Paste your essay in here…There is no escaping fate. This is a notion that is presented to us time and time again throughout our lives. We see enough examples of it in literature, movies and endless TV tropes. Whether it’s a time traveler failing to rescue his loved one, or Oedipus killing his biological father and falling in love with his mother as per the prophecy had predicted. Fate it set no matter what, it cannot be changed, which often leads some philosophers to conclude that free will is an illusion and our choices are not ours. That the universe operates through a law-like order, one that can’t be broken, severed or overridden. Other philosophers hold the view that we can metaphysically act freely, on our own terms. There is great divisiveness over how Free Will operates, or rather if it operates at all. Comparing and contrasting the different theories would certainly help determine which would be best to collectively align ourselves with in order to lead our lives in an orderly, ready fashion.
For the most part, we feel free. We feel that our actions and decisions are dictated by our ability to think for and by ourselves. A boy can kick a ball because he feels like it, and there would be no greater reason or study behind it. It just is. The belief that humans are entirely capable of free actions and thoughts is called Libertarian free will, at the same time most of us would generally agree that life is governed by cause and effect, that everything that happens now in the present is a necessary result of something that had happened in the past. This view is referred to as Hard Determinism. Now even though we may think we believe in both theories, the first that we do make our own choices and second that events in life are predetermined because of the results of the past, it isn’t rational that to hold both views. According to philosopher Henry Frankfurt’s Principle of Alternate Possibilities, an action can only be considered free if the individual preforming the action was given options to do otherwise (Capes). Truly free actions require options and moral responsibility, and by contrast hard determinism, doesn’t allow options because every event is caused by a previous event, nor does it accept moral responsibility since our choices are not ours, we should burden ourselves with the notion that we could have done or felt any different. Which means that an individual could never have done anything other than what they did, neither could they do what they want in the present because of past events, therefore they are not free and fate is set.
Meanwhile, Liberationists agree that the physical aspect of the world is deterministic, an example of this would be that the ball rolled down the street because the boy kicked it, however the boy himself kicked the ball out of pure want and created a new chain of causality, he kicked the ball, it rolled down the street and he later walked to retrieve it. Even though no physical event can be caused without another physical force acting upon it, physical forces themselves are the result of people or agents making choices to create that force. This view quite literally supports the idea that people have the will and the ability to change the universe and its course through the endless options presented to them throughout their lives. Many philosophers, mostly Hard determinists, find this theory of free will unjustified because it isn’t plausible to suggest that these free choices came to exist out of nowhere. What influences a human being to make one decision and not the other? Answering this question would also suggest that events and actions truly do have a cause resulted from a past event that someone went through, they are compelled by previous encounters of fate to “make decisions”. Answering that question would mean that we are no longer free. There is very little evidence to support the theory of Libertarianism other than the fact that we merely feel like we’re free. It is difficult to disregard that impression of freedom, especially in today world where we are privileged enough to not have to experience literal oppression or enslavement, at least in this nation. There can also be an argument made whether physical freedom is the same as it is in the philosophical sense. Each of us believes to superior to at least one other human being, and this may be caused by social, economic or class status. It does not mean that we truly are.
Hard determinists believe that the events enforced upon us are already determined factors that are specific to each person and their place in the world. Humans and their actions are simply part of the physical world and the physical laws that govern it. They also argue that every event, every experience, even our own can be traced back to one singular cause. We know that causes are often physical and that the physical world is deterministic, which is something even Liberationists believe in, all this concludes that nothing is determined by us, therefore this theory would be more credible though disappointing to the majority of us.
All this being said, there could be an opportunity for a middle ground of the two views through the theory of Compatibilism. Compatibilism supports the notion that actions have to happen, they are determined, the difference is that when actions are internal reactions of the subject they are considered free. An example of this would be fact that someone is bound to fall off a bridge, one way or another. If the person is pushed, then that’s just destiny. If the person chooses to take a leap of faith, it is an internal choice and should be considered a free yet determined event. This would also mean that we do possess moral responsibility in some cases, since the act or the determination of doing it can only come from us. It suggests that you are responsible for actions you’ve chosen, and that those choices need to come from within yourself, rather than outside factors in order to be considered free. At the same time, it’s hard to define what could be a free action through compatibilism because one would need to know how many internal and external factors are influencing a decision or an action (Deery). Who’s to say what is an internal or an external factor to begin with? Our internal factors or our personalities and beliefs are very much shaped by influencers such as parents, peers, teachers and media… external factors could sometimes be those very same people. It’s an abstract and strange line to draw between the two. These are a few problems that philosophers often encounter when trying to decide whether or not Compatibilism is dependable.
Patricia Churchland, a renowned philosopher of the mind, proposed that asking “Am I free?” should be replaced by asking “How much control do I have?”. There are definitely situations in life that are beyond our control or power, some to the point where we truly feel like someone or something is dictating our whole lives like puppets. However, it is important to remember that whether or not philosophy will ever help us determine what is the driving force of our choices, one thing is certain, most if not all of us are appointed some responsibility to turn our lives around. The deterministic nature of the universe doesn’t erase the fact that student have the responsibility to write their essays. It doesn’t remove the moral obligation a mother should have over her newborn. It doesn’t eradicate our ability to simply feel. If it is predetermined, then so be it. At least it’s a life well written.
Work Cited
Deery, Oisín, et al. "The Free-Will Intuitions Scale and the Question of Natural Compatibilism." Philosophical Psychology, vol. 28, no. 6, Aug. 2015, pp. 776-801. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.dcccd.idm.oclc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=515bea2d-58b7-4a89-b4a5-344e446d73a3%40sessionmgr4010
Capes, Justin and Philip Swenson. "Frankfurt Cases: The Fine-Grained Response Revisited." Philosophical Studies, vol. 174, no. 4, Apr. 2017, pp. 967-981. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.dcccd.idm.oclc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=b6868e2c-d4d1-4905-98cc-da062a21a2c0%40sessionmgr4009