The question of whether or not individuals have free will is one that has been debated for thousands of years. One argument claims that we cannot have free will because our actions are by necessity caused by their circumstances and therefore are predetermined. That is to say, “if our brain states determine our mental states, and the external environment plus the laws determine our brain states, it seems to follow that our mental states are also completely determined by factors beyond our control.” 1 As Elliott Sober words it, “Given the beliefs and desires we presently have, isn’t it inevitable that we do precisely what we do? Our beliefs and desires leave open what we will do no more than a computer’s program leaves open what the computer will do.” 2 This line of reasoning asserts that determinism and free will are incompatible, and that free will is only an illusion. This hard determinism seems to me to attempt to paint a complex landscape using only black and white. C. A. Campbell puts it this way: “How often, for example, do we find the Determinist critic saying, in effect, ‘Either the act follows necessarily upon precedent states, or it is a mere matter of chance and accordingly of no moral significance.’ The disjunction is invalid, for it does not exhaust the possible alternatives.” 3 I agree with this point, and one such possible alternative is that some actions are primarily the logical outcomes of their precedent conditions, while other actions are determined or influenced by free will.
I would go as far as to say that most of the world as we know it, including human behavior, follows a line of predictable outcomes that has very little to do with free will. David Hume writes: “It is universally acknowledged that there is a great uniformity among the actions of men…and that human nature remains the same, in its principles and operations. The same motives always produce the same actions. The same events follow from the same causes.” 4 (Hume clarifies this by saying “We must not, however, expect that this uniformity of human actions should be carried to such a length as that all men, in the same circumstances, will always act precisely in the same manner, without making any allowance for the diversity of characters, prejudices, and opinions.” 4 )
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11/09/2007 10:31 PM Reply
Because a river is made if water it flows within its banks, its molecules behave that way in concert. It does not necessarily follow from that that a water molecule flows within its banks, it may swirl in an eddy forever, it may evaporate and join a cloud.
If I stand before a door my choices are simple, I may choose to reach out and open it with the knob – or not to, in that choice is freedom.
That we choose from amongst relative choices in limited circumstances is the substance of choice.
That we know to choose at all is the essence of it.
02/20/2008 09:28 AM Reply
i think its nice t have a free spirit.we can do anything we want..!!!!