Free Will & Determinism

Question 1

Hard determinism

Answer 1

There is no free will as the future is already decided

Question 2

Causal determinism

Answer 2

Everything in the universe has a cause that proceeds it - people are either lucky or unlucky

Question 3

Hospers

Answer 3

Used the analogy of a meal - a certain combination
If someone commits a crime and is punished by the state ‘he deserved it we say self righteously as if we were moral and he immoral when in fact we are lucky and he is unlucky…’

Question 4

Milgram

Answer 4

Conveyed people are obedient to authority

Question 5

Stanford

Answer 5

Prison study

Question 6

Pavlov

Answer 6

If we manipulate the environment we can change a persons behaviour

Question 7

John Locke

Answer 7

Argues freedom is simply an illusion e.g. Sleeping man

Question 8

Pinker

Answer 8

Considered ideas of Darwin recognising that emotions e.g. Guilt and love have an evolutionary advantage

Question 9

Immutable laws of nature

Answer 9

Isaac newton humans beings as part of that universe must be similarly governed

Question 10

Honderich

Answer 10

Near determinism allows that there may be some indeterminsm which we don’t have any choice over so we don’t have moral responsibility
Therefore whatever I do I couldn’t have done otherwise so can’t be punished
We have a kind of liked which is incompatible with a belief in determinism. The future is just effects of effects

Question 11

Darrow

Answer 11

Defended Leopoldo and loeb

Their actions are simply the product of their backgrounds

Question 12

Libertarianism

Answer 12

Accept that universal causation would apply to a mechanistic world but this would not influence human choice

Question 13

Kant

Answer 13

Someone with free will doesn’t simply act they apply reason

Question 14

Kant2

Answer 14

Morality belongs in the noumenal world. Our moral will is a priori when determinists observe causality they’re observing events in the phenomenal world

Question 15

Sarte

Answer 15

We fear freedom so we blame our past.
There are some things we can’t change but we have the ability to reassess the past
We are always trying to escape freedom which is to much so we blame our past preferring to see ourselves as being in itself

Question 16

Compatibilism

Answer 16

This allows for our moral responsibility

Question 17

Hume

Answer 17

There are physical causes that limit our freedom we can’t choose not to be in that situation but you can choose your response

Question 18

Palmer

Answer 18

There are statements that are necessarily true and other truths that are no less true but contingently e.g. Runners

Question 19

Warnock

Answer 19

Recognises that there are some things over which we have no control and our brain type will control the way we behave
Behaviour is never predictable

Question 20

Original sin

Answer 20

Adam and Eve the garden of Eden

Question 21

Predestination

Answer 21

Originated from the teaching of Saint Paul - we are all semi ally present and must recognise this is

Question 22

Saint Paul quote

Answer 22

For those god called he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son

Question 23

Augustine quote

Answer 23

The potter has authority over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honour and another for contempt

Question 24

Calvin quote

Answer 24

For he does not create everyone in the same condition but ordains eternal life for some and damnation for others

Question 25

Timeless omniscient God

Answer 25

Knows everything about the past present and future at once

Question 26

Everlasting God

Answer 26

He experiences time as linear in the same way as we do. He can know everything about the past and present but not the future

Question 27

Peter Geach

Answer 27

Idea of god as a chess grand master who will beat a novice despite the fact they’re completely free to move