There are many great philosophical ideas and questions that are known and of course unknown. One of the questions that really enticed my interest was the question of whether or not we have free will. I myself was once a believer of people having free will and doing what I want was my choice and my choice alone. However, after careful consideration and lectures I have been reversed in how I believe in free will. Is there any free will though? Many people would say yes there is and of course there are some who believe that free will is a fallacy and not to be believed. Whether or not there is free will is yet to be determined but what we have to go on and by is from philosophers and every person who has their two cents to fill in. In this discussion of philosophy there will be points made for and against the establishment of free will and basis for judgement of free will exists or not.
Spinoza, Paul, Augustine, Luther have all grappled with this question of free will for many years. What has been said goes to a religious side. Which has been believed of an omnipotent God who will preordain who would be saved and who would be lost. In the simple but complex question in the book of whether or not you slept in late or not, and has been said that God knew you would. With the explanation of the book in its words go as follows; “This...
Human beings always believe that what they want to do is ‘up to them,' and on this account, they take the assumption that they have free will. Perhaps that is the case, but people should investigate the situation and find a real case. Most of the intuitions may be correct, but still many of them can be incorrect. There are those who are sceptical and believe that free will is a false illusion and that it only exists in the back of people’s minds, but society should be able to distinguish feelings from beliefs in order to arrive at reality and truth.
The argument of free will and determinism is a very complex argument. Some might say we have free will because we are in control; we have the ability to make our own choices. Others might say it’s in our biological nature to do the things we do; it’s beyond our control. Basically our life experiences and choices are already pre determined and there’s nothing we can do to change it. Many philosophers have made very strong arguments that support both sides.
Free will is something that every man/women possess that only they have control over. Every day we make choices that positively or negatively affect us. I have seen people give up their own free will, only to take off the pressure of society, encompassing them and making the “second-handers” (Rand) free will is now loosely expresses and the true definition of the terminology is long lost. But, definitions are opinions and my opinion of free will is we as humans have a choice and it is up to us to utilize what we have available, we have the free will to do what we want. It is important to be free. It is important to make your own choices. And it is most important to be different.
It has been sincerely obvious that our own experience of some source that we do leads in result of our own free choices. For example, we probably believe that we freely chose to do the tasks and thoughts that come to us making us doing the task. However, we may start to wonder if our choices that we chose are actually free. As we read further into the Fifty Readings in Philosophy by Donald C. Abel, all the readers would argue about the thought of free will. The first reading “The System of Human Freedom” by Baron D’Holbach, Holbach argues that “human being are wholly physical entities and therefore wholly subject to the law of nature. We have a will, but our will is not free because it necessarily seeks our well-being and self-preservation.” For example, if was extremely thirsty and came upon a fountain of water but you knew that the water was poisonous. If I refrain from drinking the water, that is because of the strength of my desire to avoid drinking the poisonous water. If I was too drink the water, it was because I presented my desire of the water by having the water overpowering me for overseeing the poison within the water. Whether I drink or refrain from the water, my action are the reason of the out coming and effect of the motion I take next. Holbach concludes that every human action that is take like everything occurring in nature, “is necessary consequences of cause, visible or concealed, that are forced to act according to their proper nature.” (pg. 269)
Fate vs Free Will has always been one of the most controversial topics from early history, and for no surprise because everyone is fascinated about their future. Many people believe that life is predetermined and anything you do won’t transmute your future. Others believe that you are sanctioned to mold your own destiny and optate your own path. Your mind, for example, has total free will up to the point where you believe that everything you think is controlled by faith. Then you wouldn’t have a free thought because all that you will think was always going to be thought, and thus making faith decide you. Whatever the case may be, one thing is for certain and that is that we’ll never know the future because it is beyond our ken.
