Riley's 'Free Will In The Movie Inside Out'

I believe that in the movie Inside Out, Riley does not have free will because everything that happened in the movie was a result that was caused by something else, and her will had no impact on it. Her mind is controlling her body so she doesn’t really make choices, it just naturally happens. Therefore, my stance is that Riley’s free will is dependent on determinism. Her views on her choices are controlled by previous circumstances. Everything she does from then on was governed by some natural law. When Riley talked about happy things that she did in Minnesota, she’s naturally going to feel sad because she knows that she’ll never experience those moments ever again. To begin, In Living Issues In Philosophy, says determinism is, “It asserts that whatever happens at some specific moment is the outcome of something that happened at a previous moment” (Titus Smith Nolan 85). This explains how Riley doesn't have a free will because after Joy and Sadness were gone she couldn't feel anything. Joy was especially important in Riley’s actions and characteristics and how she thought things out. All she had left was anger, fear and disgust. Joy leaving …show more content…
The laws of causality, which govern nature, also govern the actions of humans” ( Titus Smith Nolan 85). This means that every time she thinks about the past, her actions are going to be negative and she can't do anything about it. In the movie Joy and sadness get lost and they are out of the headquarters, which means Riley’s present is affected by the past since they are gone. According to the lecture, “Consequences of determinism is that rationality is undermined: the reasons for doing something are merely the results of some cause.” So the reason why Riley might end up not being in a good, almost like she’s depressed was caused by sadness touching the memory ball. Riley never had a choice to chose to become sad, it was her