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Free Will and Determinism - Coggle Diagram

- - - - certainly feel a sense of freedom when making moral decisions- deliberate between right and wrong
      - free will allows us to hold people responsible for their actions- means we have a judicial system
      - influenced by external factors but always have a choice e.g. if abused as a child, doesn't always mean you will abuse your children
    - - Benedict Spinoza- determinist who said that feeling of freedom was 'an illusion'
      - John Locke used anaolgy of man locked in room to illustrate how we might feel we are free, but in truth moral choices are determined by facotrs beyond our control.....
        "a sleeping man is moved into a locked room. He wakes up and chooses not to leave the room. He believes he is free to leave the room by walking through the door, but little does he know the door is locked"
- - - - most extreme form of determinism
      - argue that all our actions have prior causes- we aren't free or responsible
      - e.g. believe that individual cannot be blamed for being violent
      - argue that death penalty shouldn't be applied as person is predetermined to violence & cannot be held responsible for their actions
      - Different forms of Hard Determinism
        
        Physical (scientific) Determinism
        
        influenced by physics of Isaac Newton
        
        our universe if predictable- nothing happens by chance
        
        universe is governed by immutable laws of nature e.g. motion & gravitation
        
        began during scientific revolution in 16th & 17th centuries
        
        scientists e.g. Galileo & Newton begiining to understand laws of nature & could predict movemtn of planets by things about cause and effect
        
        Pierre-Simon Laplace believed if casual factors could be understood all actions could be predicted, so that there is neither chance nor choice
        
        "we may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future"- Pierre-Simon Laplace
        
        Albert Einstein-" everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control...we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper"
        
        Philosophical Determinism
        
        based on logical ideas
        
        based around idea that everything in the world has a prior cause, including our actions- Law of Causation
        
        John Locke
        
        Locke gave anaolgy of the 'Sleeping Man'- in 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding'
        
        Locke argued that we are ignorant of fact that the outcome is always inevitable and predetermined
        
        John Locke- belief that all human actions and choices have a chain of past causes over which we have no control
        
        Locke believed "free will is an illusion"- may think we are free when making moral choices, but we pause & take time to reflect on choice about to be made
        
        Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza
        
        brain could be prompting us to act in a certain way or make certain moral changes without us realizing
        
        said, "men think themselves free on account of this alone, that they are conscious of their action and ignorant of the causes of them"
        
        Spinoza believed that our lives and choices are result of various causes going back in chaine of infinite degree
        
        Benedict Spinoza stated "There is no absolute or free will"
        
        argued that "the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another casue, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity"
        
        argued that people think they are free only because they do not fully understand the extent to which our brains influence our decision making
        
        Biological Determinism
        
        Charles Darwin & August Weismann- initially developed theory that every living organism which has evolved has a genetic formula
        Weismann called formula 'Determinants'
        Later reffered to as DNA- is genetic code based on a person's hereditary material
        
        can be argued that moral agents are determined physically by their genes
        
        biological determinists argue that this extends further- say that human behaviour is determined by our genes
        Daniel Dennett called this 'genetic fixity'
        
        theory of 'genetic fixity' states that the inherited genes of parents inevitably determine the behaviour of their children
        
        The Human Genome Project (1990-2003)- was an international scientific research project that attempted to map all the genes within the human genome (some findings seemed to support idea of 'genetic fixity')
        
        case of Stephen Mobely- 2005 brought to trial for murder of Domino's pizza shop manager
        defence tried to aviod his execution by claiming murder was result of mutation i MAOA gene- appeal turned this down saying wasn't ready to accept such evidence
        
        Sam Harris
        
        american athesit philosopher & neroscientist
        
        wrote 'Free Will' - argues that idea we have freedom is based on 2 false assumptions
        
        we are the conscious source of our thought and actions
        
        that we could have behaved differently if we had wanted to
        
        Harris refutes both assumptions
        
        in response to first- claims that we are only aware of tiny fraction of the information our brain process
        deems it entirely plausible we may not be entirely conscious of our thought and actions
        "unconscious neural events determine our thoughts and actions- and are themselves determined by prior causes of which we are subjectively aware"
        in fact, Harris believes that a person observing an individual's face is probably more aware of the individual's state of mind than they are of their own
        
        in response to second- humans cannot behave differently even if they wanted to
        Harris says they couldn't because they are not in control of their behaviour
        stream of causes reaching back into childhood etc... have determined their behaviour
        "all rapists are...unlucky...being themselves victims of prior causes that they did not create"
        "no one is responsible for his genes or his upbringing, yet we have every reason to believe that these factors determine his character"
        
        The Bell Curve
        
        harris interviewed authors of 'The Bell Curve'- was very controversial interview
        
        IQ tests don't measure things like long-term memory or creative thinking
        
        only measure certain types of intelligence
        
        not every culture has the same criteria for measuring & defining intelligence
        
        research for bell curve founded by while supremists & Nazi sympathisers
        
        studies have found that exposure to poverty lead to significant IQ drop