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Free will and determinism - Coggle Diagram
Free will and determinism
Libertarian free will
James
Free because we choose to be free
Sartre
Free due to our phenomenological experience of freedom and abandonment, which leaves us with no moral specification
With no nature comes no responsibility outside of that imposed upon ourselves, and thus we have free will to forge our own nature as a legislating species
Quantum physics? Occasionally used as a justification for free will
ultimately fails, as quantum physics appears to either be random, in which case no free will, or determined but we haven't found out how yet
even then localising quantum physics into brains requires either great leaps of logic or religion
Pink - we are free because our experience of freedom is just as compelling as our experience of causation
We are free because we must have moral responsibility
Hard determinism
Spinoza
The world is all a single substance, God or nature, expressing its nature in infinite modes. There is no free will within this system of natural expression
Dennett
The world is entirely physical, and all events can theoretically be predicted given that there is nothing that can be which is not caused by a corresponding deterministic physical event
Soft determinism/other perspectives
The idea that actions are free when they are freely done in accordance with our own will
Religious perspectives
Polkinghorne
Free will can only exist if God does not know all our actions before they happen
Therefore God reduces his own power and inserts an element of chance into the universe, thus allowing indeterminacy, but also granting access to evil
Predestination
The paths and fates of all people are chosen in advance - your actions have no effect on whether you go to heaven or hell
Biological determinism
There is some aspect of our biology which determines our traits to some extent
Genetic determinism
Our DNA determines many of our character traits and things that will occur in our life
Physical determinism
Mackie
For every brain event there is a correlating previous brain event. Brain events cannot occur spontaneously, Spontaneity even implies lack of will in the event
Experiment - decisions occur before the user is even aware of the decision being made (see button)
Psychological determinism
Our behaviour can be predicted or controlled via psychological techniques