FREE ESSAY ON FREE WILL

FREE WILL

Do I have Free Will?
After considering the evidence for the three views I have concluded that soft determinism
is best supported. I will be arguing for soft determinism with evidence presented in the
class readings. 
I will start out with the evidence of unconscious motivation. It is the unconscious that
forces us to act out things we think are justifiable but can actually be hurtful. With
the three factors of our unconscious state, the ID, super-ego and the unconscious ego, we
tend to be in a tug-of-war with our mind over who has control. With the mind being in the
unconscious state we tend to make compromises in our actions. With the unconscious
working, we have the freedom of free will. Once the ID is in action it puts its demands
in the table and wants satisfaction while the super-ego denies the wish. We need our
unconscious to mediate between the two forces otherwise our mind would be in a constant
battle. 
Another argument for the point would be of moral responsibility. According to Hospers we
have none. We are conditioned from birth with qualities of our personality, social
standing and attitudes. Most people are so set on their ways that unconsciously they
block out rational thought and act on what they have been programmed to do. In the
unconscious state we are just bystanders to our neurosis which is always in control and
has already been unconsciously determined. If most of our acts are compelled then we have
no means of true freedom. 
Now let us look at free acts versus unfree acts. First, we should have a definition of
both: free acts are caused at that moment by internal states whereas unfree acts occur
due to outside forces. A true Libertarian believes that there is no cause for anything,
that everything happens as the self decides while a Determinist believes everything
happens due to some outside force. The soft determinist has the right idea, that all acts
are necessitated by previous causes. There are some free acts and there are some unfree
acts. We need both of these forces to guide us through life. If we go through life
without worrying about a single thing then I believe that this life has been wasted, that
we have just been going through some routine only to get by and then move on to something
better which has been determined for us somehow. We need free acts thrown into the mix so
we have some reason for living. Right now I am acting out of free will in a way, I am
writing this paper. You might say it is an unfree act because it is an assignment but I
can choose not to do it. My free act is that I want to learn more by exploring this
subject so I can apply myself to better things. In soft determinism we also need some
unfree acts. Just this past weekend after the snow storm I was pulling into the parking
lot and pulled into the space, knowing very well that I buried my car in 8 inches of
fresh snow. This event was caused by the huge amount of snow we got and that the lot
wasn't plowed. Since it was not my choice to get my car stuck in the snow, this is an
example of an unfee act. While most things are determined for us it is that little free
agent that keeps us going. 
The evidence for Libertarianism is less persuasive than Determinism and Soft Determinism.
First of all the argument for the inner standpoint is very unpersuasive. This is trying
to show that determinism is false, which is entirely impossible. The argument is that you
cannot look at things from an outer standpoint, that a determinist tries looking at it as
through a different, or wrong, point of view and when they discover that it is not there
then they their beliefs don't exist anymore. Also, that moral freedom is an inner act is
hard to comprehend. It is said that the act must be one of which the person judged can be
regarded as the sole author. He can be held morally responsible for these acts because
they have occurred from external to the self. If the self is a separate enema from the
mind then all the other little pieces floating around it cannot influence it. 
While there has to be determined acts out there, there still needs to be some immediate
cause on the psychological state of the agent. With the external compulsions acting on
the agent there seems to be some interaction with the self which shapes the way we think.
If we have the thought of free acts then there is something left to be compelled to work
for. 
Bibliography
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