Free Will and determinism Flashcards
What is free will?
The notion that humans can make choices and their behaviour is not controlled by external factors.
What is a strength of free will?
Its practical value.
Th common view in society is that we have free choice in our everyday lives on a daily basis. However, even if this is not the case, thinking we can exercise free choice can improve our mental health.
A study by Rebecca Roberts et al. looked at adolescents who had a strong belief in fatalism (That their lives were decided for by events outside of their control.
The study found that these adolescents were at significantly greater risk of developing depression.
This suggests that, even if we believe we don’t have free will, the fact that we believe we do may have a positive impact on our mind and behaviour.
What approach is an advocate of free will?
Humanistic approach
What is determinism?
The view that an individual’s behaviour is shaped or controlled by internal or external forces.
What is hard determinism?
The view that all behaviour is caused by something, so free will is an illusion.
What is soft determinism?
The view that behaviour may be predictable but there is also room for personal choice from a limited range of possibilities. (restricted free will)
What is biological determinism?
The belief that behaviour is caused by biological( genetic ,hormonal, evolutionary) influences that we cannot control.
What is environmental determinism?
The belief that behaviour is caused by features of the environment (such as systems of reward and punishment) that we cannot control.
What is psychic determinism?
The belief that behaviour is caused by unconscious psychodynamic conflicts that we cannot control.
What is an example of biological determinism?
The influence of the autonomic nervous system on the stress response, or the influence of genes on mental health
What is an example of environmental determinism?
Skinner describes free will as an illusion and argued that all behaviour is the result of conditioning.
What is an example of psychic determinism?
Freud also believed that free will was an illusion but he emphasised the influence of biological drives and instincts. He saw human behaviour as determined by unconscious conflicts, repressed in childhood.
What is a limitation of free will?
Brain scan evidence does not support it but does support determinism.
Libet et al. instructed participants to choose a random moment to flick their wrist while he measured brain activity.
Participants had to say when they felt the conscious will to move.
He found that the unconscious brain activity leading up to the decision to move came at around half a second before the participant consciously felt they had decided to move.
This means that even the most basic experiences of free will are actually determined by our brain before the participant consciously felt they had to move.
What is a limitation of determinism?
The position of legal system on responsibility.
The hard determinism stance is that individual choice is not the cause of behaviour.
In a court of law, offenders are held responsible for their actions.
This suggests that in the real world, deterministic views do not work.