To answer the question if human beings possess free will successfully, you have to understand what ‘free will’ actually means. Free will is having the the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate. The ability to act on one 's own desires. There are a couple different ways of answering the free will question that get broken down into three main beliefs; Compatibilism, Libertarianism, and Determinism. Libertarians believe that humans are capable of possessing free will. Determinists believe that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to will. They believe that human beings are not morally responsible
Free will defines the role we play in our own lives. Whether we have it or not maybe the key in linking our world to forces and dimensions beyond what we can see. But, if we do really have free will, it may leave us a solitary species. A scary thought in the realm of the 46 billion lightyear universe in which we are left to make choices on our tiny speck of dirt planet.
There are a lot of different things that come to mind when somebody thinks of the phrase Free Will, and there are some people who think that free will does not exists and that everything is already decided for you, but there are also people who believe in it and think that you are free to do as you please. An example that explains the problem that people have with free will is the essay by Walter T. Stace called “Is Determinism Inconsistent with Free Will?”, where Stace discusses why people, especially philosophers, think that free will does not exist.
Like I said before freewill is a topic that philosophers have argued about over the years. Most times when the question ‘do you have freewill?’ is asked, a lot of individuals usually say they are free even without thinking twice. Although there are a lot of philosopher that believe we all have freewill and there are also other philosopher who have spoken up and tried to prove their point that humans have no freewill. Philosopher that argue that humans have no freewill are called the determinists. The determinists argue
Most people believe they have free will, they control what they think and do, but what exactly is free will? Free will is the freedom of self-determination and action independent of external causes. It is the ability to make choices. A choice is free if it is consistent with a person 's desires and nature. A example of free will is a person has a choice to either eat a cookie or a brownie.
One thing that philosophers are great at is asking big questions, usually without providing answers. However, Saint Augustine has a more direct approach to his speculation, often offering a solution to the questions he poses. One such topic he broached in The City of God against the pagans. In this text, Augustine addresses the problem of free will and extends his own viewpoint. Stating that humankind can have free will with an omniscient God, he clarifies by defining foreknowledge, free will, and how they can interact successfully together (Augustine, 198). Throughout his argument, he builds a compelling case with minimal leaps of faith, disregarding, of course, that you must believe in God. He first illustrates the problem of free will, that it is an ongoing questions amongst many philosophers, then provides insight into the difference between fate and foreknowledge. Finally, finishing his argument with a thorough walk-through on how God can know everything, and yet not affect your future decisions.
Freedom, or the concept of free will seems to be an elusive theory, yet many of us believe in it implicitly. On the opposite end of the spectrum of philosophical theories regarding freedom is determinism, which poses a direct threat to human free will. If outside forces of which I have no control over influence everything I do throughout my life, I cannot say I am a free agent and the author of my own actions. Since I have neither the power to change the laws of nature, nor to change the past, I am unable to attribute freedom of choice to myself. However, understanding the meaning of free will is necessary in order to decide whether or not it exists (Orloff, 2002).
How could we have forgotten the shock of the supernova that awoke us? After drifting from what are now ever escaping reaches of this universe, a force drew us to the place we would call “here.” The dance began as soon as we had arrived. Many dove into the warm center, but we held back. Our pace was slower, but more anxious than theirs because we had waited billions of years to attempt our plan. We held on to each other as we fought the force of its pull. Its spin aligned us on a disk as it grew massive. Many of them gave in to the temptation of its red glow, but we persisted together, because we knew of an ambitious plan to find the truth.
Since the foundation of philosophy, every philosopher has had some opinion on free will in some sense, from Aristotle to Kant. Free will is defined as the agent's action to do something unimpeded, with many other factors going into it Many philosophers ask the question: Do humans really have free will? Or is consciousness a myth and we have no real choice at all? Free will has many components and is fundamental in our day to day lives and it’s time to see if it is really there or not.
I want to argue that there is indeed free will. In order to defend the position that free will means that human beings can cause some of what they do on their own; in other words, what they do is not explainable solely by references to factors that have influenced them. My thesis then, is that human beings are able to cause their own actions and they are therefore responsible for what they do. In a basic sense we are all original actors capable of making moves in the world. We are initiators of our own behavior.