Free Will A Matter Of Perspective

Free Will ? A Matter Of Perspective Essay, Research Paper

Free Will?A Matter of Perspective

I want to argue that there is indeed free will. In order to defend the position that free will means that human beings can cause some of what they do on their own; in other words, what they do is not explainable solely by references to factors that have influenced them. My thesis then, is that human beings are able to cause their own actions and they are therefore responsible for what they do. In a basic sense we are all original actors capable of making moves in the world. We are initiators of our own behavior.

The first matter to be noted is that this view is in no way in contradiction to science. Free will is a natural phenomenon, something that emerged in nature with the emergence of human beings, with their kinds of minds, minds that can think and be aware of their own thinking.

Nature is complicated. It includes many different sorts of things and one of these is human beings. Such beings exhibit one unique yet natural attribute that others things apparently do not?that is free will.

A reason why some think that free will is not possible is because many believe that the only way we know about nature is from observations that we collect. Since observation can not give us a justification of free will, it is easy to think that there isn?t any such thing. Free will may not be something that we can see directly, but what best explains what we do see in human life. This may include, for example, the mistakes that human beings make in contrast to the few mistakes that other animals make. We also notice that human beings do all kinds of odd things that cannot be accounted for. We can examine a person?s background and find that some people with bad childhoods turn out to be decent, and vise versa. Free will comes as a very helpful explanation of this.

Another matter that might count against free will is that the beings in nature do not exhibit free will. Dogs, lizards, fish, cats, frogs, etc.; have no free will and therefore it appears arbitrary to impute it to human beings. Why should we do things that the rest of nature lacks? It would be an impossible aberration. The answer here, is that there is enough variety in nature?some things swim, some fly, some just lie there, some breathe, some grow, while others do not; so there is plenty of evidence of plurality of types and kinds of things in nature. Discovering that something has free will could be yet another addition to all the varieties of nature.

I am going to give four agruments on why, in my opinion free will exists. The first argument has to deal with determinism. If we are fully determined in what we think, believe and do, then of course the belief that determinism is true is also a result of this determinism. But the same is true for the belief that determinism is false. There is nothing you can do about whatever you believe?you had to believe it. There is no way to take an independent stance and consider the arguments unprejudiced because all various forces making us assimilate the evidence in the world just the way we do. One either turns out to be a determinist or not and in neither case can we appraise the issue because we are pre-determined to have a view on that matter one way or another.

We will never be able to resolve this debate, since there is no way of truly knowing. In fact the there is no way that one will ever reach philosophical truth. If we are engaged in learning about truth and distinguishing if from falsehood, we are committed to the idea that human beings have some measure of freedom?free will.

Another dilemma of determinism is the fact that determinist want us to believe in determinism. But as the saying goes in philosophy, ?ought implies can?. That means, if one ought to believe in or do something, this implies that one has a choice on the matter; it implies that we can make a choice as to whether determinism or the free will is better. However, that then, assumes that we are free. In other words, even arguing for determinism assumes that we are not determined to believe in free will or determined but that it is a matter of our making certain choices about arguments, evidence, and thinking itself.

In many contexts of our lives personal knowledge is taken very seriously. When you go to the doctor and he asks you if you are in pain and you say yes, why doesn?t the doctor say ?how can you know this, this is not proven evidence?? In all reality this is very good evidence. It is the same as a witness in a trial giving evidence, personal evidence.

Personal evidence is considered reasonably reliable. Those examples I previously mentioned were only included to prove the point I am soon to make. There is a lot of evidence around us that free will exists. Think of all the times that you have made a bad decision and realized it later. We all are faced with choices and we all make the wrong ones sometimes.

Finnally, there is also the evidence of the fact that we do seem to have the capacity for self-monitioring. The human brain has a kind of structure that allows us to, speak, and to govern ourselves. We can inspect our lives, we can detect where we are going, and we can, therefore, change it?s course. The human brain itself makes it possible. The brain, because of its structure, can monitor itself and as a result we can