The Importance Of Free Will In Philosophy

Philosophy can be seen like a religion. There are many beliefs and theories that people hold true. However, there is no specific evidence that one theory is more likely than the others. When it comes to the dilemma of responsibility, it is up to the individual thinker to decide what they hold righteous. By incorporating ideas from hard determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism it can be established that all of these are applicable in certain situations. However, I believe we must hold eachother accountable and be responsible for ourselves but at the same time be aware of extraneous forces and the possible randomness of the universe that makes responsibility somewhat impossible. The first response is known as hard determinism, or as Paul Holbach refers to it “the illusion of free will”. Hard determinism is the idea that everything in life occurs because of universal causation. Hard determinism can be compared to a Rube Goldberg machine. A Rube Goldberg machine is an engineered series of events that completes a simple task. For example, a ball will be dropped causing a string to be …show more content…
For example, a situation where a person actively decides to take a bullet for someone else. There is no necessary force for someone to perform this action. People are perfectly capable of performing selfless acts. I also cannot completely agree with hard determinism because with universal causation, there is no free will or responsibility. If this was the case, humans are all on the same page as robots. I have trouble seeing this because humans spend countless hours reflecting and thinking. If people are not accountable for their own actions and do not see themselves as having real control, it almost seems like there is not much of a point to anything. I think this view seems dismal, therefore again I do not want to completely agree with it and believe people can control their fate to some