Analyzing the Problem of Freewill - Essay Example

Analyzing the Problem of Freewill al affiliation The problem of free will emanate when one tries to merge the component offreedom with the apparent determinism in this world that has causes and effects. In the view of determinists, they fail to recognize the presence of such freedom. Freedom of will, puts us in a position to have another different view or perspective of our actions ready done. Deterministic world has it that everything that happens has roots in the natural or divine laws. They also believe that there is only one possible future (John, James , & Roy, 2008). Generally, we are supposed to be free beings that can determine our future without external influence. Creativity and unpredictability are other two inherent traits that we as human beings should possess. We should not, at any given time, stand in a position to be easily predicted in our actions. Our system as human beings is probabilistic rather than deterministic and therefore our actions should be unpredictable unlike the machines. Taylorism, coined from the key proponent behind scientific management, argued that human beings work like machines but his scientific movement of management didn’t stand for long. Some scholars have tried to explain freedom by using chance or randomness. These scholars can be traced back from the time of ancient Epicureans to the modern quantum mechanical indeterminists. They argued that, a causal chain can be broken by a random event and the end result would be a nullification of determinism and thus pushing further for a greater room for human freedom. Human action’s freedom requires randomness in terms of absolute unpredictability. However, should our action be a direct consequence of an event that is random, responsibility cannot be felt. That would, in other words, be complete indeterminism. However, on a more critical scrutiny, indeterminism seems to be a threat to reason itself, which require causality and certainty to unearth truth, the laws of nature and even knowledge. A great number of philosophers of all ages, tend to commit themselves to one or a number of dogmas of determinism. They tend to refuse any indeterminism or chance at any given time. A group these philosophers came with the notion that there exists one big disaster to reason, which they called indeterminism. To them, they concurred that there was no medium between chance and necessity. Many scientist, strongly believe in science being predicated on causality and predictability. Without this, science would be viewed as the search for causal laws that are impossible and impractical. For these scientists, the laws that govern nature would not qualify to be called so if they were only based on statistics and probability. Ironically, it comes as a contradiction, for some laws of nature are largely statistical and our predictions being made a mere probability, though probabilities have chances of approaching certainty (John, James , & Roy, 2008). Fortunately, for some objects that are large, it is practically unobservable to tell the departure from deterministic laws. A thin line exists here and thus one cannot tell probabilities from certainties. We can therefore clearly show that there is adequate determinism and a rather soft causality. A more recent debate has been sparked on the problem of the free will. The debate uses a taxonomy of positions that to an extent has caused a big deal of confusion. The confusions on a closer view is on the logical bit and at a larger extent linguistic. On a look at the terminology, at the top level, there exists two mutually exclusive positions. These positions are the determinism and indeterminism. In determinism, there are two more positions that conflict here: compatibilism and incompatibilism. Under indeterminism, a scholar by the name Robert Kane points out three positions. These positions are the ones that were taken by the schools of libertarians-non-causal, Agent-causal and event-causal. A question of whether free-will is compatible with determinism is prevalent and a general one. Most of the philosophers answer this question with a yes. They consider themselves compatibilists. They view the libertarians as their opposite and consider them as the incompatibilists. In the physical world, it is also evident that determinism is not true. The physical world has quantum randomness or absolute chance. However, it is worth noting that chance does not necessarily mean events are completely undetermined and uncaused. Moreover, it does not also pose that the direct cause of our actions is chance. Nevertheless, determinists and compatibilists try to reach a conclusion on the question of, if our actions had random causes, morally we would not be responsible. Most compatibilist tend to deny the reality of chance. They posit that, guided by the quantum mechanical indeterminism, something can be found to be wrong. They also argued that chance is unintelligible and therefore there lacks intelligible explanation of their opposers (libertants) free will. Some dismiss free will calling it a mere illusion. Recently, professional philosophers have specialized in the field of free will and moral responsibility. They have come up with more advanced terms such as narrow, broad, semi and hard incompatibilism as well as illusionism. However, a messy situation arises when the incompatibilists stand includes both hard determinists-those who deny free will and those that deny determinism. The broad incompatibilists hold it that free will and moral responsibilities are incompatible with determinism. On the other hand, the narrow incompatibilists think free will is incompatible with determinism. Semi-incompatibilists can be viewed as narrow compatibilists that are agnostic about free will and determinism. They also have it that moral responsibilities and determinism are compatible. Hard incompatibilists have it that free will and moral responsibilities are incompatible with determinism. Those that believe that free will is an illusion are called the illusionists while soft incompatibilists argue that moral responsibility and free will cannot blend with strict determinism. However, they are compatible with adequate determinism. Soft causalist are also called the event-causalists. To them, they accept causality but agree the existence of some unpredictable events that the term as “causal sui” that causes a chain of causes. The event causal theorists of free will have six sophisticated attitudes towards the functions of chance. Firstly, it posits that chance is in existence in the universe. Quantum mechanics is very correct and that indeterminism is true. Secondly, for free will, chance is very important, chance also breaks the causal chain in determinism. Thirdly, our actions are not directly caused by chance and that none of us can be responsible for random actions. Fourthly, alternative possibilities as far as actions and thoughts are concerned are generated by chance. Fifthly, chance that assumes the form of noise, both thermal and quantum, must be always present and finally, in the sixth and last position, chance should be suppressed by adequately determined will when it decides to act. Thinkers have weighed and considered these six aspects of chance, a small number of them have seen it obviously parallel to the biological evolution and natural selection. In this, the microscopic quantum accidents are the causes of variation in the gene pool while the macroscopic natural selection of the fit genes is characterized by their reproductive success. References John, B., James , C. K., & Roy, F. B. (2008). Are we free? Psychology and Free will. . New York: Oxford University Press. Read More