Most people believe that they have the free will to choose between genuine alternatives. I will show you how an individual who has not been exposed to these ideas may be uninformed in the eyes of philosophy. I choose to take the position of the hard determinist. I will analyze this position, what it means, and why I have decided to stand with it. Then I will show a common refutation against the hard determinist that says how this type of determinism entails a lack of moral responsibility which is absurd. The critique also says that metaphysical freedom is real and we do, indeed, have moral responsibility. Metaphysical freedom is the power of an individual to choose between genuine alternatives. Would you believe me if I were to tell you
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They don’t believe that something that didn’t happen, could have happened, because of events that happened in the past, determine the events of the future. Going back to the class versus home example, you didn’t just spontaneously go to class because that’s the way your legs and feet happened to move. You went there because you were going to either way. You did not really have the free choice between genuine alternatives. By this I mean, you couldn’t have chosen the “other” option. There is an argument set up for this which is known as causal determinism. Casual determinism is the idea that every event is the inevitable outcome from antecedent events. The argument is set up like this; Every event, without exception is casually determined by prior events. This simply means that any event that occurs, does so based on something that happened prior to it. It then goes on to say that human’s thoughts, choices, and actions are events so, human thoughts, choices, and actions are, without exception, causally determined by prior events. Therefor, humans lack metaphysical freedom. Metaphysical freedom, as stated before, is the power of one individual’s self to freely choose between genuine alternatives. The idea that you don’t have the free choice to choose is really mind boggling and is often difficult to completely comprehend. However, when you recognize and accept the argument, it is hard to
They don’t believe that something that didn’t happen, could have happened, because of events that happened in the past, determine the events of the future. Going back to the class versus home example, you didn’t just spontaneously go to class because that’s the way your legs and feet happened to move. You went there because you were going to either way. You did not really have the free choice between genuine alternatives. By this I mean, you couldn’t have chosen the “other” option. There is an argument set up for this which is known as causal determinism. Casual determinism is the idea that every event is the inevitable outcome from antecedent events. The argument is set up like this; Every event, without exception is casually determined by prior events. This simply means that any event that occurs, does so based on something that happened prior to it. It then goes on to say that human’s thoughts, choices, and actions are events so, human thoughts, choices, and actions are, without exception, causally determined by prior events. Therefor, humans lack metaphysical freedom. Metaphysical freedom, as stated before, is the power of one individual’s self to freely choose between genuine alternatives. The idea that you don’t have the free choice to choose is really mind boggling and is often difficult to completely comprehend. However, when you recognize and accept the argument, it is hard to