The Freewill of Humans

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The Freewill of Humans

… The topic I wish to discuss deals with the freewill of humans. For example, say a guy has an enemy, which he hates. One day this guy makes a conscious decision to kill his enemy. Should blame fall on this man for killing his enemy? Currently, all places in the world, which I can think of, are built around some moral basis that holds a person responsible for their actions. Although, a hard determinist would have to disagree and say that people are not free. Human acts are caused and caused acts are of only one option. If there is only one option and no choices, then there is void of freedom. So, our friend from earlier and every other criminal that ever existed are not actually guilty of their crimes. These people had no other choices. I guess we should let all of the criminals out of jail. Not exactly, the hard determinist view has a good point but the whole argument is not valid.

The determinist believes that all actions made by a human can be predicted. Such that, if we could calculate all variable that make up the brain at any given time we would be able to predict human acts. To clarify with a simple analogy, in order to bake a cake it would take certain ingredients such as sugar, eggs, etc. Now, a human act, much like the ingredients of a cake, takes certain variables for it to occur. When a person chooses to speed down the highway he is not speeding just for the sake of speeding. There are certain variables, like baking a cake, which are accounted for such as being late, the rush it gives, or just because the wind feels good. Whatever the case may be, the act is caused.

In the eyes of a determinist, caused acts have only one option and if there is only one option t...

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...Y, and Z all lead to outcome A, but on the other hand, variables X, Y, W also lead to the same A. Such that, if he does Z or W both will equally (in all aspects) lead his act to the same result. With this in mind, how can a tie be predicted by anyone other than that individual person?

As we see from above, human actions can not be predicted. It is nice to disprove all aspects of the determinist view but even if all actions where predicted the ability to choose from ones intelligence is of greater importance. This is what makes criminals accountable for their actions. If a criminal was ignorant than of course he would have no liability to his actions but this is not the case for most criminals. They have chosen to commit a crime because after weighing their options (from their "database") the best choice to their actions is through criminal behavior.

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