Free Will

A Philosophical Inquiry of Whether or Not Free Will Exists

 

 

Introduction

In any professional discipline, it is notable the relevance of development and progress not just of knowledge that governs the field but most importantly of the application and benefits of the implementation as well as sharing of a particular body of thought. It is a common belief that acquiring knowledge can empower an individual for the notion of facts and truths guides a person on how to proceed on things that must be attended to. When the complexity of the nature, source and limit of a particular knowledge is exposed in terms of the perspective used by a person, conflict on what point of view to follow along with the beliefs and values a person holds, most often than not determines the behavior, given that the person is a ware of the possible principles and truths he or she could consider.

 

Resolving the conflict of different truths presents the various kinds of knowledge and its numerous sources and dynamics resulting to different studies that tried to answer and gave light on the confusion brought about by the bulk of information available. Perhaps the most common of all these motives is to be found in the exceptional and baffling experiences which every one has from time to time. This paper provides a philosophical inquiry into the existence of free will by providing evidences of the applications of such concept in the everyday social interaction as well as personal resolution people undertake to achieve a certain goal. The concept of moral responsibility was used to justify the claims of the existence of free will along with the presentation of the concepts of free will as well as the contradictory claims of determinism will be likewise discussed. 

 

 

Free Will vs. Determinism

The definition of right and wrong, of good and bad, and of what is normal and not has been inculcated since the time we became conscious of our existence. We have always been guided and constrained with the norms and rules of behaving in the social world we live in. Anything that contradicts and breaks the expectations set by the social institutions that have the greatest influence in the way we should behave stigmatizes us and characterizes our actions as deviant or beyond normal. In every decision an individual makes, comprehension and weighing of information play a vital role on what and how certain actions and attitudes will be conceptualized and performed. The motives which have led men to make a scientific study of their conscious processes are numerous and varied in character.

 

 has been popular when he claimed three centuries ago that each person is free in the sense that every individual has control over which actions to perform to the extent that each has the capacity to act upon his or her desires (1997).  According to  (1981) free will considers humans to be responsible beings having the power to control their own lives through choice which can influence the environment and others within it. But a contradicting philosophy also exists – determinism, which claimed that humans are highly sophisticated and complex machines who are totally determined by hereditary (internal) and/or environmental (external) forces beyond their control (1981).   

 

(1991) further elaborated that among the basic components of the concept of free will is that a \the person can sense the capacity to act, that he or she feels free to choose from a variety of possibilities in which the cause or rationale of the decision is inherent in the individual’s choosing and not devoid. In this case, the cause is intrinsic to the person instead of being determined or based beyond his or her control. (2003) further emphasized that free actions are caused by intentions, which are themselves produced not by other states or events but instead by the agent himself. As such, the agent stands at the beginning of the causal chain in which he is not caused to cause her intentions. Meanwhile, the most basic level of the principle of determinism argues that all things in the universe are governed by some participating cause in which everything is dependent upon and necessitated by an outside causal agent or influence (1981).

 

 

Existence of Free Will through Moral Responsibility   

At the forefront of the rights and duties theory of ethical behavior are the writings of Immanuel Kant, who believed that a “right” implied the existence of some condition to which persons are entitled simply because they are human beings or citizens of a nation (DeGeorge, 1990). Along with the existence of rights, Kant wrote, comes the existence of “duties.” Kantian theory considers a person’s rights as irreducible – that is, they are not to be traded or abridged at any time or in any fashion.  According to this theory, there are two primary types of rights: legal rights and moral rights. Legal rights are those rights bestowed on persons through laws passed by the government. Moral rights, on the other hand, are those granted to every human being, regardless of the legal system by which they are governed.

 

As what  (1990) and (1996) explained, our belief in the existence of free will is based on our conceptual definition of its principle and the availability of conditions such as (a) when it is “up to us” what we choose from an array of alternative possibilities and (b) when the origin or source of our choices and actions is in us and not in anyone or anything else over which we have no control. In relation to this, moral responsibility can not be put aside when it comes to the discussion of free will since the assumptions of free will include the person’s responsibility towards his or her actions. As such moral responsibility raises the issue on the interaction of freedom and responsible action. By responsibility we mean the individual’s confidence of facing the consequences of his or hear actions both in the positive and the negative aspect of the end result of a particular behavior (1998).

