The Powers Of Rational Being : Freedom Of The Will

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.

Determinism is the idea that everything we do as humans is determined by events prior to us being born and events that have happened in the past. Decisions that you may think are based on your desires, are actually based of things beyond your control. But the big question is, if determinism is

The subject of freewill and determinism has been a matter of intense debate in the philosophical community for ages with the topic of compatibilism and incompatibilism. This essay will be reviewing and critiquing the work of a very well-known philosopher Peter Van Inwagen and his article “An Argument For Incompatibilism” and what does he mean by freewill and determinism.

It offers a solution to the free will problem. Free will goes along with determinism because of the moral responsibility and it is incompatibility between each other. We are still held responsible for our voluntary actions and our actions are still determined. Because free will is typically taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed as a thesis about the compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism (McKenna). He or she can be morally responsible even if determinism is true, which there are logical reasons that this could be true. In this paper I will defend how compatibilism is tied up with both freedom and moral responsibility and give some examples that will support my argument for compatibilism. Also talk about the other two, determinism and libertarianism and give examples and then explain why I still agree on compatibilism. Free will is like a box of chocolates, unless you do not eat the free will chocolates, you will not feel guilty. How can one feel guilty for what they are compelled to do?

People believe that genuine freedom of choice is not always possible because our decisions and actions are determined by factors beyond our control. This view is known as Determinism. There is also an extreme form of determinism known as ‘hard determinism,’ in which they believe that every demeanor can be traced to a cause, although they may disagree about what those causes are. The idea of determinism poses a difficult issue to the concept of ‘free will’. Are we able to make free choices if all our thoughts and actions are predetermined by our own past and the physical laws of nature? Majority of us would like to believe that we have the freedom of will and are able to make decisions based on our own discretion but, I personally believe that the deterministic view holds true to a certain extent and that most of our actions are a result of a force that is beyond our comprehension. My purpose in this essay is to explain and critically analyze Baron d’Holbach’s view on determinism.

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.

One of the main questions that we face is whether or not, we as humans have genuine freedom. Are we free to make our own choices? Do we decide what happens in our lives in the future? Or are our lives set pathways in which we have no say at all? Are all our choices already decided? In other words, do we have free will or are our actions pre-determined, or both? Hard determinists, libertarians and soft determinists all set out to provide answers to these questions, holding different views on whether or not free will and determinism are compatible. Both hard determinists and libertarians believe that free will and determinism are incompatible but hard determinists

Determinism supporters claim that all consequences are inevitable since conditions are met and nothing else would occur by any chances. And determinism could influence and controlling everything in the universe with causal laws. According to determinism, we could make predictions about the occurrences of certain events or actions of human beings. There three types of determinism that I will discuss in the following, the Hard determinism, Soft determinism and Libertarianism.

The focus of this essay will be an argument by Peter Van Inwagen known as the “Consequence Argument.” The argument’s main goal is to refute compatibilism, or the idea that free will and determinism are reconcilable. Van Inwagen’s argument can be expressed as follows:

In his essay, “An Argument for Incompatibilism,” Peter van Inwagen concludes that free will and determinism cannot be compatible. The type of argument that van Inwagen uses, the Consequence Argument, has become the maxime popularis way for incompatibilists to assert that, determinism, and free will, are in conflict. The Consequence Argument attempts to display that, if there is an assumption that determinism is true, and then there is a further assumption that for any action that has taken place, up to a specific point, the agent never had a choice about the action taken. Then the consequence is there can be no free action of the agent. Therefore, no free will.

Hard Determinism is a theory which basically states that we are have no free will whatsoever and so we cannot be morally responsible for our actions. This is because all actions are said to have a prior cause, and so do our own human actions. In addition to this, genetics and our social environment are said to have a huge influence on the way we respond I situations, meaning we can never truly act off of our own accord, there is always something influencing the way in which we behave. In this essay, I intend to prove whether or not Hard Determinism is right to say we are not truly responsible for our actions. To do this, I will compare Hard Determinism to other theories, including Libertarianism (which states we are entirely free and responsible for our actions) and Soft Determinism or Compatibilism (which states we are determined to an extent, yet

The following paper was made with the purpose of presenting an objection to Van Inwagen’s argument which states that free will and determinism are incompatible. First let’s start by giving Van Inwagen’s point of view about determinism and free will. Inwagen says that “free will requires the ability to act otherwise than we do". Determinism on the other hand says that "for every instant of time, there is a proposition that expresses the state of the world at that instant". As a result our actions and decisions are already determined.

In “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person”, Harry Frankfurt illustrates the concepts of freedom of will and freedom of action, but more importantly, Frankfurt has refined the compatibilism theory. Compatibilism allows the freedom of will to exist in the deterministic world. According to determinism theory, the future state of worlds is determined by some events in the distant past (E) and the laws of nature (L). More specifically, E refers to the history, such as experiences or states whereas L refers to scientific or physical law like gravity. For example, an alcoholic’s action is determined that he will not stop drinking. Here E is that he had been drinking in the past, and L is the physiological addiction effect caused by

The metaphysical issue is in regards to the concept of determinism. Causal determinism describes the view that all events are the outcome of prior conditions and precedent causes, meaning that the condition at a particular time determines the condition of the next moment in time. With the laws of nature, the initial conditions essentially fix the future to go a specific way. This indicates that to us, given the past history and prior nature, we are only able to act in one particular way. Causal determinism clashes with regards to the idea of free will, because it suppresses our ability to exercise control over our actions while considering the moral responsibility that corresponds these choices. It can be seen as everything in the universe is unfolding like the domino effect, each domino falling over the next and continues onwards, suggesting it inevitable to result otherwise.

The concept of determinism presents a complex problem for the theory of free will. How can people make free choices if all their actions are determined by factors from the past and other laws of nature? As such, how can people be held morally responsible if their actions have no free will? These questions are not