FREE WILL

If we took a poll from people in today’s world about whether you have “free will” and are able to control your life, the majority of the population would probably agree that they do. That they are able to decide how their life ends up and that they have the ability to make any decision they want too. They would fall under libertarianism. This view states that although external forces have an effect on our actions other decisions come from spontaneous free will. Spontaneous free will is the idea that we can control the things we do in our lives and decide the course of our life. This theory connects well with the ideas of having self-control and maintaining you “free will” to do what you want but I believe that it lacks ideas that hard determinism doesn’t.

Determinism is the theory that in today’s world there is no free will because our actions were all pre planned from earlier events or ideas. In this theory it also has two other ideas that explain it a little more. The first is, Hard Determinism, which states that free will doesn’t exist and neither does moral responsibility. It’s believed that all of our actions were a result of external forces i.e. the way that we were raised by our parents or the type of environment that we grew up in. The second is Soft Determinism, which states that our actions are still caused by external forces but we could have free will because of morality. We can make our own decisions but all our actions are determined in advance.

In my opinion, I believe that hard determinism is more plausible then libertinism in the cause of human actions. In our life today so many things happen without understanding the cause or knowing why we did what we did. We try to justify our actions by stating that “you were taught” or “I experienced this in my life” that made me do what I did. We make all or our actions and ideas from experience even if we think that we came up with them on our own, we wouldn’t know what it was caused by if we hand already had it planned out for us beforehand. Take the idea of wanting to become a famous singer. You believe that it was a spontaneous act of free will on your part to choose this career but in actuality you were taught and pushed into that kind of lifestyle. That whatever you grew up around or were taught by your parents about being famous is what led you to that decision. That whatever even occurred in your life was made by past experiences. I would then also argue that because we lack free will we aren’t morally responsible for the consequences of our actions. That we had no choice in what was occurring therefore we could not be responsible for the actions that we displayed. An example is a man fighting in war. Because they are called in do something that can be considered just but not morally right, we can decide that they had no choice in the event. That whatever events that occurred in their lives doesn’t play a role in them having the free will to kill, but rather they couldn’t pick and choose what ideas they received and had within them.

Explanatory Breadth-   While both ideas seem to explain the types of human behavior, determinism says that “all” actions are caused by earlier events in our lives while libertarianism is stuck behind “some” actions. Determinism doesn’t fail to cover all aspects while libertarianism does.

Explanatory Depth- Determinism can tell you specifically where the cause of each action came from while libertarianism cannot. Simply explaining that spontaneous free will is the ability to control our actions doesn’t mean much when you can’t explain where it’s coming from. The act to choose one idea from the next without a plausible reason for doing so is where the argument for libertarianism fails.  

Simplicity- As I had stated before Determinism states that all actions come from external forces while libertarianism states that some come from external forces while other actions come from our ability to choose. Not having a strong argument that covers all aspects of human actions is the reason why determinism has more of an advantage against libertarianism in simplicity.

Conservatism- I believe that in today’s world most people would believe that they have a choose and are able to decide their fate which is why libertarianism would connect more with today’s society. I think the ideas of both of them would have an even outcome on what people believe but I’m not as confident that many people would want to believe that their life is basically predetermined and would agree with determinism.

 

1. Libertarianism and Hard Determinism are the most plausible explanations of human action.

2. Hard Determinism has much more explanatory depth and simplicity, while Libertarianism has an small advantage in conservatism.

3. Therefore, Hard Determinism is the most likely explanation of human actions.