FREE WILL Flashcards
what’s hard determinism
Hard Determinism is the theory that human behaviour and actions are wholly determined by external factors, and therefore humans do not have genuine free will or ethical accountability. There are several different supporting views for this belief, which incorporates philosophical determinism, psychological determinism, theological determinism and scientific determinism.
What is soft determinism
Soft Determinism is the theory that human behaviour and actions are wholly determined by causal events, but human free will does exist when defined as the capacity to act according to one’s nature (which is shaped by external factors such as heredity, society and upbringing).
what’s Libertarianism
Libertarianism is the theory that humans do have genuine freedom to make a morally undetermined decision, although our behaviour may be partially determined by external factors
What is the THE THEORY OF UNIVERSAL CAUSATION
Philosophical determinism, like all forms of hard determinism, is based on the theory of Universal Causation. This is the belief that everything in the universe including all human actions and choices has a cause. Thus all events are causally determined and theoretically predictable; you just need to know the effect of the causes (a mechanistic philosophy, put forward in the Cosmological argument, Aquinas).
What is the THE ILLUSION OF MORAL CHOICE
The illusion of moral choice is a result of our ignorance of what causes these choices, leading us to believe they have no cause.
John Locke analogy
The philosopher John Locke used an analogy in which a sleeping man is locked in a darkened room. On awakening he decides he will remain in the room, unaware that the room is locked. In reality the man has no freedom to choose, he cannot get out of the room. However, his ignorance of his true condition has led him to believe that he does have the freedom to choose to remain in the room.
DAVID HUME
Hume, a radical empiricist was actually a soft determinist but contributed to philosophical determinism by commenting that we can observe patterns in the physical world that can also be found in the decisions we make. Our decisions thus, just like the physical world, are causally determined. Theoretically then, we could know the future if we were knowledgeable of all the causes in the universe and their effects.
BENEDICT SPINOZA
“In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to will this or that by a cause, which has been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on until infinity.”
Implication for moral responsibility
We cannot be held morally responsible for our actions if they are causally determined and not a result of our own moral choice. The implication thus is that Adolf Hitler is no more culpable for his actions than the good-doing Christian church-goer. Furthermore, our right to punish “guilty” criminals is removed since they cannot be held accountable for their actions. Punishment therefore is reduced to a failed attempt at tackling the problem of injustice in the world.
Who is Epicurus
Epicurus was a Greek philosopher whose philosophy is known as ‘Epicurean philosophy’, which was basically the idea that philosophy can, and should, lead people to lead happy lives, as free from pain or fear as possible, in which respect Epicurus anticipated Utilitarianism.
He is generally associated with living a life of rampant pleasure, but his thoughts are more in line with Negative Utilitarianism – the view that the absence of pain is greatly preferable to the experience of pleasure. Epicurus was what we would call a humanist, and his legacy in that respect is interesting, to say the least
FREE WILL STARTER
Observation and science tend towards determinism; personal and moral experience tend towards free-will.
Epicurus and free will
For Epicurus the world was entirely physical, and that any event was therefore theoretically predictable given its circumstances and the natural forces involved.
People are therefore not free and are at the mercy of external forces over which they exercise no control.
This said Epicurus believed we should live a happy life. Mill was influenced by Epicurus. An unsurprising fact considering he believed in a principle that perpetuated society’s ‘happiness
Who is Spinoza
Spinoza was a determinist – there is no free will.
He considered the belief that there is human freedom ignorance.
Spinoza was a rationalist
what did spinoza suggest
Spinoza thought the feeling of freedom was simply ignorance.
He considered that everything in the world was totally determined by physical causes, and therefore there was no scope for human freedom.
Spinoza suggested that we merely consider ourselves to be free because we are ignorant of all the causes operating upon us
