Free Will and Determinism Flashcards
Hard determinism:
Universal causation: nothing is free and nothing is random
Human behaviour can be reduced to laws of physics
Apparent lack of cause is due to ignorance
Spinoza: apparent freedom to choose is an illusion “dreaming with our eyes open”
Scientific determinism
Appeals to both traditional natural sciences and new sciences
Point to chain of causality with no gaps and allowing no scope for human free will.
Psychological behaviourism:
Human behaviour is caused predominantly by environmental conditions and that all actions are conditioned by previous ones
Watson: humans enter as a blank state, our behaviour is conditioned by upbringing and experience
Skinner and Watson: conditioning by the “carrot or the stick” could lead to changed behaviour
Watson: fear
Skinner: positive reinforcement
Skinner: people feel free because they are doing what they want
Freud:
How we act is determined by suppressed psychological feelings, subconsciously
Eg: young child told off for touching private parts could have intimacy issues as an adult
Behaviour may be determined by things out of our control
Le Plase:
Material determinism:
Everything is subject to laws of cause and effect as everything is physical
Thus always caused
Thus determined
Theological determinism and challenges:
Calvin: predestination
Doctrine that god predestines who goes to heaven
Thus determined by god.
Wiles critique:
God cannot do the logically impossible
Eg rock to heavy to lift
Future control or predictions is logically impossible thus God cannot do it
Libertarianism:
Rejects universal causation and claims that there is such a thing as causally undetermined choice.
Choices not random but not predetermined
Accept bodies are subject to causal laws
Accept nature and nurture may exert strong influence on moral decisions but not necessarily determinant
J.P Satre
“Humans are condemned to be free”
Humans have free will but don’t want it
Eg waiter
“What are you going to do”
“I am a waiter”
Bad faith as giving yourself an identity
Soft determinism:
We are free when we act according to our wishes: freedom is the ability to do what we want
Accept universal causation:
>external causation is synonymous with compulsion. This describes factors beyond our control which determine what we do.
>internal causation: synonymous with free will. Describes temperament or personality
Locke:
Eg man in a locked room
Man wakes up in a locked room
Loved it and doesn’t want to leave
Never tries to leave but wouldn’t be able to because room is locked
Free because did what he wanted to do
Hobbes:
Determined but virtually still free
May be cause that determines what I do but actually possess autonomy to choose action to follow my desires
Aquinas:
God sees how we freely choose
Sees all pathways but doesn’t intervene on what we choose
