Determinism In Daniel C. Dennett's Freedom Evolves

In Daniel C. Dennett’s Freedom Evolves, he takes a compatibilist view of determinism. Dennett’s work evolves around the individual’s ability to function within a deterministic universe while still maintaining some form of free will. This universe is largely deterministic, and human lives are most likely predetermined by an unbroken chain of parental influence since the dawn of complex life. Humanity, however has the privilege of being able to make their own choices, although the concept of true free will is largely inaccurate considering the factors that go into a single person’s choice. Factors such as a person’s upbringing, financial status, cultural conditioning, and others will ultimately affect their decision in nearly any situation. A person may even be genetically predisposed to make certain decisions or behave in certain ways.
A human being is the cumulation of DNA from two parents These inherited genes are the basis of what that human being may become, and severely limit what one can achieve. As Dennett asserts in his book, “It is all but impossible that I will ever give birth, thanks to my Y chromosome I cannot …show more content…
Humanity has long clung to the ability of ignoring evolutionary predispositions in order to exercise this free will by making choices to benefit others or merely to an individual’s own detriment. Free will is threatened, then, by the idea that every single decision a person may make is the direct result of all the factors that they cannot control. In his book, Dennett argues that free will can coexist with determinism, however, determinism directly affects every single choice a rational creature makes, despite the ability to consider other options. If a human cannot actively choose the circumstances of their birth, their culture, or their education level among a nearly infinite number of other factors, then they cannot truly choose anything for themselves and exercise free