Do You Agree with Determinism or Compatibilism - Essay Example

[Submitted to] Month, Year] Do you agree with Determinism or Compatibilism? Many events, incidents and accidents occur in our lives every day with or without our control over them. It is the human nature that he requires a satisfying answer about the changes taking place within him or in his surroundings. The two main philosophies which address the reasons behind human actions and events are Determinism and Compatibilism. Determinism states that all the human actions, events, decisions and choices are directed by some unseen force and humans merely possess the freewill. This philosophy regards the unseen forces as the natural laws. It explains that there is a very rigid cause and effect relationship and we can actually predict the future on its basis with 100% accuracy (Fischer 23). On the other hand we have the Compatibilism which has a contrary idea as that of determinism about the human actions and events. As the name indicates, the human actions are compatible with the human freedom and unseen forces. This philosophy also called the soft version of determinism since it accepts that human actions are directed by some unseen force but at the same time it says that the human freewill also plays a major role. Compatibilism is accepted in some societies and rejected in the other because it simultaneously involves the human freedom and unseen forces in occurrence of human actions and events. In other words it can be said that Compatibilism is the compatible version of determinism. Compatibilism associates freewill to the human actions whereas Determinism calls it an illusion. Following are two objections that are made while arguing about Compatibilism. Cause and effect relationship Compatibilism denies the inevitable causation that every effect has some cause attached to it and that this cause and effect relationship is always so strong that humans cannot show interference and they don’t possess any freewill. For instance, if a student keeps on playing games a night before his exam he will get poor grade in his exam the next day and this is for sure because the cause ‘not studding’ preceded the effect as in the form of ‘poor grade’. Take one more example, it rains because water evaporated in to the sky and form clouds which rains to release water from them. Hence the cause ‘water’ precedes the effect ‘rain’. The bond between cause and effect is so strong that it does not allow the human free will and freedom to interfere. As contrary to Compatibilism, determinism gives more powerful explanations to the human actions and deeds as it is solely based on causation. Prediction If humans have space for expressing freewill and freedom then prediction cannot be made because it is only possible in the presence of causation. Compatibilism do not support the prediction of actions and events because things and consequences cannot be predicted if there are chances of human interference. As human mind is the most unpredictable thing and when events are associated with the freedom of human mind then it is almost impossible to predict the future. Moreover Compatibilism rejects the concept of prewritten fate and destiny. Determinism says that everything that happened was the ‘only’ thing to happen there was no other thing that could happen instead. The choices and decisions made by humans are just an illusion of mind and that they cannot affect the results in anyway. Whereas Compatibilism argues that there are always some chances of counterfactuals. Things and situations are heavily dependent upon the human choices and decisions. Compatibilism defends the objections by following justifications If there isn’t anything such as freewill and freedom and that everything is a part of the causation process then the concept of punishment and good or bad behavior losses it strength. As explained in the above example that the student will not get good marks because of playing games. Then considering this situation the student should not be blamed for his poor grades or bad performance on exams because according to the determinism it is the cause ‘the games’ that produced such an effect. Hence the student should not get punished or blamed for his good or bad performance Contrary to this Compatibilism says that the human actions are influenced by the freewill apart from the unseen controlling forces. The student did not want to study and that was completely his decision for which he should be punished and charged. In the other example there is a natural phenomenon is explained in making an objection to Compatibilism since it is a process in which human interference is not at all required therefore it cannot be used as an objecting statement. Psychology is a field of science which understands, predicts and controls the human behavior and attitudes. Though psychology cannot fully explain the human nature yet its contribution in predicting the human actions cannot be neglected. This defends the objection of prediction made on Compatibilism. It is true that the predictions of determinism about the future on the basis on causation are very accurate and believable but on the other side the events and actions can also be predicted without causation and with the interference of human freedom by the help of psychological tools and techniques which predicts the human behavior to the extent where his involvement in occurrence of a certain event or incident can be evaluated which then leads to punishment or praise. Freewill means that a person can give more than one response to a given situation depending upon his understanding and intuition whereas the determinism considers it an illusion which does not have any concern with the reality because in determinism there is no space for choices since everything is based on causation. Determinist approach deals with the unconscious mind for instance you are at a shopping mall for buying shoes you are looking at pairs of black and brown shoes finally you bought the brown one. Here determinist says that you did not knew but your unconscious mind had already decided to buy that pair of shoes far before you know it or in other words you never had a chance of selecting either black or brown it was already decided by the unseen forces that you will choose the brown shoes this is what determinism is all about that the unseen and unconscious forces fully controls the human actions. Contrary to this the Compatibilism give credits to human actions, choices and decisions. Choice is everyday elements of human life which cannot be denied as it decides the success or failure of a person. CONCLUSION: Compatibilism is actually a part of determinism and the only difference between the two philosophies in of the human freewill only. Determinism approach says that all the human acts and events are totally controlled by the unseen forces whereas the Compatibilism argues that the human freedom also plays a major role in human acts and events which cannot be neglected. I agree to the philosophy of Compatibilism because if all the events were actually the result of cause and effect relationship then there was no sense of blaming humans for the failures or mishaps. If we consider the deterministic approach then we have to give away the concept of punishment as well because punishment is given to humans for their incorrect interference in events. Determinism is true and agreeable only when it comes to the natural process which can be justified by the causation. Work Cited Top of Form Fischer, John M. Determinism. London u.a.: Routledge, 2005. Print. Bottom of Form Read More