Free will

existence of free will. Free will is a power of acting without restraint of fate. People started questioning whether free will exists or if it is merely imagined. Do humans have control over their actions, behaviors, choices, desires and emotions? Some philosophers believe that human have self-control over their actions, and others say that there is no such a thing as self-control. Philosophers have long debated the concept of free will among humans. Is there really such thing as true free will?…

Free will’s existence is nearly impossible to determine but crucial to the morality of judgments. Without free will, it doesn’t stand to reason that a person can be held morally responsible for doing wrong because they had no ability to not do the wrong. Choice is the necessary factor in determining culpability. In the same way that hot soup cannot be held liable for burning someone, a person cannot be held liable for perpetrating a crime if they had no free will. The implications of the free…

The Problem of Free Will: Libertarianism The problem of free will discusses whether or not there is free will and moral responsibility in one’s actions. Causal determinism, the idea that physical events and actions have physical causes, plays a main role in this debate because it determines whether a person has control over their actions (G. Tiller, personal communication, October 2015). In hard determinism, there is only causal determinism so, a person has no control over the choices they make…

The problem with free will is whether or not we make our own decisions or not. In this essay, I will discuss the three main points of view that tries to answer the problem of free will. The first argument is that we have free will, which is the idea that we have complete free choice and freedom. The second theory is determinism, which says everything is inevitable and everything is caused by previous decisions in the past. The third point of view is compatibilism. Compatibilism says that most…

and dumping the body on the side of the road, the choice is yours. Americans are blessed with the power of free will, you are in charge of the choices you make and the consequences that come along with them. You are the master of your own fate and you are responsible for your future. You are in charge of yourself, the choice is yours on how you plan on living your life. Everybody wants to be free and everybody intends on creating the most extravagant life they possibly…

Discussion regarding free will is inescapable in philosophy, as a correct characterization of free will is paramount in comprehending our place in the world, as well as how to navigate it. Spinoza and Descartes have both conjured up an interpretation of free will that is consistent with their own systems of metaphysics but drastically different from the conclusions of their counterparts. In this essay, I will summarize and contrast their views, and demonstrate how each of their analysis of free…

Free will. A concept about the ability to make choices for oneself. If a person has free will, then one could have done the other option. This notion has philosophers arguing about the existence of free will. There are philosophers like Machan who believes a person are able to cause their actions, while others believe it is determine by something else. A philosopher named Blatchford is part of the hard determinism family where he denies the existence of free will because of two things— heredity…

Introduction The logical problem of evil by J. L. Mackie seeked to show a logical contradiction between the existence of a good omnipotent God that traditional theists propose, and the existence of evil. In his Free Will Defense, (henceforth FWD) Alvin Plantinga responds by arguing that agents with significant freedom are more valuable than those without, but that God cannot determine that such agents cannot choose wrong. Hence, it is possible that God exists but creates agents with…

The notion of free will is something we’re all born with, it’s not taught to us. We grow up with the idea that we are in conscious control of all our actions and thoughts. How could we not? It feels like we make all our own decisions, we chose to eat that pie, or go on that run due to eating said pie. Seeing past that veil is something that many people have done, from scientists, to philosophers, even the average citizen. Scientists have performed numerous studies, which provide pretty solid…

So, what exactly is free will? Free will is defined as, “a free and independent decision; a voluntary decision” (free will, n.d.). Do individuals possess free will and are morally responsible for their actions, or is everything predetermined for them and thus are not responsible for actions committed? This essay will discuss free will as well as determine a possible answer for whether there is such a thing as free will and moral responsibility. For my argument, I believe since everyone has some…