Freewill, Determinism and Compatibilism free essay sample

Free will, Determinism or Compatibilism? â€Å"What I am going to do? Maybe I should do this instead of that? † Those are some questions which arose when we are facing choices but, do we always have the choice or we just follow the situation or circumstance? Freewill is the power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external (usually psychological) or by an agency such as fate or divine will, while determinism is the belief that since each momentary state of the world entails all of its future states, it must be possible (in principle) to offer a causal explanation of everything that happens. In these two notions, which one is relevant for man or is it the compatibilism theory which is the belief that the causal determination of human conduct is consistent with the freedom required for response moral agency? According to Descartes, the chief perfection of man is the free will, because it makes him master of his actions; man can act or choose to act in one way or another. We will write a custom essay sample on Freewill, Determinism and Compatibilism or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Do I have to tell my friend that I am pregnant or no? Do I have to buy this yellow car or that green one? The choice depends on man. He has the power and the abilities as a person to make his own decisions, there is no restriction in those choices. Saint Thomas Aquinas said â€Å"A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational† but it that also means there is also limitation in man free will when his decision is based on some internal or external factors? This brought the theory of determinism. There is some situations in which man find himself that he didn’t choose. As an example, ethnicity and parental situation are background that man didn’t choose, and those backgrounds can have effect in man’s life that he doesn’t have the power to change such as or tribe or biological parent. A saying goes that man future is determined by his past. Also, Albert Einstein said: Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. Which means that, everything human action has a cause, nothing can be made or done without a cause. The question now is that: if as an example, someone stole because he was hungry,didn’t he/she has the choice to ask for the food instead of stealing it? Some events can make man face situation that he didn’t expected but it is the man’s choices to decide on one way or anoth er. Compatibilism as it was defined earlier is the view that free will and determinism are compatible. If some events can make man act in some way, man still have the free will. As an example, Linda was raised in the belief that every women must get married in their early age and raised their children, at the age of fifteen she got married and started to build her household. Linda’s believe causes her to choose to get married early. Furthermore, Hume said: â€Å"free acts are not uncaused but rather caused by our choices as determined by our beliefs, desires, by our characters, or just for the hell of it ( wikepedia. org). I do believe that free will and determinism are compatible; therefore I agree with the theory of compatibilism because there are many situations in which man find himself that he didn’t choose; but he also have to face situations in which he has to make decisions. Determinism cannot stand by itself because for an event the must be a cause and for a cause there must have been a will or desire, same as for the free will there must be a cause and for that cause, there must have been a event that has made it happen.