Preview

Do you believe that your choices are free?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
836 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Do you believe that your choices are free?
Do you believe that your choices are free?
Do you hold yourself responsible for your choices?

Life is full of endless choices, opportunities, new ideas and changing scenarios. To overcome the obstacles, we have to be ready to juggle the options that appear on our way. Every day, every hour, even every second, people make decisions. Small, large, important, funny, mundane, all those countless choices with the speed of light forever change us, turning the world into one that the second time will not happen ever again. Creating a world that is a wonderful, vibrant and ever evolving. What is choice? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary choice is the act or an instance of choosing or selecting an alternative action or possibility. In a very general sense the most important issue pertaining to choice is the possibility of alternative solutions, presenting a real opportunity to choose one of several possible variants. Another equally important factor is the consciousness that indeed the situation in which we find ourselves, allows us to take such alternative actions. Some of them are called life choices that determine the path of education, profession, choice of wife or husband just to name few. On a daily basis, however, we do not decide on such matters, but the mass of small decisions we make. Which product to buy in stores? Take a bus or subway? Have a cup of tea or water? They do not require special effort or strength of mind or any particular type of commitment. The dilemma of freedom of our choice becomes apparent in the case of the most important issues. In my opinion freedom of our choices is limited or not as versatile as it might seem. We can talk about the free choices when there are alternatives - the possibility of making a voluntary choice that is conscious, rational, thoughtful and purposeful. To me it seems reasonable to say that certain actions taken or specific behavior in a given situation has no connection with our autonomous decision,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Barry Schwartz and Andrew Ward in their chapter excerpt "Doing Bette but Feeling Worse: The Paradox of Choice" are explaining how expansion of choices in different areas of our life can lead to less happiness. In our modern society we're value our freedom and autonomy more than anything else; it gives us a strong assurance of well-being and satisfaction in our lives. Freedom means to have a choice, which, as we think, is obviously good thing. But the excess of choices can lead to significant disappointment.…

    • 953 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Phl458 Week 1

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages

    "Free will is the capacity to respond in ways that oppose even the strongest influences. Free will is itself a causative factor, and one that can trump all others" (Ruggiero, 2019, p. 37). We all have a choice in any situation, although one's ethics or morals can influence choices, nevertheless the choice to react in one way or another is one's free will.…

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    With many different choices that we can take, we realize that some of the choices have effects on our lives throughout time. The downside of free will is the very choices we make. Whether it be something as saying no to an invitation to go on a date with a really sweet guy or girl or saying yes to smoking that first joint of marijuana. That one time that the straight A student…

    • 406 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    unit 34 Part 3 inclusion

    • 1198 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Whatever people’s perceptions of their own independence, most people associated the loss of their independence with being forced into making a particular choice because there were no realistic alternatives and/or support to make choices.…

    • 1198 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    One Foot In Eden Analysis

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Choices shape our lives in many ways. It is impossible to go through life without making any. What we choose can define us, can close off a part of our life that, had we chosen differently, could have led to something completely different. Many things can influence our choices, from morals, to peers, to experience.…

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I would lean more towards the compatibilist view stating, unless I am the cause of my actions I am not responsible for them. As compatibilist holds that free will and determinism are compatible, we can properly understand what it means for our actions to be free so we see that a free action is doing what one wants. Believing in compatibilism doesn't mean the determinist view is false, but if it is true, we can still have free will. I believe that we make decisions based on our own desires and beliefs. It is said that compatibilists attempt to revise and weaken the commonsense notion of free will. Thomas Hobbes was the first person to articulate a compatibilist position believing that although the person is free to act on their motive, the motive is determined. In other words, he says “Everything we choose to do is strictly determined by the need to relieve the physical pressures of our bodies. Humans…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Choice is defined by the oxford dictionary as “the ability to choose between two or more possibilities.” It also defines free will as, “The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.” Choice and free will are arguably of the most important aspects of the human experience. Our ability to choose between right or wrong, selfish or selfless acts, and the notion that we did it all of our own accord is one of the basic parameters of complex beings such as ourselves. Yet, in our wake, humans have discovered systems in the universe that are inherent to existence: the…