 

Hence, our own and individual concept of what is right and what is wrong is the application of these values made more difficult by personal pressures. But self definition of the right thing to do when it comes to social responsibility is one of the most crucial questions that need to be addressed through one’s ability and capacity to balance personal interests with one’s duties as a community member can in order to justify the morality of a behavior.  To illustrate, free will is commonly associated with the notions of moral responsibility, autonomy, genuine creativity, self-control, personal worth or dignity, and feeling good about our accomplishments (1996). Moreover, according to  (1962) the mentioned conditions are likewise incorporated in our reactive attitudes or our natural outward behavior toward others using our personal standpoint. These include gratitude, resentment, admiration, indignation, and other such reactive attitudes that depend on them whether they performed those acts or not (1992).

 

But attempting to balance the competing rights of all parties in a dispute raises the problem of fairness or justice when it comes to moral duty and obligation. This shows that major ethical theories are not precise, and enforcement of ethical actions relies on individual judgments. Even though individuals highly trained in the philosophy of ethics do not agree about the application of ethics (1995) since the distinction between ethical and unethical behavior is based on the cultural milieu and is a byproduct of social norms. This is made more complicated by the fact that everything changes including social and moral principles. While social norms may appear to remain stable being based on long traditions, in fact they are in a continual state of evaluation (1981).”  Thus, conflicting ethical decisions may also arise from conflicting sets of social norms within the same culture (1993) thereby intensifying the complexity of intangible moral values and considerations of certain actions.

 

According to a recent history of philosophy (1987), the problem of free will and necessity (or determinism) is “perhaps the most voluminously debated of all philosophical problems”. Moreover,  (2001) indicated that the debates on free will when viewed in historical perspective, is related to other philosophical issues which include:

 

(1)      moral agency and responsibility, dignity, desert, accountability, and blameworthiness in ethics;

(2)      the nature and limits of human freedom, autonomy, coercion, and control in social and political theory; issues about

(3)      compulsion, addiction, self-control, self-deception, and weakness of will in philosophical psychology;

(4)      criminal liability, responsibility, and punishment in legal theory;

(5)      the relation of mind to body, consciousness, the nature of action, 4and personhood in the philosophy of mind and the cognitive and neurosciences;

(6)      the nature of rationality and rational choice in philosophy and social theory;

(7)      questions about divine foreknowledge, predestination, evil, and human freedom in theology and philosophy of religion; and

(8)      general metaphysical issues about necessity and possibility, determinism, time and chance, quantum reality, laws of nature, causation, and explanation in philosophy and the sciences.

 

The reality speaks of endless possibility that makes the life of every man very complex. Our powerlessness to understand and thereby adapt to the changes makes it more difficult and troublesome to grasp the system and function of our being. Science provides explanation, clarifications and understanding on things that cannot be comprehended at face value. Such studies and interests provide rational and empirical approach of appreciating the otherwise complicated realities of things as a valid way of understanding the creation of life whose application can be utilized in a wide range of discipline. The elucidation that science offers to the community keeps the people on firm grounds making them logical, wiser and strategic in performing their everyday function as human beings.

 

 

Conclusion

The nature of uniqueness and the presence of diverse views among people entitle everyone to cling to some beliefs evident and applicable in their own ways and means of life. People do not always affirm to each others’ perception and interpretation of things. But it is also true that there are numerous aspects of living that everyone will agree upon and among these are the beliefs about teaching and learning, being a student, knowledge, the idea of what is worth knowing, and the presence of personal philosophy on specific things.

 

Reviewing the history of epistemology, it is quite discernable that despite the confusion and arguments regarding the best statements that will most clarify philosophical issues presented to the inquisitions of the human mind, a clear trend in addressing such concerns has become obvious through time. Since the time of Socrates, Plato and, other philosophers, quests of underpinning the essence of truth and knowledge that they deemed important to experience absolute freedom and meaning of existence continues up to this day. Scholars of today have contributed a mass of knowledge, competing and supporting alike, in order to satisfy the whims of the human imploring mind. Resolutions have been reached only to be critically analyzed again. The0 interest, however, never stops.

 

 

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