Monday, November 3, 2014

The Free Will Debate

The free will debate focuses on if we as humans have free will.  This debate has 2 sides libertarianism, which states humans do in fact have free will or the ability to control our actions and alter our lives and determinism which says humans do not have free will and all of our actions are predetermined by psychological or physical events.  But determinism or in this case hard determinism falls under very hard criticism because it says that because humans don't have free will they cant be held responsible for their actions.  This lead determinists to consider at third option, soft determinism, this is the belief that we as humans may psychologically think they have free will but in fact all of their actions are predetermined.  This in my opinion is the most plausible option in the debate, all of our actions are predetermined though we may think we have choices we have already determined what we want based on beliefs or on physical actions.  If you think about going out some where to eat, you may think you have free will but based on your beliefs you already have where you want in mind although you might contemplate other choices you know where you are going from the start.
  Exp                  explanitory breath-  the Determinist beliefs explain more types of human behavior they state everything is is determined rather than the libertanists saying that  free will is spontaneous meaning that certain things just happen to be free will.                                                                                                            Explanatory depth- in this case the libertarian belief explains more human actions.  As opposed to the determinists who only believe that human actions are determined, while a liberation think that humans can also act out of free will.                                                                                                                        Simplicity-  the Determinists belief is more simple than libertarian. they believe that humans only act because our beliefs are determined. rather than those who believe that we have spontaneous free will.                                                                                                                                                         Conservatism- through a recent poll we have learned that the belief that humans have free will is more excepted than the belief that everything is determined                                                                 1. Hard determinsm, soft determinism and Libertarianiam are all theories to explain human actions                                                                                                                                                                       2. Soft Determinism has much more explanatory breath and simplicity while liberation beliefs have more explanatory depth                                                                                                                                        3.  therefore soft determinism is the best explanation of human actions 
                                                
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1 comment:

  1. Ryan TerrioNovember 5, 2014 at 2:33 PM

    Anthony you make a good point about soft determinism. You said although we may think we have a choice, our subconscious is already deciding ahead of time and just setting us up. But what I think you're forgetting to think about is spontaneity; this is something that cannot be explained due to the fact that it basically translates into inconsistency. Someone may go out to eat and usually gets the same thing so the mind already has its sights set on it, but the aspect of spontaneity can kick in from curiosity or boredom with the same old thing.

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