Essay On Conflict Between Freedom And Determinism

Conflicts Between Freedom and Determinism According to Ted Sider and Earl Conee, the apparent fact that conflicts with the existence of freedom of the will is that every event has a cause. This apparent fact is also known as determinism. To see why determinism conflicts with free will, the concept of cause and effect must be examined. A cause is an event that makes a later event happen and once that event happens it must take place due to the laws of nature. With the belief that determinism is true, then a sequence of events exist that extends back in time. For example, a man decides to steal from a bank. Some preceding event, call c, caused that man to steal. Event c must have a prior event that caused it to occur. Repeating this reasoning, an event that occurs before the birth of this man will come. The man has absolutely no control over anything that has happen before his birth; therefore, he has no control over whether he steals from the bank. Following this deduction, the only conclusion that can be made is that the man did not act freely to steal. …show more content…
If determinism is true, then it is impossible for a person to have free will because a person that could not act otherwise than he did does not act freely. This view is also known as incompatibilism. However, according to a soft determinist, one who believes that humans are determined and still free, the first mistake about the argument of incompatibilism is that freedom and determinism oppose each other. Soft determinists believe that determinism conflicts with freedom because of the misconception of freedom. They support the idea that free action is one that is caused in the right way; therefore, any action that is caused in the right way are actions that are free and