Pros And Consciou Soft Determinism

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Determinism Determinism is the belief that everything that was supposed to happen in a situation happened. Everything that didn’t happen could have never happened; the inevitability of causation. To a determinist, there are causes like unconscious causes that operate and bring the person to inevitably what he or she will eventually do. Free will and the whole idea of it is considered wrong or an illusion. The essence of free will is that in a given situation a person has the option to have or do more than one possible response; a choice. For determinists, you cannot have multiple options because the idea of having a choice is an illusion as well. There can only be one outcome, and the outcome that arises was inevitable; it was bound to happen, so believing that something else was possible to happen or that you could have changed it is considered wrong. People who believe that they have a choice or believe that there are multiple possible outcomes are considered ignorant in determinists eyes. There are many kinds of determinism. There is hard determinism and soft determinism. According to hard determinism, environment, heredity, unconscious impulses, defense mechanisms, and other influences determine people to act the way they do; and because of that, they are not responsible for their actions. This then arises the problem of how can we be justified in holding people accountable and responsible for their actions. Hard determinism proposes that we are justified in holding people responsible only in order to influence future behavior. This in a degree I would consider true. There are situations where it really was out of your control like natural disasters, a genetic disorder, feeling pain if you get burned etc. To hold someone accountable for things like this, you could only really advise people and inform, but that is really about it. With hard determinism also comes the belief that determinism is incompatible with freedom which like I said earlier is a big no no. Soft determinism on the other hand does not rule out freedom and responsibility. …show more content…
It claims that even though we are determined, we are still free nonetheless. This is applicable when the person is the cause of his or her actions; shows a freely act. There are two versions of this view: passive self-determinism and active self-determinism. Passive self-determinism in reference to freedom means being able to do what you want to do without interference or interruption from anyone else. There are considered free as long as they are able to consistently act the choices they make. What makes this soft determinism in comparison to hard determinism is the fact that it acknowledges that all events including human actions have causes, but it allows for free actions when those actions caused by someone’s choice rather than an external force. There then comes the assumption that actions are connected to choices, and that certain motives or inclinations are behind certain actions. This also comes into play when it comes to rewarding people and punishing them as well. It makes really no sense to reward or punish people when his actions are the result of other outside factors that they did not have control over. This is also where the question arises about the claim hard determinists make about freedom. If one claims that no one ever acts freely as a result of his or her choices, then we would be

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