Free Will And Determinism Flashcards
Free will
The belief that each individual has the power to make choices about their behaviour
Approach that supports free will
Humanistic approach
How does the humanistic approach support free will
Psychologists such as Maslow and Rogers argue that free will was a necessary part of human behaviour
What’s determinism
Describes behaviour as not being under the control of the individual
Two types of determinism
Hard and soft
Hard determinism
The view that all behaviour can be predicted and there’s no free will
Soft determinism
A version of determinism that allows a little bit of free will
Examples of deterministic approaches
Biological
Environmental
Psychic
Scientific
Biological determinism
Shows that the more we discover and research the more it appears out behaviours are determined by our genes
Environmental determinism
Behaviourists believe that all behaviour is caused by previous experience, through the processes of classical or operant conditioning
Psychic determinism
Freud’s theory that suggests that adult behaviour is determined by innate drives and early experiences
Scientific determinism
Based on the belief that all events have a cause
The illusion of free will
May be an illusion how do we know what it is?
Just being able to decide between different courses of action isn’t free will an argument put forward by skinner
People may choose to buy a certain car or see a certain film but it’s determined by previous reinforcement experiences
What’s good about soft determinism
Having more of a soft approach is better because it allows both determinism and free will making it interactionist and more valid
Evaluation of scientific determinism
Tends to oversimplify human behaviour
