Free Will And Agent Causality

In this paper I will present an argument against free will and then I will defend a response to that argument. Free will is defined as having the ability to make our own choices. Some will argue that all of our decisions have already been dictated by our desires therefore we never actually truly make our own choices. The purpose of this paper is to defend the argument that we have free will by attacking the premise that states we have no control over what we desire. I will defeat this premise by showing how one does have control over his/her desires through the idea of self-control. I will then defend my argument against likely rebuttals that state that there is still no way to control our desires proving that we do have free will.

Over the years, both philosophers and average people alike have contemplated the concept of free will. Usually, people would not contemplate free will. The common man usually just makes choices and does not wonder if this choice is truly a free one. Like many principles, the question of free will is not answered in consensus. This leads to the question “what are humans able to do?” Van Iwagen discusses free will in his essay The Powers of Rational Beings. He states that free will and determinism brings about a mystery.

We are in control of our fate, by our daily actions. It is our lie, every choice or decision that we make has an impact on our fate. Every decision has a consequence; good or bad. One can only make own choices if one takes the actions to do so. If one does not, then no, one does not control their own destiny. By not taking control, one is letting others do whatever they want with it.

Everyone believes himself or herself to possess the freedom of will. If we do not have free will, then that suggests that we lack any power or control over anything, therefore, nothing is up to us. This would impair our view and perception of our society, community and the world. The metaphysical issue of free will is if the initial conditions are fixed and all the laws of nature are deterministic, then the resulting outcome that will happen thereafter is also fixed, because of the laws of nature as well as the initial conditions. So do we actually have free will? This question has become a paradoxical topic, with issues arising from philosophical concepts, including causal determinism and fatalism. This creates a problem for free will

Free will is an often debated, and arguably overly analyzed topic. Theories abound stating anywhere from that there is not the possibility of free will to free will being a possibility with the theories to back up the claims. Addressing these theories and their arguments, both for and against should allow a person to come to a personal conclusion about the issue of free will, though the debate will undoubtedly continue long in to the future. This paper will discuss the views of Dennett and Skinner. It will address the three major theories that have been put forth as the truth behind free will. It will review the arguments against these, and whether people should be held accountable for their actions. Finally, it will help to draw practical

Free will is “the ability to act without being determined by anteceding factors (Strawson 584).” The idea that we are not fully in control of what we are doing and what is going on around us intimidates many people because

here we are saying in the first example that we are in control of our behavior of our own free will and

Free Will is like a Dog Leash. When a dog is on a leash, it has some control of where it wants to go. It can choose to walk slowly, run, sit or go. In the end, the person holding the leash has ultimate control. The dog can do what it wants while on the leash, but the person holding the leash always has control. Some leashes are extendable, so as the dog runs the leash gets longer. The dog can then run as far as it can until it runs out of leash. The person holding the leash has the power to make the leash longer and slower, or pull the dog to one side or another. The person also has the power to make the dog stop or go. For the most part, the dog decides what it wants but in the end, the person holding that leash decides what happens.

Fate and Destiny: Some Historical Distinctions between the Concepts Richard W. Bargdill Saint Francis University Abstract There has been a great deal of attention given to the “free will versus determinism” debate. However, little attention has been paid to the most common expressions from this controversy—people’s everyday experience of fate and destiny. In fact, fate and destiny are terms that are often used as synonyms as if there were no differences between the two words. This paper distinguishes the two concepts by reviewing some historical distinctions made by a variety of philosophers, psychologists and scientists. The paper also discusses some

According to free will, you are morally responsible for your own actions. You have a choice to be a murderer and you have a choice to be a janitor. You have a choice to eat the fried rice or the Chinese authentic pizza. You decide whether want to stay in Oakland or live in Russia. You determine whether Donald Trump is good-hearted. You decide whether you want to buy the Nokia Lumia 365 or the Iphone 5s. Basically, you have freedom over your decisions.

Compatibilists compare free will with freedom of action which is the lack of self-control. We are free to make our own choices, and we have free will, if we are not bounded by physical restraints. Freewill is defined as the belief that our behavior is under our own self-control. A determinist, however, would argue and say that people are not free, and therefore are not at fault for their actions. In this essay, I will argue that free will is not valid based on my religious beliefs.

1. The agent-causality theory of free will is the theory that agents can start new causal chains that are not pre-determined by the events of the immediate or distant past and the physical laws of nature. Chisholm argues that the agent causes free actions, and that actions are self-determined, making them agent-caused. The theory states that we can bundle together all of an individual’s emotions, aspirations, dispositions, personality traits and we can then consider that the person’s character. Then this character has a great deal of influence on an individual’s decision. According to agent causation, there is another key factor: the self. The self stands apart from the individual’s character and it can either go along with the character or resist the character. The relation between an agent and an action cannot be reduced to or fully explained by the usual kind of causation, meaning that our actions are instances of direct causation by an agent.

For many, the concept of controlling one’s own destiny is an attractive thought. Perhaps the reason for the notion being admired so broadly lies within the definition of the word itself; “the inevitability of events that will happen” implies that whatever good that is promised for a person will be safe from any obstacles that may interfere with their future. However, despite the comfort of the promise itself, the actual ability to control one’s own destiny is highly subjective and often influenced by a number of outside factors, including the society in which they were raised, their class position, and, unfortunately, their race.

For centuries, people have been locked in an epic debate over whether we control our own lives, or if some higher power does instead. The concept of destiny is well-known, and several people believe in it heavily, if for reassurance that everything has a reason behind it, or simply out of faith. However, many others believe there’s no such thing, and that the “fate” of their lives is in their own hands; their own actions bring their own consequences. Two works, by differing authors, will be used to determine which concept prevails; the powers of fate or the power of free will. In an excerpt of chapters 2-3, Malcolm Gladwell introduces his point arguing for free will in his nonfiction novel, Outliers: The Story of Success. In the famous tragedy Macbeth, William Shakespeare will argue for the concept of fate in his dramatic, fantastical play. Between the two unit selections, both focus on things that can and can’t be controlled in life, but Gladwell does a better job with answering the prompt because he has a better argument; the power people have with free will trumps that of fate, and whatever happens in a person’s life is the result of what they have done, not whatever deity that could exist has done. So the question is this: how much of what happens in our lives can we actually control?

Every person, no matter the age or gender is, and will always be, worried about its destiny. Destiny, or fate, how most people tend to call it, represents the ultimate step in the road of an individual, the last stage of the play of every living thing. Something so trivial in the life of a person and yet, all people want to know its meaning. Along fate, there has always been the other subject, the one which describes how we get there, the choices, the true faith. It is what uttermost people call free will or, the ability to make our own decisions with the hope of one day achieving a greater goal, to show our true faith. Throughout the course, we have sailed through different stories. Some more interesting than others, but something always remained likewise. The struggle between fate and free will. This relationship has always been a mystery and to understand it, we will take a look at how those two perceptions play a role in the stories No Exit, from Jean-Paul Sartre and Oedipus Rex, from Sophocles.