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Free will Vs Determinism essay

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Introduction

Free will VS determinism Are we human beings really in control of what we are doing? Or is our environment playing games on us, forcing us to do what we "think" is our idea but actually isn't? Many psychologists and philosophers have been debating about this question for years. There are two opposite sides: Those who believe that we have "free will" to do things, and those who think that we are completely controlled by the environment surrounding us, they are those who believe in determinism. Sigmund Freud, one of the most famous psychologists ever existed, believes in determinism. Freud's famous theory of psychosexual stages development says that from the way a child is raised up, we can determine who and what he will become later in his life. He believes that we, human beings pass through 4 stages in our childhoods, they are the oral stage; the anal stage; the phallic stage, and the latency stage. ...read more.

Middle

They keep changing to get as much reward as they can to satisfy their needs. Most people think that they are free to choose what to do, they can change what they don't like, do what they want. But at the same time, parents are always trying to do their best in front of their children, to "show the good example". Otherwise the child will copy the bad behavior. A famous proverb says "like father, like son". In addition to that, when a child misbehaves, his parents are usually the people blamed on. If he is too naughty, it is because his parents didn't raise him up in the correct way. Seeing it this way, it seems unfair for the parents if we had free will to do things. So it must be true that we are affected by our environment at a certain degree. In contrast to that, there are the people who believe that we have free will to do things. ...read more.

Conclusion

One day, his father got so angry that he beat Mao Ze Dong, but Mao Ze Dong never gave up. In the end, his father let him go on his own path. The experience Mao Ze Dong had is not special at all, it was really common in China at that time to have this kind of life, and Chinese people would usually listen to their parents. Why did Mao Ze Dong revolt to his parents, and later to the country China? What could have stimulated in such a normal life? The only reason for that to happen would be that he has great ambitions flowing in his blood. Since he was born, he was destined to be different. It is impossible that we behave totally out of determinism, and it would also be wrong to say that we are not at all affected by our environment. I think both are important to us in the reason why we do things. As it varies on different people, I don't think people will ever find out the exact answer. ...read more.

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