or not as extreme, by the way we handle things. We choose how to handle things. Sometimes they could lead to consequences and they could be serious. An example is we either choose to go to work or hang out with friends and have a fun time. The better choice is to go to work instead because we have
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There are things that we want, but we have to either work to get it or sometimes we don’t get what we want. Whatever we do could be a good thing or it could be a boomerang and we have to be punished.
There are cases that we are in an we only have certain things to do. We have the free will for it to be a good thing or a bad thing. We also sometimes don’t have control of our actions to where we do things without thinking about it.
If there is a cause where we are convinced to only one choice, then that is not free will. An example is beeing in a coma, being possessed, or what spirits can do to us. This is the objection. With this, we can’t control what happens to us. We don’t have the power to do the things we can do. Somer of the things we do can be out of our control. Being in a coma we don’t control it happening, and we can’t control when to wake up from the coma. Another example is beeing possed. Somebody is taking over our bodies, so we have no control of our actions and what comes from out of our mouths.
Thus I conclude, I believe we have a moral responsibility for our action of free will. Free will is only limited in the world
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.
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 argument of free will and determinism is a very complex argument. Some might say we have free will because we are in control; we have the ability to make our own choices. Others might say it’s in our biological nature to do the things we do; it’s beyond our control. Basically our life experiences and choices are already pre determined and there’s nothing we can do to change it. Many philosophers have made very strong arguments that support both sides.
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:
Thesis: The central conflict behind free will is determining whether or not it humans have the freedom of
It has been sincerely obvious that our own experience of some source that we do leads in result of our own free choices. For example, we probably believe that we freely chose to do the tasks and thoughts that come to us making us doing the task. However, we may start to wonder if our choices that we chose are actually free. As we read further into the Fifty Readings in Philosophy by Donald C. Abel, all the readers would argue about the thought of free will. The first reading “The System of Human Freedom” by Baron D’Holbach, Holbach argues that “human being are wholly physical entities and therefore wholly subject to the law of nature. We have a will, but our will is not free because it necessarily seeks our well-being and self-preservation.” For example, if was extremely thirsty and came upon a fountain of water but you knew that the water was poisonous. If I refrain from drinking the water, that is because of the strength of my desire to avoid drinking the poisonous water. If I was too drink the water, it was because I presented my desire of the water by having the water overpowering me for overseeing the poison within the water. Whether I drink or refrain from the water, my action are the reason of the out coming and effect of the motion I take next. Holbach concludes that every human action that is take like everything occurring in nature, “is necessary consequences of cause, visible or concealed, that are forced to act according to their proper nature.” (pg. 269)
There are a lot of different things that come to mind when somebody thinks of the phrase Free Will, and there are some people who think that free will does not exists and that everything is already decided for you, but there are also people who believe in it and think that you are free to do as you please. An example that explains the problem that people have with free will is the essay by Walter T. Stace called “Is Determinism Inconsistent with Free Will?”, where Stace discusses why people, especially philosophers, think that free will does not exist.
As a result, this essay will prove that one is held morally responsible for any act that was performed or chosen by them, which qualifies as a human act. The Libertarian view consists of one’s actions not being determined; however, have free will, which is a precondition for moral responsibility. Basically put, human acts are not determined by precedent causes. Libertarianism is one of the views under incompatibilism along with Hard Determinism. The opposite of these views is Compatibilism.
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.
Most people believe they have free will, they control what they think and do, but what exactly is free will? Free will is the freedom of self-determination and action independent of external causes. It is the ability to make choices. A choice is free if it is consistent with a person 's desires and nature. A example of free will is a person has a choice to either eat a cookie or a brownie.
When thinking about the topic of free will I personally think it is the ability to make decisions that we WANT to make, and not being forced to do so. Susan Wolf explores the idea of our independence by looking at three different views exploring our freedom and responsibility. The first view Wolf talks about is The Real Self View (RSV) which explores the idea that, we are ultimately free when we act on our inmost values whether they are “right” or “wrong”. The next view she explores is The Autonomy View (AV), this view states that “we are free when we act on our own” (Wolf 206). The last view Wolf talks about is The Reason View
Imagine starting your day and not having a clue of what to do, but you begin to list the different options and routes you can take to eventually get from point A to point B. In choosing from that list, there coins the term “free will”. Free will is our ability to make decisions not caused by external factors or any other impediments that can stop us to do so. Being part of the human species, we would like to believe that we have “freedom from causation” because it is part of our human nature to believe that we are independent entities and our thoughts are produced from inside of us, on our own. At the other end of the spectrum, there is determinism. Determinism explains that all of our actions are already determined by certain external causes
Some Philosophers believe that free will is not required in moral responsibility. John Fischer states that “human agents do not have free will, but they are still morally responsible for their choices and actions.” Fischer is basically saying that moral responsibility is not as strong as free will (Timpe).
Freedom, or the concept of free will seems to be an elusive theory, yet many of us believe in it implicitly. On the opposite end of the spectrum of philosophical theories regarding freedom is determinism, which poses a direct threat to human free will. If outside forces of which I have no control over influence everything I do throughout my life, I cannot say I am a free agent and the author of my own actions. Since I have neither the power to change the laws of nature, nor to change the past, I am unable to attribute freedom of choice to myself. However, understanding the meaning of free will is necessary in order to decide whether or not it exists (Orloff, 2002).
The problem with free will according to Inwagen is a simple embarrassing one amongst philosophers. Bassically the presentation in any given argument is embeded with loose definitions and incoherent ideas. the root of the problem lies with in defining what freewill actually is since authors speaking on the matter have different terms for free will. these terms are things such as compatibilist free will and libertarian free will are sources of great confusion for the audience reading an author 's position on the matter.The problem here is elementary, in trying to deliver a point and convince an audience, it is simply the presenters responsibility to give clear definitions. This means that any ambiguous phrases with in the argument must be identified and translated for coherence.