Preview

Free Argumentative Essays: Determinism And Free Will

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
951 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Free Argumentative Essays: Determinism And Free Will
Consider this. Sadie walks into the store intending to buy M&Ms. Instead she chooses against it because she would rather have Skittles. So she checks out and merrily goes on her way with her Skittles. Is this free will? What if she had wanted to buy marijuana, but that was not there because it is illegal? Is that still free will? Or is someone or something controlling the choices she makes? Or how about this case. Joe gets arrested for stealing. He goes to jail without having the option to say no. Is this free will? Well, it was free will when Joe was stealing. Joe chose to steal, therefore he received the punishment, which was made clear in laws for that county. Yes, that is free will. But, do we really have free will, or are we given guidelines that make us believe we have free will but in reality are controlled by someone in authority? We are given free will. I believe this according …show more content…
Well, breaking it down that is not what free will defines. Free will is the ability to make his or her own decision. To some extent determinism (not to be confused with hard determinism) and free will can both collaborate together making our world. Yes, something had to create us, but when we are born we are born with a desire to follow our hearts. We are designed to have our own free will. Although it may seem like hard determinism derails free will's argument it is an incorrect accusation at a completely different topic not in relation to free will. If we used hard determinism, that would mean that no one is held accountable to their actions or morals. With their philosophy it would mean that everything was planned out and whatever happens was planned to happen. So with that in mind it does not matter if I steal because it was supposed to happen, etc. I believe God gave us free will to further the Kingdom of God, and because He wants us to choose Him, not be forced to love
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    PHL 458 Critical And Creative Thinking In Society Short Essays Wk 1
    • 1354 Words
    • 4 Pages

    PHL 458 Critical And Creative Thinking In Society Short Essays Wk 1

    Free will, by definition, is having the ability or power to act without regard to limitations and at the individuals own discretion.…

    • 1354 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Compare And Contrast Hobbes And John Locke
    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Compare And Contrast Hobbes And John Locke

    The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion is the official definition of free will. With free will, God gave us the choice to do whatever we want. With the devil tempting us, we are more inclined to choose evil over bad, but with God’s influence we choose good. Plus if humans were naturally evil everything we know about God is a lie. There are people who believe that the bible states that humans are born evil, however, it does not mentions the word evil. The bible states that humans are all born with original sin, the tendency to sin innate in all human beings, held to be inherited from Adam in consequence of the Fall. Because of free will and moral standards we choose what we know is right, deep in our hearts, human beings fear God ,therefore, it is in our nature to please…

    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Roderick Chisholm on Freedom of the Will
    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Roderick Chisholm on Freedom of the Will

    There is much debate over the issue of whether we have complete freedom of the will or if our will caused by something other than our own choosing. There are three positions adopted by philosophers regarding this dispute: determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism. Determinists believe that freedom of the will does not exist. Since actions are events that have some predetermined cause, no actions can be chosen and thus there is no will to choose. The compatibilist argues that you can have both freedom of the will and determinism. If the causes which led to our actions were different, then we could have acted in another way which is compatible with freedom of the will. Libertarians believe that freedom of the will does exist.…

    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Determinism's Relation to Free Will
    • 374 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Determinism's Relation to Free Will

    If I were forced to open my safe of personal savings at gunpoint, for example, soft determinism would suggest that I am not acting freely in this situation as I am being coerced by an external force to do something I otherwise wouldn't. If I were to open the safe voluntarily (no one is forcing me), then I am exerting my free will. This distinction may seem obvious, but its validity proves why we can't support hard determinism -- hard determinism would suggest that both actions are not done out of free will since both actions have causes. Therefore, our usage of the word "free will" cannot co-exist with hard determinism, but only soft determinism.…

    • 374 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Libertarianist View Of Freewill
    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Libertarianist View Of Freewill

    ”Freewill in terms of moral responsibility requires determinism to be true. Human actions are random and are not free if indeterminism is true. An action that requires character also requires determinism to be true. Ayer also defines freewill as unforced. A person would be free and morally responsible if their choices were not forced.…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Free Argument Essays: Knowledge Vs. Experience
    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Free Argument Essays: Knowledge Vs. Experience

    “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards” (Kierkegaard). In the great debate of “Knowledge vs Experience”, each side of the story has its pros and cons when applied to the real world. Where knowledge allows its user to recall vast amounts of information about any learned subject, it fails to be able to apply that information quickly in the real world. Conversely, with experience, there is generally a lack of information from the get-go, however the lessons learned from actually experiencing a situation can be applied to further real life situations, and so forth. If I had to choose between living with solely knowledge or experience, personally I would have to pick experience over knowledge, due to its ability to have its lessons applied to later situations in the real world.…

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Predeterminism Vs Libertarianism
    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Predeterminism Vs Libertarianism

    While the religious community preaches its own view of free will, science sees the matter very differently. The scientific community has two main ideas concerning free will. The first of these ideas is libertarianism, which states that people are free to act on their own accord without the determinism of human nature and from any predeterminism coming from a spiritual entity, including a god. The second and more popular opinion is that of hard determinism. Hard determinism insists that no person is morally responsible for their actions because everything has a cause or causes that determine what it is. Most people believe that they are making the choices they make freely. Science says that for a person to have free choice in a decision, they must have options to choose from.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Hard Determinism
    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Hard Determinism

