The Free Will Debate

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The unique ability that each and every individual possesses that enable him/her to control their actions is known as free will. Free will is directly connected to two other vital philosophical issues: freedom of action and moral accountability, which is the main reason why the debate is so vital. Simply stated, a person who has free will refers to an individual’s ability to choose his or her route of action. However, animals also appear to suit this measure, further adding to the debate because free will is typically thought to only be possessed by human beings (Broad 1990).

Over the years, there has been an extended running controversial debate as to whether free will truly needs an agent to encompass a definite ability of will, or whether the term “free will” is simply a term used to describe other features that individuals may possess, which leads to the controversy of whether free will really does exist. The result of free will is assumed to be human actions, that arise from rational capabilities, which as a result means that free will is depended normally on are those events, which leads us to believe that the opportunity of free action depends on the leeway of free will: to state that a person acted freely is simply to say that the individual was victorious in acting out of free choice (Van Inwagen 1983).

Philosopher Thomas Hobbes asserted this theory by stating that all free will actions were based or influenced by external factors that compel a person to act. However, one might dispute this approach because they are conceptualized based on two different types of distinct types of freedom namely: freedom of will versus freedom of action. This distinction is aggravated by the clear fact that agents can have free will ...

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...e Otherwise." Journal of Philosophy, 1967: 409-417.

Ekstrom, Laura Waddell. Free Will: A Philosophical Study. HarperCollins Publishers, 1999.

Fischer, John Martin. "Power Over the Past." Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1984: 335-350.

Frankfurt, Harry. "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility." Pereboom, 1997: 156-166.

Honderich, Ted. How Free are You? Oxford University Press, 2002.

Murphy, John M. Doris: Dominic. "From My Lai to Abu Ghraib: The Moral Psychology of Atrocity." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2007: 25-55.

Pereboom, Derk. Free Will. Hacket, 1997.

Strawson, Galen. "The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility." Philosophical Studies (Philosophical Studies), 1994: 5-24.

Van Inwagen, Peter. An Essay on Free Will. Clarendon Press, 1983.

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