The free will debate pits the idea of libertarianism versus hard determinism; these ideas that translate into whether we as humans have the free will to make choices to alter our life, with some effects being caused by outside sources, or if all of the choices we make are caused by outside sources (environment, upbringing, unconscious decision, etc).
In my opinion, libertarianism is much more accurate and believable than hard determinism. Even though circumstance, condition, or consciousness will inevitably have an impact on some of the choices we make, we still without a doubt have the ability to make our own decisions.
Explanatory breadth: I believe there is equality between libertarianism and hard determinism in this case. Both can shed some reason into how humans make choices. For example, people in this world do very bad things. Sometimes, people do these things because they have mental problems, so determinism would better explain in that case. Others, though, simply do bad things because they can and want to, and this can be explained by either idea.
Explanatory depth: Hard determinists would argue that we are preprogrammed to have a certain side, good or bad, and that we do not choose. Without the choice to choose to be good or bad, it takes away the free will aspect, and therefore ethics and morality. Libertarianism is much better at explaining the causes of human action, because it keeps the ability to choose available, therefore giving us more explanations for what happens.
Simplicity: Hard determinism is much simpler than libertarianism because it rules out spontaneity. Spontaneity is inexplicable, and never consistent. Hard determinism has fewer parts to it and makes less assumptions because it is the idea that you act on how you were raised what you experienced, and does not concern itself with the idea that we can spontaneously feel like doing something inconsistent with our personality or usual actions.
Conservatism: Libertarianism is definitely the more popular belief in today's society. Especially with the growing movements for people to empower themselves and take control of their lives, which shuts down determinism, we have become a society that does not like to think that we are not in control of our own lives.
1. Libertarianism and hard determinism are the best explanations for human actions.
2. Libertarianism has more explanatory depth and conservatism, whereas hard determinism has more simplicity. Libertarianism and hard determinism have very close amounts of explanatory breadth.
3. Therefore, libertarianism is the best explanation for human actions.
I agree completely with your opinion as far as which of the two causes are more plausible, however; I do believe that to further argue this claim you need to provide examples of how libertarianism strives in certain categories that hard determinism does not. For example how you do start to talk about how determinism is actions not based on free will but for an example you could have said how people would not be able to be held accountable for their actions if free will was not a real thing. The law and punishments would sieze to exist causing massive amounts of issues. Which is why libertarianism is the more plausible explanation.
ReplyDeleteRyan,
ReplyDeleteAfter reading you argument about libertarianism, i would have to say that you were very persuasive in your argument but i thinly you should have explained more about it. You should have added more information about how exactly we are able to make our own decisions. We do get many of our ideas from external forces but you should elaborate on how these spontaneous ideas come to be. Your categories to back up your claim were very supportive but i think you need to go more in depth about how we are able to choose from good and bad because many of our actions come from things we see and how you are raised. You are taught good and bad but many people's upbringing can be bad which will then cause them to have actions that aren't good. Other then that i think you wrote a very good argument for libertarianism. Good Job!
-Em