    Hard determinists hold that if every human action is caused then humans cannot have free will in regards to the choices that we make. Determinism and free will are incompatible theories. If humans have free will then they have the power to properly choose between two actions as an extension of their will; they must to be able to do or choose the reciprocal with equal ability. Hard determinism does not argue that we do not make choices; no hard determinist would refute this obvious fact. But they bring to question whether our reasoning behind the choices is free will, or causally…

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Causal Determinist
    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Causal Determinist

    In the reading, Freedom, Determinism, and Causality, we learned that we have no control over our behaviors because they are made up of our beliefs and desires, which are influenced by our genes and environment. For instance in the reading we are compared to a computer, our behavior is the result of your beliefs and desires just as a computer’s behavior is the result of its programming (Sober). The program within the computer is our genetic code. Then a hard determinist would create this argument, P1) Free choices require that the agent can choose from more than one possible option. P2) Our…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Free Will Vs Determinism Essay
    • 1475 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Free Will Vs Determinism Essay

    Determinism is a controversial topic to free will with multiple theories proving and disproving it. As printed in The Collins Cobuild Learner's Dictionary, determinism is defined as “...the belief that all actions and events result from other actions, events, or situations, so people cannot in fact choose what to do.” Meaning, all life choices are predetermined from the minute we are born, to the minute we die. In contrast, “freewill is an individual taking control and responsibility for his/her actions according to his personal will” (Freewill Verses Determinism). People who believe in Free will, accept the idea that life is not predetermined, and they can independently act however they see fit. Free will and determinism can be further simplified and have multiple differences as well as similarities.…

    • 1475 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Analysis Of Gary Gutting's Article: What Makes Free Will Free
    • 1857 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Analysis Of Gary Gutting's Article: What Makes Free Will Free

    Gary Gutting, the author of the article, What Makes Free Will Free? deliberates that we do not have free choice as we assumed which a researcher confirmed. By free choice, this means the conviction that our conduct is dictated by our own unrestrained choice and that we have complete power over our activities. Also, Gary Gutting examined various thoughts on determinism as the researchers suggested. Determinism refers to the conviction that all human conduct or any other occurrences have a cause. This is opposed to a person's will to accomplish an action. Gary Gutting discussed what David Hume, a philosopher, believed and the belief of David Hume is that both determinism and free choice are possible, they are compatible with each…

    • 1857 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Soft Determinism
    • 1913 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Soft Determinism

    Determinism currently takes two related forms: hard determinism and soft determinism [1][1]. Hard determinism claims that the human personality is subject to, and a product of, natural forces. All of our choices can be accounted for by reference to environmental, social, cultural, physiological and hereditary (biological) causes. Our total character is a product of these environmental, social, cultural, physiological and hereditary forces, thus our beliefs, desires, values and habits are all outside of our control. The hard determinist, therefore, claims that our choices are determined by these factors; free will is an illusion because the choices and decisions we make are derived from our character, which is completely out of our control in creating. An example might help illustrate this point. Consider a man who has just repeatedly stabbed another man outside of a bar; the other man is dead. The hard determinist would argue that there were factors outside of the killer's control which led him to this action. As a child, he was constantly beaten by his father and was the object of ridicule and contempt of his classmates. This trend of hard luck would continue all his life. Coupled with the fact that he has a gene that has been identified with male aggression, he could not control himself when he pulled the knife out and started stabbing the other man. All this aggression, and all this history were the determinate cause of his action.…

    • 1913 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Voluntary Argumentative Essay
    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Voluntary Argumentative Essay

    On the night of the Sunday April 11th 1812, around two hundred and fifty Luddites mustered in Blake’s Farm bottom field. Gledhill and his deputies arranged them in eight platoons of riflemen, three of pikemen, three companies with pistols, one of hammerers, another of hatchet men, and two companies that had only the stones making their deep pockets bulge. The company stood six deep under the trees against the hedge waiting for the command to ‘move off.’ The Luddite Army was prepared to fight and to die. Like the parting of Moses from the Children of Israel, Gledhill knew he might not enter the Promised Land, so his pre-attack oration had an element of farewell that was moving. He looked at his army, nodding his appreciation at the sea of faces.…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Argumentative Essay On Free Will
    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Argumentative Essay On Free Will

    I personally believe that we as human beings are given free will. For instance, lets say there is an all omniscient God and lets say he knows what we will do and what our destiny is but he sends you a problem to over come such as,…

    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Free Will
    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Free Will

    To assess the point to which free will is compatible with Determinism, one must first consider other approaches to the concept of free will and whether we, in fact, possess it. A Hard Determinist, such as Honderich, would claim that individuals are not free to initiate actions or make moral decisions, by this means making the concept of moral responsibility unnecessary. Any moral decisions we make have uncontrollable prior causes. Therefore, a Hard Determinist would support the premise that free will and Determinism are not compatible with one another. Completely different to Hard Determinism is Libertarianism, with which free will is closely compatible. Proponents of this position, such as Kant, maintain that we are all free and should take full moral responsibility for our actions. Between these two extremes stands Compatibilism.…

    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics