Free Will Versus Determinism Essay -- essays research papers

Free Will Versus Determinism The controversy between free will and determinism has been argued about for years. What is the difference between the two? Looking in a dictionary, free will is the power, attributed to human beings, of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will. Free will allows free choice. Yet, determinism is the total opposite. Determinism has this definition: The philosophical doctrine that every event, act, and decision is the inescapable consequence of antecedents that are independent of the human will. Determinism states that humans have no free will to choose what they wish. That seems real extreme and harsh. Even though this is what determinism is, doesn't mean that the determinists are trying to steal your freedom. It's only what they believe because of religion and cause and effect. In religion, many people believe in the existence of a god supports determinism. The basis of god is that he is all-knowing and all-powerful. If free will is allowed, there would be decisions and actions in which God could not know due to the person's choice. This would limit God's omnipotence, which is unacceptable to some. The other argument for determinism is causation, or causes and effects. This argument depends on relationships that should happen with the same results every time, such as a baseball breaking a window, breaking the window. Basing on this, everything in the universe has a cause. And if all the causes and the events were known, then it would be possible to easily predict the future. If everything can be foreseen, then this proves that nothing that anyone does can change the courses of the future. This, of course, is not possible. Determinism says that what you do can be the cause of what your life turns out to be. This can be true. Yet, you can act otherwise that would steer you off that path of where your life was heading. Common sense tells us that we can change, which determinism opposes to. It also says that if we feel we are not forced, we could have acted differently. That is why I choose to side with free will. Determinism has too many extremes and limits that, already shown, is not possible in this world. Free will is the mind's ability to choose with intelligence. That doesn't mean that our choice has all the freedom in the world. Our choices cannot and ob... ...ermined by previous events. Therefore we can not change our behavior. Previous events do affects us; we cannot ignore that. But, like the previous examples, if the previous events' consequences were not good, we would mostly likely change, unless that individual was deranged. These arguments on free will definitely does not pertain to all people. Everyone is different. Yet mostly likely, individuals think towards free will. An implication to determinism is that man becomes nothing more than a puppet. That may sound cruel, but it is true. Under the rules of determinism, man must go by past events, doing the same thing he did in the past, right or wrong. He can not change his behavior, unable to let out his emotions. The man has become a puppet, being controlled and restricted. And in everyday life, determinism does not exist in most lives. It is logical and reasonable to say that the all of free will is a measure of our humanness. Whatever we choose will effect our future. But we will base our decisions on what we feel is right, taking in our moral feelings. Free will is a measure of self-determination that people feel themselves to possess and by which they make moral judgments.