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Choice is an action, so there has to be an actor. Our mind - the totality of our mental processes, does the choosing. In particular, it is that aspect of our mind that is aware of the "self" that recognizes and monitors freewill choices. We choose to think or not, what to think about, how much and how long to concentrate on an issue, how many options to consider, which of the options to select, etc. We also make higher level choices of goals and values, such as desirable character traits, careers, friends and lovers, and of course, moral decisions such as when to lie or tell the truth. Freewill comprises conscious choices only. By definition, freewill pertains to choices that we can monitor and influence, and therefore must exclude subconscious and unconscious choices. This does not mean that such unaware choices are ultimately beyond our control - beyond freewill - but only that they must be controlled indirectly. We can control them through explicit change of values and beliefs, and through conscious modification of…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    questions which arose when we are facing choices but, do we always have the choice or we just follow the situation or circumstance? Freewill is the power of making free choices that are…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Philosophy Free Will

    • 264 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In philosophy, free will is “the power of self-determination” (Vaughn 219). If we have free will that would mean that we are free to make decisions about our lives and our future. We can decide all kinds of things from if we are going to get out of bed in the morning to if we are going to worship God. These decisions are not just what we are going to do, but also what we are going to think and what we are going to believe or disbelieve. In addition, in philosophy, there is the doctrine of determinism, which says “all events—including our choices and actions—are produced inexorable by previous events, which are caused by still others, the chain of causes leading back into the indefinite past. Since every cause always results in the same…

    • 264 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Unit 4222 305

    • 3637 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Choice – Choice means having access to a wide range of options and information. People need to know the pros and cons of all the options to decide for themselves which ones suit them best. This is called informed choice…

    • 3637 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    People Face Trade-Offs

    • 651 Words
    • 3 Pages

    People deal with plenty of choices in their everyday lives. At the moment we open our eyes, we have to make decisions. For instance, should we get up and prepare ourselves for a new day, or should we continue resting in our beds? Even after when we have made this decision, we will still face choices after choices. However, we cannot get all the things we want as according to Mankiw, scarcity exists in our society. In other words, scarcity means that society has limited resources and therefore cannot produce all the goods and services people wish to have. To get one thing that we like, we usually have to give up other things that we like. Making decisions require trading off one goal against another. This phenomenon is also called “trade-off”, which is the fundamental issue in economics that we always discuss.…

    • 651 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Free Will

    • 1523 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Humans are species with highly developed brain, intelligence, wisdom, and self- awareness. We do also have a free will. Does it mean that we are free to do what we want? Does it give us ability and permission to act regardless of any other features? In the topic of this essay we can notice the construction of argument with its hidden premise. The full argument can sound: ‘If we have a free will, then we are free to do what we want and nothing can stop us in achieving whatever we want’. Assuming, that we have a free will, argument can be true only if the conclusion is true, what means, that there is nothing that could stop us in getting what we want.…

    • 1523 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand with each other. The freedom one has determines how much responsibility that person has. Many people believe that they can have freedom without having responsibility, but, when conditions start to go wrong, the conditions start to reflect the freedom that remains. “The more freedom we enjoy, the greater the responsibility we bear, toward others as well as ourselves” said Oscar Arias Sanchez—former President of Costa Rica and Nobel Prize winner. Everyone should enjoy the freedom they have but with responsibility. The more freedom one has the more responsibility one also has as shown in Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, and a real life experience.…

    • 862 Words
    • 25 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Speech for Recognition Day

    • 1293 Words
    • 6 Pages

    You see, life is but an everyday activity filled with options. It is a daily routine to choose… and to decide…which one to pick up and which one to set aside. You started your day by waking up asking yourselves if you are feeling going to school or not, if will you have your Mommy’s breakfast or just have some food in school instead, or it will be a just plainly picking up colors for the day. Things like these, without you realizing, we are actually having tireless choosing and deciding moments the whole day.…

    • 1293 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays