by a person’s genetic sequence. In the article, “Do You Have Free Will? Yes, It’s the Only…
Free will is a concept of much debate. I base my conception of free will on Erasmus's definition. Erasmus argues that free will is “The human will by which man is able to direct himself towards to turn away from what leads to eternal salvation”(6). My conception of free will alters the last clause and instead substitutes, man’s ability to direct himself towards and turn away from success, in addition to having the freedom to define such success. In this paper I will argue that man’s will is never completely free; it is always dependent to some extent on God. I will analyze the philosophical theories of Erasmus, Luther, Descartes, Spinoza, and the movie The Adjustment Bureau, and the arguments they they make in their…
Gary Gutting, the author of the article, What Makes Free Will Free? deliberates that we do not have free choice as we assumed which a researcher confirmed. By free choice, this means the conviction that our conduct is dictated by our own unrestrained choice and that we have complete power over our activities. Also, Gary Gutting examined various thoughts on determinism as the researchers suggested. Determinism refers to the conviction that all human conduct or any other occurrences have a cause. This is opposed to a person's will to accomplish an action. Gary Gutting discussed what David Hume, a philosopher, believed and the belief of David Hume is that both determinism and free choice are possible, they are compatible with each…
Free will is clearly an ontological issue, but it is rooted in the metaphysical nature of reality. We should study free will because it is theologically significant and because many people assume a particular definition of free will that is incorrect. Studying free will is challenging because it is not defined in Scripture. Further, it is complex because it connects too many other larger theological issues; it intersects with philosophy, historical theology, and systematic theology. At the outset, it is necessary to get a clear understanding of what exactly "free will" is. A being has free will if given all other causal factors in the universe it nevertheless possesses the ability to choose more than one thing. The word freedom…
Stan Lee, creator of many of the Marvel movies, once said, “With great power there must also come… great responsibility.” Free will is like a great power that has been given to us. It can be used for good and evil. As humans, we believe that we have a choice in everything. Thus the idea of free will. But because of that choice there will always be a downside to free will.…
Most people like to think that human beings possess free will, at least with regard to a wide range of actions. In contrast, however, some believe that certain people lack the aspect of free will. Many great theorists have contended that the reason some people may, indeed, lack free will is not so much due to the determined nature of their choices and behavior, but rather due to the fact that their behavior is not responsive to their choices in such…
vHarry Frankfurt’s work “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person” discusses the attributes of free will through the concept of first and second order desires. He explains that a first-order desire is a desire to perform an action, and a second-order desire is the desire to perform another desire. When someone wants their secondary desire to become their will and take the place of their first-order desire it is called a second-order volition. Frankfurt’s work centers on how second-order volitions are evidence of free will because free will is only achieved when a person is able to choose which desire to act upon. Frankfurt argues that each second-order volition is an expression of free will and without them a person is left with only…
The brain is a powerful, mystical part of every living being. It controls what we think, what we do, and how we act. Every day we are faced with decisions. As a human being, we are given the intelligence and brain to make conscious decisions, whether they are good decisions or bad decisions. We have the free will to make them, but is our decision truly conscious? There are many things that influence or determine our behavior. The brain works in magical ways, sometimes with reason and sometime without. Many times we may question our behavior. Libet's experiment looked at the brain and hot it affects our decisions to act or not act, which is basically our free will. Benjamin Libet wanted to explore whether our free will was really free or tied…
There are many boundaries that affect how much we can change or alter what we are set out to become. Growing up a middle class white teenager I have always felt I must become the regular hard-working family man my father is. I have choices, however society’s image of an American male adult plays a major factor in the shaping of the man I will become. In the four pieces from the reader, the authors collectively believe they must conform to society’s perfect image of what they must look like and become. It is this pressure that has transformed me into the individual I am today. My life is pre-determined by my race and gender but I believe I have as much free will as I would like to express myself and change my status as an individual in today’s society. Free will is defined as the ability to choose, and I believe we all have that right to choose what we look like and become when we age. I believe free will is one of the most important aspects of living in a free society, like the one in which we live in today.…
Intro: In this article, I first presented the Free Will argument. Then I showed how it fails by questioning the necessity of natural evils. After that, I defended my response against a likely rebuttal.…
The question over the existence of free will has raged on over many years. Many feel that God, saw an omniscient being, must be aware of all that has happened and all that will happen. Supporters of the cosmological argument would suggest that everything has a cause and that god was the initial cause, “the unmoved mover” (Tomas Aquinus), this would support the idea that humanity has no free will as everything is pre determined. This highlights the idea that humanity is not free, and even when we think we have a choice our actions have already been determined.…
This week’s essay is a comparative analysis of the theories of freedom (indeterminism) and predestination (religious determinism). Our analysis will attempt to prove the superiority of the theory of freedom over the theory of predestination. First, we will examine the theory of predestination as it is explained in the text “Ethics: Theory and Practice” (Thiroux & Krasemann, 2012). The organization of the text lends itself to our analysis since it highlights differences between the two theories in its defining process. We will illustrate the theory of predestination by offering an example which will humanize the theory. Next, we will explore the theory of freedom through the lens of predestination. We will then exhibit the theory of freedom with an example. Finally, we will analyze and compare the two theories by demonstrating their applicability for today’s society and arguing the superiority of the theory of freedom over the theory of predestination.…
Is it true that the society we live in, we have the right to make and produce our own decisions and its purely down to each individual to any actions they produce? In this essay I will explore if we have the right to be responsible for any action we take. Some may believe its down to God and his decisions, obviously, this cannot be proved, however surely each human have the right to be responsible for any actions. This question comes down to; do we have free will or is it determinism?…
Augustine said, “You see, then, I imagine, that it is in the power of our will to enjoy or to be without so great and so true a good”. Augustine clearly argues that man is free to either observe or disregard God’s law. Errors in cupidity are the sole responsibility of the individual, and man’s ignorance and sinful nature are the just punishments. Again, Augustine comments, “For those who are happy—and they must also be good—are not happy simply because they wish to live happily. The bad also have the same wish. They are happy because they live rightly, which the bad do not wish to do so”.…
William James, born 1842, was a trained physician who subsequently dabbled in works of philosophy and psychology (in which he officiated as a formal study through lectures) (Goodman, 2009). As did many philosophers, Jamesian thinking seeded many discussions on various philosophical topics such as metaphysics, morality, free will-determinism, religion and the afterlife; however, what truly made his ideas notable was his uncanny ability to borrow and integrate knowledge from branches of physiology, psychology and philosophy to weave new insights and dimensions onto traditional philosophical arguments (Goodman).…