The Question of Free Will: Descartes, Hume, and Nietzsche Essay

Determinism is a doctrine suggesting that for every event there exist conditions that could cause no alternative event. Free will is a philosophical term describing a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Understandably, the dichotomy between these two concepts is a topic philosophers have debated over for many years. As a result of these debates, a number of alternative philosophical perspectives arguing for the existence of free will, namely libertarianism and compatibilism, have emerged, existing in stark contrast to determinism. In order to ascertain the extent to which free will is compatible with determinism, one must first consider these different approaches to

Over time, numerous philosophers have dabbled at the concepts surrounding free will, forming their own beliefs that either relate or reject other philosophical views. Free will is defined as the ability to choose between different possible courses of action. Epicurus, Stoics, and John Locke portray arguments about their beliefs on free will. Many times, each philosophical view of the three were influenced by aspects of another philosopher, especially Aristotle. Although their beliefs are unique, each philosophical view can be connected together. All three philosophical views either promote or reject the ideology of determinism referring to the issue of free will. I accept the Stoics beliefs on free will due to freedom resembling a person’s choices to do what he or she wants to do in life.

Descartes begins by distinguishing the “real and positive idea of God” from the opposite “negative idea of nothingness,” placing himself in the middle of this spectrum (99). He is finite and imperfect but, as God's creation, his nature contains nothing which itself facilitates mistakes. Since he exists between God and nothingness, however, he also “participate[s] in nothingness or non-being” (99-100). Errors of judgement, then, must stem from “nothingness,” the absolute absence of all perfection. Mistakes are not “things” resulting from an error-making faculty dependent on God, but instead lackings of a limited, fallible faculty of judgement. This answer, Descartes admits, does not fully address the problem, since a lacking is not a “pure negation” and implies that something which ought to be present is missing. Could God have failed to grant some perfection that we should possess? Descartes contrasts his own “weak and limited” nature with God's “immense, incomprehensible and infinite” nature, deeming that God's reasoning is beyond the scope of his understanding and that, feasibly, a world with errors is best when examined in its entirety

in what really happens in his life. Descartes states that with free will that “we tried to doubt all

The philosophy of determinism states that everything humans do are determined by the previous action and the causal law of nature. Determinism believes that humans are no control over their action, therefore there is no free will, and nobody is responsible for their action. There are several responses to the philosophy of determinism including libertarianism, compatibilism, and fatalist

The will, at its most basic, consists in saying “yes” or “no” to ideas or propositions. Descartes adopts the position that the free will is independent of the deterministic and fundamental laws that govern matter. Human behavior is neither dictated by mechanical compulsion, nor persuaded or coerced by God, nor influenced by any external force to act in a predetermined manner. Descartes, in a bold stroke, proclaims the divine grace of God along with natural knowledge actually increases and strengthens human freedom, as opposed to restricting its effectiveness.

2. Descartes explains that the source of error and sin come from both the ability know things and the ability to make independent decisions that God had assigned to all humans. He explains that errors do not come from knowledge influencing the free will, but results from the ability to decide that directs our

The first aspect I would like to navigate through is the constraints placed on the ability to choose. One does not have the opportunity to choose freely in an organized society, community or institute. There seems to always be a restriction to the actual amount of choices one has. If Descartes was correct in his assumption of complete freedom of choice and will every option would be available to someone at any given time, in any given situation. But this is not necessarily the condition. There are a few different examples that one can view to comprehend this facet of my argument. Take for instance, perhaps an extreme but an occurrence none the less, people born of poverty do not have the ability to choose to acquire certain things. It is impossible simply by the fact that they do not have the means to get it. There is no choice of purchasing a fifty dollar object if all one has is twenty dollars. I feel though that perhaps Descartes was speaking of another free will, a non-materialistic aspect. Another example one can then try to explain is how in many middle eastern nations individuals are born into a society where one religion is forced upon them. They must live to follow this religion or risk outcast by the community or even death. In such a decision one does not have the opportunity to choose to not follow the religion because, although it may seem available, most choices against the norm bring with them an extreme consequences.

William Rowe defines gratuitous evil as an instance of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.(Rowe 335) In a world with so much evil it raises the questions If God is all powerful, all knowing and all good, how can he allow bad things to happen to good people? Can God even exist in a world with so such gratuitous evil? These are questions that has afflicted humanity for a very long time and has been the question to engross theologians for centuries. The existence of evil has been the most influential and powerful reason to disprove the existence of God. It is believed among many theist that God is the creator and caretaker

As humans we are given the ability to choose what do with our life. This is called free will; however we never really know how much we actually affect people over the course of our lives based off the decisions we choose to make or not to make. When you die of old age or what is known as natural causes you are able experience a unique feeling, seeing your family and your success surround your bedside. However those who choose to successfully commit suicide you never get to experience seeing your success in this form. When you commit this act you are not only killing yourself but, you are killing all of your hopes and dreams. You are killing what you stand for and everything that connects to you. As David Hume writes in his Essays, Moral, Political,

As was discussed early in this paper, Descartes fills his arguments with fallacies in that he has no concrete proof there is a God, and thus his idea that our will is given by God, and God ultimately decides how we should use that will is inaccurate. Additionally Descartes seems to produce contradictions on his opinion of freedom of choice. Perhaps I am taking an approach like Nietzsche when I say that Descartes perspective on freedom of choice is inherently impeding it in itself. Reason or intellect is important to Descartes in deciding what his actions may be, but this restriction, is exactly that, a restriction. So truthfully, this should not be seen as freedom of choice because the physical mind is suspending the spirit-mind. Kant does not apply much of his theory to the existence of a supreme being however, his beliefs although closer to reality than that of Descartes, are still flawed. As humans it is natural for one to decide quickly and to have one’s own interest ahead of universal well

In contrast, I will compare Descartes’s view that God is omniscient, omnipresent, and immutable, but present the differences of Descartes’s view of the will as the ability to affirm or

Through his “Phenomenology” he concludes that “All our vices are virtues found in God”. Augustine uses this to present the argument that “Humans possess knowledge of… moral law… and their inability to obey it” producing “guilt over sin”. “God is the best explanation for the awareness” and by sending a mediator, Christ, enables “our hearts [to] find rest in the grace offered by God alone”. Descartes philosophy is expressed by Groothuis as being taken greatly out of context by the majority. The text describes Descartes as being an “earnest and humble seeker of truth” and it was this seeking of truth that caused Descartes to “test all that can be doubted” by doubting even his existence.

He, then, must prove that our errors are caused by something else. Thus, if to err is human, it’s because men are misusing the faculties God has given to them. But to confirm this, descartes has to consider what are these faculties. He attributes the source of errors to the faculty of intellect and the faculty of choice or freedom of the will. Since intellect can only help discern ideas which are subject to possible judgment, it cannot be a source of error. Hence, the will should be the reason behind our errors but Descartes believes that we share the same will as God’s therefore it is infinite and perfect since it’s one of God’s characteristics. This still leaves us with no answer for our question. Therefore, Descartes develops his idea by admitting that since our intellect is limited, our understanding is not complete and a little confused. But since our will is infinite we can still choose to judge anything even what we fail

Having consider that Rene Descartes believed the presence of human freedom, it is not discernible and clear what he held this freedom to consist in. Following to Descartes’s argument that man are the supreme source of human mistake or error and certainly not God based on the Fourth Meditation, he offers and presents an interpretation of the activity of the human will and how it may be described as free will. Assumed that Descartes discusses the “freedom of choice” and will as similar and compatible in his argument, critics opt to emphasis on it to know Descartes’s certain notions on human freedom.