Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Free will definition essay
Concept of free will
Concept of free will
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Philosophy
“Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the Earth without ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant…His organization does in nowise depend upon himself, his ideas come to him involuntarily, his habits are in the power of those who cause him to contract them…He is good or bad, happy or miserable, wise or foolish, reasonable or irrational, without his will being for anything in these various states.” -D’Holbach
I believe D’Holbach is trying to convey essentially that man is deprived of “free will.” Mankind in no way possesses any control of their actions, being, personality, or will. Every aspect of a person’s life is predetermined. He says people have only adopted the views of religion and put their faith in supreme beings such as God.
Nietzsche, on the other hand, views human nature in a different perspective. He believes man originated the idea of “free will” solely for the purpose of accountability to give men authority in crime and punishment. He also writes of the injustice in common misinterpretations of causation.
Nietzsche focuses mainly on the relationship between cause and effect and “free will” whereas D’Holbach speaks more assertively about man’s predetermination and ignores any opposition one might have towards his point of view. Nietzsche also believes a person cannot be held accountable for their existence or living environment (also accountability is a major part of his idea). He states “No one gives a human being his qualities: not God, not society, not his parents or ancestors, and not himself.” On the contrary, D’Holbach believes some superior being is responsible for having a “master plan” for each human and giving them their characteristics, hence “we are cogs in the universe.”
I interpret the ideas of these two philosophers to be closely related.
However, Nietzsche’s idea of the powerful forcing their will on common people resonates with me. It is something we see in our modern society, wealthy people seem to have a higher influence over the average American. Examples of powerful people controlling others are found in politics, economy, media, and religion. Common people are lead to think in certain ways that the powerful need them to. Nietzsche said that people will only be equal as long as they are equal in force and talent, people who have a higher social group are more influential in decisions because average people look to them for information. The thing I do not agree with Nietzsche on his view as Christianity as a weakness because religion is a main cause of people’s decision
Calvinism taught the doctrine of determinism — that God holds absolute sovereignty over passive men; in contrast, Arminianism rejected this and presented a doctrine of free will that gave the individual personal responsibility for his or her salvation. People believed that sin was voluntary and could be rooted out of society, once acknowledged; as a result, people began to take personal responsibility for their actions and recognize their responsibility to improve society. Desire for personal redemption from sin arose from Arminianism, which taught that moral depravity was the choice of
Before we can discuss the issue between Baron d'Holbach and William James we have to know the definitions of the items the issue is about. Free will according to the Encarta encyclopedia is "The power or ability of the human mind to choose a course of action or make a decision without being subject to restraints imposed by antecedent causes, by necessity, or by divine predetermination. A completely freewill act is a cause and not an effect; it is beyond causal sequence or the law of causality." So according to this statement freewill is the ability for humans to make decisions without influences or outside restrictions.
In respect to the arguments of Ayer and Holbach, the dilemma of determinism and its compatibility with that of free will are found to be in question. Holbach makes a strong case for hard determinism in his System of Nature, in which he defines determinism to be a doctrine that everything and most importantly human actions are caused, and it follows that we are not free and therefore haven’t any moral responsibility in regard to our actions. For Ayer, a compatibilist believing that free will is compatible with determinism, it is the reconciliation and dissolution of the problem of determinism and moral responsibility with free willing that is argued. Ayer believes that this problem can be dissolved by the clarification of language usage and the clarification of what freedom is in relationship to those things that oppose freedom or restrain it. In either case, what is at stake is the free will of an agent, and whether or not that agent is morally responsible. What is to be seen from a discussion of these arguments is the applicability and validity of these two philosophies to situations where one must make a choice, and whether or not that person is acting freely and is thus responsible given his current situation. In this vein, the case of Socrates’ imprisonment and whether or not he acted freely in respect to his decision to leave or stay in prison can be evaluated by the discussion of the arguments presented in respect to the nature of free will in its reconciliation with determinism in the compatibilist vein and its absence in the causality of hard determinism.
The first-rate admirable people follow a master morality emphasizing power, strength, egoism, and freedom. While slave morality focuses on weakness, submission, love, and sympathy. For Nietzsche, the Will to Power is the distinguished as the dominant principle of biological function, without the Will to Power abusing the weaknesses of everyone being equal, with that society cannot and will not develop. The Will to Power is also defined as the Will to Life.
When we talked about Nietzsche in class we discussed how a lot about the second essay, which is about Guilt and Punishment. Here are two quick overviews of what Nietzsche describes punishment and guilt as. Guilt is being accountable and responsible for the action you have done. You have guilt because you could have done something in the right direction instead. Nietzsche says that if free will is attached to accountability and responsibility then it cannot be connect with guilt. It is based off a debt that you have acquired and needs to be paid back. Punishment is dependent on the offender’s decision to act the way that they do. The reason this person deserves a punishment is because they have the ability to act differently off the start, they chose to act in the wrong and they have to take the punishment they get. Nietzsche says that if someone is not acting freely (accident, insanity, etc.) then they are seen as being exempt from punishment.
