“Determinism is the philosophical idea that every event or state of affairs, including every human decision and action, is the inevitable and necessary consequence of antecedent states of affairs”(Information Philosopher, 2015). It refers to the claim that, at any moment or place in time, there is only one possible future for the whole universe. However, the concept of determinism often comes into question when looking into whether human beings possess free will. Free Will can be defined as “the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion” (Defence of Reason, 2014). The very definition of the terms determinism and free will appear to be conflicting however, many philosophical thinkers
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” Some people choose to believe in fate while others choose to believe in free will. Fate is a power that is believed to control what happens in the future. Free will is the ability to choose the decisions in your life to be whatever you want them to be. One cannot live their life depending on luck or chance which is why free will depicts our future.
Destiny over Free will Free will is a term unheard of nowhere days because of how much the media portrays that we have to do what other people say such as politicians. Some people are destined to think that everything we say and do has already been written out in a script somewhere in heaven and that God already knows what we are going to do before we even do it. People do not possess free will but are governed by fate because in Dante's Inferno the people who were brought down to hell were brought down because they were destined to go down the wrong path and that's why they are in hell and there are special places for people whose fate was a little too heinous and they were forced to go in the middle of heaven and hell and sometimes other people are also destined to lead us to our fate such as Virgil in Dante's inferno. People do not possess free will but are governed by fate because we think we have a choice to change our decisions but what if
When describing determinism vs. free will, Ayer begins by considering different aspects of freewill that are incompatible with determinism. The first concept that Ayer discusses is the assertion that a person is free just in the case that their action is not caused. He then rejects this idea using a moral standpoint by stating that a person is not morally responsible for an action that is purely based on chance because chance is – by definition – not something that a person can have control or a choice over. Ayer goes on to state that it is not an accident that a person chooses to commit an action rather than another, and “presumably there is a casual explanation” for the choice, which in turn leads back to determinism (pg 18). The second concept
Fate is defined as something that simply just happens or “Falls upon your lap without any help or actions”. It’s a gesture that is not thought about because when it come it just come without your inner thought or “permission”. While freewill is the opposite, it’s defined as something you as a person caused upon yourself, the actions you did was the reason you are in the situation and you can’t blame anyone but yourself, it’s thought of as the inner consciousness of a person or the permission to give one’s self. Fate vs. Freewill is what causes this novel to be so powerful because as Oprah stated “ When you hear this story, it’s going to turn the way you think and free will and fate upside down.” I believe that Oprah Winfey made this claim
In "Human Freedom and the Self", Roderick Chisholm has taken a libertarian approach on the issue of free will and determinism. Libertarians believe that humans have free will and make a distinction that free will and determinism are incompatible. Chisholm has the same opinion. On the problem of human freedom, Chisholm thinks that “Human beings are responsible agents; but this fact appears to conflict with a deterministic view of human action (the view that every event that is involved in an act is caused by some other event); and it also appears to conflict with an indeterministic view of human action (the view that the act, or some event that is essential to the act, is not caused at all).”(Page 3). He does not agree that determinism or indeterminism
The question of if humans are truly responsible for their own actions has sparked a debate in humanity throughout history. In the non-fiction article, “Freewill and Determinism” written by Saul McLeod, he compares the different aspects of freewill and determinism. Throughout the article, McLeod explains how freewill and determinism, while very different, go hand in hand with each other. To go with that, in the play Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, many of the explanations in the article as to why people do what they do can be helpful when trying to figure out Macbeth's poor decision making. To begin the story, Macbeth was a trustworthy and loyal warrior for King Duncan.
Determinism is a theory that all things in the world is governed by laws. This theory is based upon the materialist view of the body and mind. Materialists think that all things that exist in this world matter. We, humans, have mind or souls and desired interests are based upon actions. This principal argues that we have no moral responsibilities and choices.
Does arresting someone before they commit a crime remove the perpetrator’s free will? What if they changed their mind? These topics are discussed at length during the 2002 film Minority Report by Steven Spielberg. The plot of Minority Report centres around protagonist John Anderton, the chief of a futuristic police department, that uses “pre-cogs”, humans who can see crimes before they happen, to arrest the perpetrator before they have committed the crime. This polarises audiences, who either believe that they have a right to arrest someone for planning a crime, and those who believe that everyone is capable of changing their mind, before committing the crime.
By choosing to act a certain way instead of another, you had the freedom to act any way you wanted to and differently. Choices that you make are not predetermined in the future which means that determinism itself has to be wrong. This means that we have the absolute free will over every single choice made in our daily lives. If someone does something wrong, why should they be punished if they were just simply going by their predetermined script? If that were true, they’d have no say over their wrong choices, just like the rain has no say for falling from the sky.
“I believe the freedom to choose my course in life but I do not believe I am free to choose the consequences of my
Taylor’s philosophy and view on determinism, free will and moral responsibility reflects the libertarian philosophic position. He attaches large importance to free will and free choice of a person. Taylor asserts that “certain events (namely, human choices) are not completely determined by preceding events; rather, they are caused by the agent of the choice (the person doing the choosing)” (Free Will). This view differs from that of Blatchford, Schlick and Hospers who deny free choice concluding that everything is determined in our decisions and actions.
There are things that we do and we know that they are bad for us, but we keep doing them because they are out of our control. Similarly, there are some good things, like exercising, eating healthy foods, learning some good-but-complicated things, and so on, that we do not do and we do not like to do because some forces keep us from doing them. If you think that you can choose to do something freely the way you want a, think again and deeper, because something else caused you to decide doing that specific thing instead of doing something else instead. Or perhaps you did not have other choices. These and many more are all examples of determinism.
If it became logically impossible to have both God knowing the future and humans having free will, I would say that humans having free will is more important. There is a couple reasons I would use to support my opinion. The first would be that humans need to love God on their own. If God took away our free will and command us to love him, that is not really true love. Just like a pimp demanding a young girl to love him is not true love.
With a belief in science, the choice is dictated by evidence. With a belief in freewill, the choice is made based on how a person feels. A human free agency can exist in a universe that is ruled by cause and effect based on changing the results of people’s choices. A person can make a bad and have worse outcomes, yet be able to better those outcomes. There is still a small amount of freedom within the cycle of cause and effect, and that is when an individual is able to change their choices or
