Free agent

the existence of free will and having moral responsibility. Furthermore, there are those philosophers that do not question free will, but rather the idea of being help morally responsible for an action. In this essay we will discuss free will, the Principle of Alternative Possibilities and Harry Frankfurt’s argument against it. The idea behind the Principle of Alternative Possibilities is that, “An action is free in the sense required for moral responsibility only if the agent could have done…

question leads us to two critical terms used by philosophers, free will and determinism. I will analyze these two theories and discuss different viewpoints that philosophers have regarding free will and determinism. I will explain how they interact with one another in an attempt to confirm my belief that yes, we have free will even if determinism is true. I will start my discussion with an explanation of the concepts of free will. Free will is a common term that most people have…

caused by free willed beings whose decisions are logically beyond God's power to control. However, while the thesis that fallen angels are responsible for natural evil is not clearly false, neither is it clearly true. There is no positive evidence that such beings exist and an argument based on their existence cannot be highly cogent. If the possibility that natural evils stem from the free choice of an agent other than man is disregarded on these grounds, then neither man nor a free willed…

The philosophical question of free will has been debated for years and has spawned many theories, papers and never ending arguments. Soft determinism along side with hard determinism and libertarianism make up the three theories of free will.By focusing on the works of Stace and Cahn, I aim to prove that the idea of soft determinism is not an inherently flawed argument and that free will and determinism are compatible. In the argument of free will, soft determinism falls in the middle between…

The Argument of Compatibilism Whether or not humans have free will, or are able to make decisions without outside influences affecting them, has always been a controversial topic. There are many different views on this topic, including the compatibilist view which believes that free will and causal determinism are compatible. There are many arguments about free will that refute the compatibilist view and believe that free will and causal determinism cannot coincide. However, there is good…

determinism is true, every event in the world is caused, and that free will still exist. I will explore Walter Terrence Stace’s version of compatibilism, explaining why he thinks learned professors of philosophy and psychology incorrectly define free will by confusing the meaning of the words. I will assess Stace’s argument; that indeterminism is not what it is meant by the phrase “free will.” Freedom is compatible with causal determinism because free will can be determined by the psychological…

The Dilemma of Determinism Determinism put simply, is the idea that past events, in combination with the laws of nature, determine future events. What this means for people, is that they are not free to make their own choices and therefore, cannot be held morally responsible for their actions. Under the idea of determinism, the way the world was ten million years ago, or even the way the world was yesterday, affects the way the world is today. Every event is completely causally determined.…

legitimate free will. Hard Determinism conveys the idea that we are fully determined, we do not have free will, and that no one is morally responsible for their actions. As stated by Hard Determinism, the activities of man are never free, but the received ideas which are planned to make others fulfill their desires ("Notes on Determinism and Indeterminism," n.d.). For a man to be free, he should not encounter any restrictions or obstacles. According to Holbach Men are not free agents in any one…

responsible because their actions are caused naturally and or are determined. The question here is what is free will? Historically speaking, it is the action of acting freely; meaning everything is done causally due to the person. Free will and moral responsibility go hand in hand, but the issue is can a person really be in control of these things they had no control over? The problem with free will is that we believe determinism is true, but also that we are morally responsible; meaning we are…

The second philosopher is Harry Frankfurt, whose ideas are similar to those of David Hume. Frankfurt has two ways in which he views how to be a person. The first is being moved by volitional necessity and how to have free wills. Frankfurt's views on how to have a free will starts with animals in Freedom of the will and the concept of a person, by Frankfurt. Animals can only have first order desires, which are represented as X. Then there are humans who want first order desires, X, but also want…