Argumentative Essay: Do People Have Free Will?

The argument against free will states that; what you do is always determined by what you have the strongest desire to do, but you have no control over what you desire. If what you do is always determined by something that you have no control over then you can never actually act freely. It follows from what has been said that one does not have free will.

People who believe that we have no free will, that there is no free actions are known as a hard determinists. In other words, hard determinism is the doctrine that there are no free actions. To them, everything is casually determined and no one acts freely. The hard determinist does not deny that it seems that we have free will. What they deny is that the way things seems is the way they are. Nothing could ever be any other way than the way it is. Choices do not exist, free will does not exist, and randomness does not exist. What happens depends entirely on the previous arrangements of its cause and could not be otherwise.

As humans, free will is something we commonly assume we have. When evaluating what free will is, we become less certain. David Hume calls it “the most contentious question of metaphysics.” In simplistic terms, free will is having the ability to determine your own plan of action. There is a relationship between free will and freedom of action and causal determinism that must be evaluated to have a complete understanding of free will. There are compatibilist views that believe in free will and incompatibilist views that imply there is no free will. Free will is also related to both theological determinism and logical determinism.

Free will represents an impact between two opposite perspectives. From a metaphysics perspective we wonder If we don't have free will then why are we here? What is the point of life if we cannot choose our course of actions. But from a scientific perspective we have questions like is it possible that anything can happen without having it be caused by something else? Some things really can't be described within the science that we all rely on. It makes people have free choices that forms who they are, and are responsible for their consequences. "Majority of philosophers suppose that the concept of free will is very closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility"(Connor 2002). I believe that free will is similar to moral responsibility

My second notion of free will requires that an actor is able to decide between different possibilities of actions that lead towards different futures. Robert Kane calls this concept ‘a garden of forking paths’; every action leads to other actions that again allow for alternatives of action (Kane, 2005: 7). If an actor could not have done otherwise, he would not have had free choice. Even if he did not choose to do otherwise, he could not have done so. Free will seems to require the power to do otherwise, or our actions would

Everyone believes himself or herself to possess the freedom of will. If we do not have free will, then that suggests that we lack any power or control over anything, therefore, nothing is up to us. This would impair our view and perception of our society, community and the world. The metaphysical issue of free will is if the initial conditions are fixed and all the laws of nature are deterministic, then the resulting outcome that will happen thereafter is also fixed, because of the laws of nature as well as the initial conditions. So do we actually have free will? This question has become a paradoxical topic, with issues arising from philosophical concepts, including causal determinism and fatalism. This creates a problem for free will

The issue of free will has been a subject of much debate for centuries among philosophers, thinkers, and even mystics. The reason why discussing if free will exists or not is so important is because if its existence is disproven, it would have several implications in many fields of the human life and even on the purpose and meaning, or lack of thereof, of human life itself. The non-existence of free will also have an effect on how we perceive, and probably act, in regards to the accountability of a person’s actions, impulses, and motives along with how the judicial system is structured given the change in status quo of the way we think about the intricate mechanism of how we operate as human beings and as a society in general. If we do not have free will, then questions that are societally-related such as “are we accountable for our actions?” and religiously-related such as “is salvation and heaven and hell predetermined for every person? And if that is so, how is it that such an unfairness would come about from a perfect God?” can greatly impact our own humanity, core values, and religious

We live in a world that believes we have free will. Free, being the idea that we have the right of free choice in how we act. Let us assume that we choose our own behavior and we are self determined; free will vs. determinism, determinism: being the belief that all things, including human behavior, are determined. We look at the choices we make in our life and morality. Philosophers have been questioning this for several years; it begs the question if one believes in free will, not saying that the behavior of humans is random or uncaused but, the belief that we as human beings believe that to an extent one will have control of one’s actions. Factors of external and internal events will play a role on what actions they will take. Free will is having the freedom to choose and having the ability to be determined by anything to act in a certain

Even thought the idea that everyone has free will is widely accepted and appreciated, it is obvious that by the very definition of the word “free” no such thing can exist. The idea that free will exists has been supported by several arguments against the idea that the everything in the world has been previously determined rather than arguments that are actually for the existence of free will. This is a very key point in the argument that free will has never and can never exist. If free will is not actually free then it cannot be considered free will. If free will isn’t free will then it has never been free will and can never be free will. If there has never been and will never be free will, then we cannot have free will. Thus, we do not have free will.

Facts state that we are biological creatures made up of molecules that adhere to the laws of physics. If science is as reputable as we make it out to be, then the regularity of those laws determines how every single molecule in the known universe acts. As a population, humans are merely constructs of one vital organ, the brain- a supercomputer capable of naming itself. And this goes without saying that the human brain (the organ designated as doing the choosing in our everyday decisions) is made up of these exact same molecules. Everything humans think, do, or say, must come down to the behavior of these molecules according to the laws they follows. The concept of free will is based upon an illusion that people can choose their actions; however that is not the case. Due to the fact that the brain is composed of chemicals, neurons, and molecules that are subject to the law of physics, an individual’s actions become the result of the chemical and molecular changes within the brain. These changes are based on the biological makeup of the individual and the environmental factors the individual

Philosophers have debated and struggled with the argument of free will for centuries. In my opinion, I would like to believe that we have free will because I would hope that my decisions are mine and not of some powerful overlord or an advanced civilization in a simulation. Over the years there have been many theories or speculations about free will. Some philosophers would define free will as “the ability to do what we want to do”. With this definition, we do have free will because most of the time we can do what we want. However, we could be made to believe that it is our choice, but if we were to repeat a scenario where you choose option ‘A’ we would repeatedly pick option ‘A’ because it could not happen any other way. Different religions

Free will is the ability of a representative to make individual choices and/or act upon them in their own desired way. People make choices every day in their lives, maybe with a little incentive here and there, yet in the end, it’s the people’s choice. Free will has been a commonly debated subject throughout history. Not just if it’s true, but ultimately the real meaning of it. How can we not believe in free will? Humans naturally have a strong sense of freedom. Free will is true in species and there will never be an alternate.

What exactly does it mean to have a free will? To answer simply, a free

Many have wondered whether free will exists or not. Some argue yes, some argue no. For now, I will say no. I will begin my argument with a scenario. Say a man has an enemy that he hates very strongly. One day this guy makes a conscious decision to kill his enemy. He calculates every move he needs to make to kill his enemy and succeeds in doing so. Clearly, this man is guilty of murder. The question is, should blame fall on this man for killing another?

My idea of free will, before the class was if you have options and are able to choose from those multiple options then you are free. But then I learned that free will deals with you making a real choice; reason is that you need experience to make a real choice. In class we agreed that having free will comes from experience; meaning you make your