Enter here The ear splitting crackle from a whip is heard as a master shouts orders to a slave. This to most people would make them comfortable. The idea of slavery is one that is unsettling to most people. This is because most people feel it is unmoral or morally wrong to own another human being. However Nietzsche would not necessarily believe this because he did believe in a morality that fits all. Ethics and morality are completely objective and cannot be one set of rules for everyone. Ethics and morality that are more strictly defined are for the weak, the strong do not need a set of rules because they can take care of themselves.
Neither a systematic philosopher nor a rigid thinker, Nietzsche offers his own nihilistic spin on the topic of free will. The three different approaches to free will by Nietzsche, Hume, and Descartes all obtain their strong suits as well as their pitfalls. Nietzsche insists free will is created by theologians and therefore denies its existence, while Descartes embraces free will, and Hume individualizes the meaning of free will. With the “Design Argument” in Meditations on First Philosophy to ignite his proclamation on the topic of free will, Descartes summons free will to be given entirely through the creator, God. With his robust belief in God, Descartes concludes that free will is attributed to God’s creation of a person.
...sophy. "Will to power" is a central philosophical principle for Nietzsche. For this reason I tried to interpret the answers of the questions on this basis. As I mentioned in the essay I related the invention of God with the will to power. Also the expressed value was also very related with this will to power. Also at that point value of revenge came into the picture. But there is no doubt that slave morality constructs a basis for the connection of revenge and the will to power. Finally, while trying to find answer for the rejection of all moral values, I'm puzzled with different alternatives that I interpreted according to my studies.
One of the most unique qualities that make humankind superior to animals and all known life forms is its consciousness and its free will. To make an argument about free will, free will must be defined by the parameters on which it exists. The values of good and evil will then be discussed on the definition of free will. In On Free Choice of the Will, by Augustine, translated by Thomas Williams, an important argument about free will and its relationship to how humans interact and its relationship to evil is discussed between two characters, Evodius and Augutine. The logical conclusions that the two characters come to about free will is reflected in other historical text such as Doctor Faustus, written by Christopher Marlowe. Augustine and Marlowe both clearly illustrate that evil is caused by free will.
Nietzsche believed we create the self through our experiences and our actions, and in order to be a complete self, we must accept everything we have done. I agree with him in this sense. Although it is easy to learn from the mistakes of others, there is no greater lesson than learning from our own mistakes. He also believed there is much more to the self than we know about. This is another example about how we learn about ourselves through our experiences and actions.
When reading Nietzsche, we can pick up from him that he was very educated often better than most philosophers. Or so he thought. Although he had a very poor outlook on his culture and everyday society, he had very strong opinions when it came to humans and their actions. He made strong assumptions whether people agreed with him or not. An assumption such as, he believed most philosophers and researchers were not as educated as he was, which we pick up in his writings. Nietzsche’s main goal in his essays are to educate those on morality. First, Nietzsche believed that specific words and human actions have evolved over time to things they were never intended to become. Nietzsche
Each person needs to learn to respect, have integrity and be unique in their own way. One will learn that through struggle and a lot of effort to overcome different situations. I think that like me the world needs a balance where some need to be more than others, for example some people need to be kinder in contrast to cruelty to learn from each other to either be a better person or stay the same. This world needs people who are open to accept changes to change themselves and how they live, because for this world to be a more healthy and happy place we need to start changes within our own.
Free will is one of the many gifts which God gave to humanity and it is in our power to make the right decisions. On the other hand, determinism deprives each human of the ability of choosing and having the power to make their own decisions. Determinism cannot be true as our actions are not pre-determined before events happen. God gave us the gift of free will because He has predestined what will happen to use during our lives. Galen Strawson stated “if events are not necessitated to occur just as they do, then we are still unable to exert control over our choices and actions” (Ethical Theory, 2012). The gift of free will results in an agent choosing their own course of action which is not determined by any previous or future events. The agent carries out their action in the way in which they wish to do so, and the agent makes their own choices. When an agent acts using their free will, they are right to be held morally responsible for their actions because events and actions are not pre-determined. For example, “a man's motives are not given by what was happening to him immediately before he started to act” (The Philosophical Review, 1957). Humanity have the gift of free will which allows us to make our own decisions. Free will can be a curse for some of us and for others it can be a blessing. God gave us the gift of free will so that we could live our life according to God and this would influence humanity to make the right decisions, but this is not always the case. Determinism if it were true, would mean that all our choices and actions would already be planned out including the bad ones, but Calvinists believe all of humanity go to either heaven or hell and this was predestined by God. When an agent makes a wrong decision and is punished, it would be morally wrong to blame God because the reason He gave
Within and beyond philosophy, lies the tension between the universal concept of free will and determinism. From a general standpoint, individuals are convinced that they rule and govern their own lives. Free will embodies that individuals have the freedom to dictate their own future. It asserts that our minds and essence have the capacity to choose our own actions and direction, whilst also choose alternative paths. Determinism on the other hand, suggests that life is a product of necessity and causation, built upon the foundations of the past and laws of nature. It threatens the thesis of free will by positing that the world and everything in it is knowable through strict cause and effect relationships - eliminating the possibility of freedom