Free Will By Jeffrey Shamberger Analyzing our individual free will can be very intriguing and can almost reach the point of being paradoxical. Ultimately, free will determines the level of responsibility we claim for our actions. Obviously, if outside forces determine our choices, we cannot be held responsible for our actions. However, if our choices are made with total freedom than certainly we must claim responsibility for our choices and actions. The readings I chose offered two quite opposite theories on individual human freedom, determinism vs. existentialism. In comparing these two theories the contrasts are quite outstanding. Evidently, some philosophers felt that human beings did not really have a free will. This view, defined as determinism held that certain casual laws rule what occurs in the universe. There are two major forms of determinism, including hard determinism and soft determinism. Hard determinism taught that each of our actions is determined by factors be!
yond our control such as heredity and environment. From this point of view there can be no real moral responsibility for our actions if our actions were determined b
sponsibility on someone or something else. Existentialism cannot include "groupthink", which includes large organizations such as church. If you belong to a church, there are some moral issues you must believe in and some you should not. The same is true for memberships in groups and gangs. To commit to such circumstances would be acting in "bad-faith". Furthermore, love automatically would put a person in "bad-faith". This is because once we are in love we might modify our opinions and actions as a way to insure we don't lose our loved one or ones. An authentic existence would be impossible if we had to check our actions against the imagined judgement of the person who fulfills our need for true love. Obviously, a huge contrast exists between determinism and existentialism. After much contemplation, I personally would have to place my opinion of individual free will to the left of soft determinism and to the right of existentialism. I have come to this conclusion because of a!
y factors beyond our control. There is a complete denial of personal free will in hard determinism. Soft determinism, however, appears to combine determinism and fr
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