Ethan Couch's Argument Essay: The Free Will Debate

Whether we have free will is widely controversial. The absence of a universal definition poses a primary problem to this question. In this essay, I shall base my argument on a set of three conditions for free will: 1) that the actor is unconstraint in his action, 2) the actor could have acted otherwise and 3) the actor must be ‘ultimately responsible’ (Kane, 2005: 121) for his action. After I have explained them, I shall apply these conditions to three scenarios that cover most, if not any, circumstances that occur when taking choices. The purpose of this essay is to show that if my conditions are true, none of the scenarios is based on free will and thus we do not have free will.

There are those who think that our behavior is a result of free choice, but there are also others who believe we are servants of cosmic destiny, and that behavior is nothing but a reflex of heredity and environment. The position of determinism is that every event is the necessary outcome of a cause or set of causes, and everything is a consequence of external forces, and such forces produce all that happens. Therefore, according to this statement, man is not free.

The aim of this essay is to prove the reliability of and why Libertarianism is the most coherent of the three Free Will and Determinism views. It refers to the idea of human free will being true, that one is not determined, and therefore, they are morally responsible. In response to the quote on the essay, I am disagreeing with Wolf. This essay will be further strengthened with the help of such authors as C.A. Campell, R. Taylor and R.M. Chisholm. They present similar arguments, which essentially demonstrate that one could have done otherwise and one is the sole author of the volition. I will present the three most common arguments in support of Libertarianism, present an objection against Libertarianism and attempt to rebut it as well as

Determinism (as defined by Webster) is “A doctrine that acts of the will, natural events, or social changes are determined by preceding events or natural causes”. Likely, the most radical definition of determinism would state that all events in the world are the result of a previous event, or a combination of previous events. Within the realm of the all encompassing radical determinism there are philosophies that are somewhat better thought out or backed by science. One example of this is Genetic Determinism. We know that people are in some way determined by their genes both physically and behaviorally, as the human DNA is applied. Two categories of genetic determinism are Genetic Fixity and Innate Capacity.

4. Adam’s decision was made by his subjective ability to reason. There is no way for a scientist or other being to take apart Adam and physically analyze Adam’s ability to reason. Since choices and reasoning are not at all physical, they cannot share a physical cause and effect relationship, and have nothing to do with determinist’s causal relationship philosophy.

I thought that Baron d’Holbach summarized the determinists viewpoint when he said, “Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant. He is born without his own consent; his organization does in nowise depend upon himself; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits are in the power of who cause him to contract them; he is unceasingly modified by causes, whether visible or concealed, over which he has no control, which necessarily regulate his mode of existence, give the hue to his way of thinking, and determine his manner of acting” (Chaffee, 2013, p. 178).

Human factors are involved wildly in human behaviors and various social systems, including social laws and religion doctrines. Just like what I mentioned previously, scientists believe that the human life is pre-determined and human’s behavior is inevitable. They consider that if someone has all the information of one person, he or she may get to know how he or she is going to change in advance. But from the point of view throughout the history of human society people often turn to emphasize personal responsibility. Law and legal penalties for criminals act based entirely on the idea of individual “free will”. Most Jewish and Christian also believed that individuals should be responsible for the crime and suspects should be punished. We can imagine a psychology professor who believes determinism would say to a student: "You have to concentrate to your study, otherwise you will get nothing!" You can see the contradiction of human behaviors from this typical and ironic statement above, and notice that there exists a deviation between theoretical knowledge and actual human behaviors.

William Rowe defines gratuitous evil as an instance of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.(Rowe 335) In a world with so much evil it raises the questions If God is all powerful, all knowing and all good, how can he allow bad things to happen to good people? Can God even exist in a world with so such gratuitous evil? These are questions that has afflicted humanity for a very long time and has been the question to engross theologians for centuries. The existence of evil has been the most influential and powerful reason to disprove the existence of God. It is believed among many theist that God is the creator and caretaker

     Before one can properly evaluate the entire debate that enshrouds the Free Will/Determinism, each term must have a meaning, but before we explore the meaning of each term, we must give a general definition. Determinism is, "Everything that happens is caused to happen. (Clifford Williams. "Free Will and Determinism: A Dialogue" pg 3). This is the position that Daniel, a character in Williams’ dialogue, chooses to believe and defend. David Hume goes a little deeper and explains in his essay, "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding of Liberty and Necessity," that determinism is this: "It is universally allowed, that matter, in all its operations, is actuated by a necessary force, and

The morality of law and sentencing is questioned when one applies the free will problem. One may inquire how can someone be responsible for outcomes if their actions are determined? This idea is argued for clients by attorneys on various crimes committed ranging from murder to drug convictions. We can read sociological and crime statistics to gain insight on what type of individuals is more likely to commit certain unlawful acts. Those numerical calculations are derived from certain negative upbringing conditions like impoverishment, neglect, or mental disorders. Furthermore, this evidence and other forms like these are exercised in court cases as support for deterministic argument in favor of their client.

Determinism is based off this notion that all events are pre-determined, without influence by human actions. If this is true, we can imply that people do not have free will and thus are not responsible for their actions. In Oedipus the King we see that the dichotomy of fate and free will is hazed by the hyperbole of events, which can make it difficult, but possible, to determine if humans even have free will. Through Oedipus’s flaws and decisions and Sophocles use of the imagery of a crossroad it is apparent that free will can be exercised in a meaningful way.

Casual determinism put simply, is the theory that all things happen for a particular reason and everything is predetermined. It is the idea all the events in one’s life can be explained, and each event has a particular reason for being. If everything is predetermined, then this therefore suggests that the future is fixed which further suggests that we can possibly predict the behavior of things. The theory of determinism ultimately suggests that we don’t the capacity to have free will because all future events are destined to occur, and furthermore we do not posses the knowledge to figure out whether it can be proved true or false (Hoefer). There has been three positions that have developed concerning the theory of causal determinism: hard determinist, compatibilist or soft determinist, and compatibilist.

In Compatibility and moral defense, if an individual is not responsible for the intention then how can that person be responsible for the act? One powerful contemporary form of compatibilism, which is the right answer is “why not?” one should not think that by somebody`s

He states: “Punishment by a court (poena forensic) . . . can never be inflicted merely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for civil society. It must always be inflicted upon him because he has committed a crime. (Kant, Immanuel 1996) Kant believes that within retribution, punishment is justifiable because the person deserves it, even if it creates an overall greater misery over any good emotion.

The pure model of consequentialism focuses on the punishment itself as a means of deterrence of future crime