There is a question that philosophers contemplate that affects our daily lives. This question is about if humans have free will. There are two standpoints on this subject which we will be looking at in this paper which are libertarians and hard determinist. We will observe what disputes that these stances will make by looking at the following argument, which states that humans are not free, and seeing if this argument is sound. I will be arguing that since our actions are determined by prior events then we do not have free will.
P1. An action is free if and only if it is possible to choose from more than one option.
P2. Causal determinism implies that it is not possible to choose from more than one option.
P3/C1. Therefore, causal determinism…show more content… Casual determinism states that our action are not free because they are influenced/determined by occurrences that happened within someone’s past. Incompatibilism then states that if our life’s events are determined by these past occurrences then none of our future actions are free or if our actions are free, then the universe cannot be deterministic: these two different views are not compatible with each other. Free will means that we can make decisions freely. Hard determinist believes in incompatibilism as well as casual determinism. They believe this because they think all the choices that someone makes can be traced back to environmental or genetic causes which result in a predetermined, also known as not free, decision. They also believe that this view is incompatible with free will. Libertarians believe what gives us the ability to make decisions freely is a will and agent cause thus, we have free will. They also believe that this view is not compatible with a deterministic universe (Wright, Free Will and Determinism). Compatibilists believe that the universe is deterministic, yet we still have free will. This is because our decisions are made because of prior events along with an additional cause (Stace,…show more content… The first premise is true because to make a free decision there needs to be a minimum of two options. Most people agree with this premise. Casual determinism also states that our action/decisions are made because of past events within our lives (Wright, Free Will and Determinism). This statement is true because if we were to closely analyze our decisions we would see how our beliefs, genetics, and past influence the decision/action we make. For example, if someone goes to church every Sunday he/she would believe that this his/her own free decision that he/she made. However, if this “free decision” is further analyzed we will see that this person goes to church every Sunday because he/she went every week as a child with their parents. Since this experience, along with their religious beliefs, heavily influenced their decision to go to church every Sunday that means that the action of going to Church is not free. In fact, if we could precisely analyze someone’s past we would be able to accurately predict their future (Wright, Free Will and Determinism: Libertarianism). If all our actions are determined by a prior cause then we are unable to make our own decisions thus, we do not have free
