The free will debate, in this case, deals with two different debates. Libertarianism and hard determinism. The libertarianism debate is human beings having spontaneous free will where they have the ability to control everything they do and alter the course of their lives. The hard determinism debate is where human beings don't receive free will, this is where it is believed that all actions are caused by earlier psychological physical events.
Libertarianism is more plausible than hard determinism. The reason for this is the fact that is people think and make decisions before they decide there actions. Every decision a person makes alters our future. Even though some of the actions, many people take are mysterious it still was a decision they felt they needed to take. The encouragement of others or events from the past may alter there decisions but its still ones choice. Theses decisions effects what the future will become.
Explanatory breadth – Both Hard determinism and Libertarianism explain many different types of human behavior and both have different type of behaviors they fails to address. They both support W.T. Stace belief that there are actions and behaviors have different causes. but hard determinism has a little more to do with his belief due to the fact that there really isn't a choice in different sort of cases. one of W.T. Stace's examples is "Stealing bread because one is hungry vs Stealing because one's employer threatened to beat one." There both choices due to ones survival. but the first choice was the persons free will do so while the second choice has to do with hard determinism because of the event that accursed and its there way to avoid the event Explanatory depth – Libertarianism explains in greater detail why we have the choice to make decisions more than hard determination does. Hard determination is to believe that humans are not morally responsible for their actions but that doesn't explain why we think before we take action. humans can change there mind. they can be all set on something and completely change when it comes down to doing whatever there doing, because it has to do which there choices.
Simplicity – Libertarianism has fewer parts and/or less assumes than hard determinism, due to the fact that it explains why we have choices and what makes a person different from others. if a person lacks free will there going by whatever is making them do the things there doing.
Conservatism – Libertarianism is more consistent with peoples current belief. There aren't many people who will side with determinism because for some, it wouldn't be conceited normal. Just people believing that psychological or physical events are responsible for our actions is crazy. yet there are some religions who believe that god is the reason they make the choices they do.
1. Libertarianism and hard determinism are the most plausible explanations of Free will.
2. Libertarianism has much more explanatory depth, simplicity and conservative , whereas Hard determinism has a little more explanatory breadth, and Libertarianism and Hard determinsim both have explanatory breadth
3. Therefore, Libertarianism is the best explanation of Free will.
Your blog post was very good and I agree that Libertarianism is the best explanation of free will. However, you should have used a few more examples in your opening paragraph to better support your idea for libertarianism. Also, I disagree with the fact that libertarianism is more simplistic. It is clear that hard determinism is the more simplistic idea.
ReplyDeleteyou did a really nice job with your definitions. but i did disagree at a few points when you discussed about libertarianism, i feel its not as simple than determinism.
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