Free Will Versus Hard Determinism Versus Compatibilism: Comparative Essay

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Why We have no free will.

In this essay, I will be arguing that we have no free will. The perspective that is in line with my ideas is the following:

“..the situations in which people find themselves largely dictate who succeeds and who fails. These circumstances are a form of “fate”; without them, these same individuals would not have made the same choices. The circumstances “or fate” surrounding an individual always affects their choices and outcomes.”-Ann Richardson

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You may be wondering why I agree with this thought. After all, accepting the notion things are outside our control would lead to feeling powerless.

In this essay, I will be discussing first the school of thought and philosophy for Fate and Free will, then an attempt to merge both these ideas into one will be mentioned. Then the scientific evidence for these ideas, counter-arguments will be mentioned thereafter.

Philosophy of Free Will.

We define free will as the ability to perform an action of our choosing, regardless of external or internal factors. Followers of this school of thought wholly believe we make decisions that lead to both beliefs and actions that are of our own choosing. This idea is called libertarian free will. However, this view has some problems, for example, A problem libertarian free will face is the fact it disregards our knowledge of physics and the macroscopic world, and some of the microscopic world. (e.g. chemistry.) For example, we know that, at least in normal circumstances, one event causes another event. Because of this, critics of Libertarian free will have asked questions like this; ‘Why would what we observed so far abide by these laws and rule, whereas the human mind does not abide?’

Followers of libertarian free will had to come up with elaborate reasoning to support their beliefs. Here is how it works. There are different types of causation; event causation, and agent causation. Event causation is the idea that no physical event occurs without being caused by a previous physical event. So in this regard, libertarian free will yields to what we already know. However, the statement limits itself to the ‘physical world’. Followers of libertarian free will argue that the mind is not a physical entity. So, in this regard, they follow dualism, the idea that the mind and body are separate. Libertarians argue that agent causation can and will start a chain of causality, without being caused by something else. Where the agent is the mind.

Philosophy of Hard Determinism.

There are some people who think that we have no ‘choice’ or ‘free will’ in the actions we partake in because our decision was caused by one or more events before it. This is called hard determinism. This idea was first pioneered by Frenchman Baron D’Holbach. He thought every action, every thought, everything is caused by events before it. Saying “The inward persuasion that we are free to do, or not to do a thing, is but a mere illusion. If we trace the true principle of our actions, we shall find, that they are always necessary consequences of our volitions and desires, which are never in our power. You think yourself free because you do what you will; but are you free to will, or not to will; to desire, or not to desire? Are not your volitions and desires necessarily excited by objects or qualities totally independent of you?”

He also said “Men always fool themselves when they give up the experience for systems born of the imagination. Man is the work of nature, he exists in nature, he is subject to its laws, he can not break free, he can not leave even in thought; it is in vain that his spirit wants to soar beyond the bounds of the visible world, he is always forced to return”.

Another reasoning for hard determinism is whats known as reductionism. When followers of libertarian free will use agent causation to explain free will, hard determinists use reductionism. For example, a person’s mental state is a brain state, a brain state is a biological state, and biological states are physical states. As we said, the physical world is largely deterministic.

Hard determinist will argue that the difference between the causes of events outside our brain is our actions have highly complex chains of causation inside our brain and that many of our action’s causes are hidden or unknown to us.

A simplified example of this is when our beliefs, desires, and temperaments are all in line with each other, the result is a deliberate and conscious action. If one of these factors is changed, the result is a different outcome.

Now, what if a person tries to flip a coin, roll a dice, or ask another person to make their ‘choices’ for them? After all, if that is done, it would appear that the end result would be random, and not based on our beliefs, desires, and temperaments. However, the person’s chooses to get an outcome based on randomness, was after all, determined.

Philosophy of Compatibilism

As you read the two philosophies above you may have thought something along the lines of ‘could there be both Free will and Determinism?’. The answer is yes. It is called Compatibilism. Compatibilists believe, like hard determinists, that the universe operates with law-like order, and past events cause future events. However, they think that the human mind is different, and can perform free actions.

These Compatibilists think action is free when determinism takes place inside our minds. A why this can be explained goes a little like this. Imagine that a person is on a cliff, and off the side of the cliff is the ocean. You know that he will end up in the water, but you don’t know-how. There are two options that Compatibilists suggest. Ether he jumps into the water without any physical force aside from himself forcing him off the cliff, or a force will make him fall into the water, for example, a person pushes him off the cliff.

Compatibilists suggest that in both cases, the action is determined, however,

But when the action of an agent is self-determined or determined by causes internal to itself the action is thought of as ‘free.’

In this way, compatibilists suggest we would still have moral responsibility due to the thought our determination is sometimes limited to internal factors.

However, a blunder in this idea is the meaning of moral responsibility in this system. If we’re still determined, just by internal factors, then in what sense are we responsible?

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