Part of The Student Room Group

  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

Free Will vs Determinism Questions

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Free Will vs. Determinism Questions 1. Why is it important to believe in free will 1. Free will is extremely important to humanity, since it accounts for many of the justifications of human actions. It is generally thought that people would only be able to participate in certain activities if they had their own personal free will, and that if free will doesn?t exist, then there would be no point in participating in activities or doing something different. When a person believes in free will, they believe that they are taking their lives into their own hands, and that they have the ability to make changes, and that their life can turn out any way they desire it to. If a person were to doubt their ability to have free will and make decisions for themselves and rather believe in determinism, in which all aspects of a person?s life could simply be explained and rationalized as a response to a certain bodily function, then that person would believe that there was no way to control what their life turns out to be. ...read more.

Middle

Through determinism, ethics and morality are pretty much ignored since it seems that an individual?s morality and ethical opinions have no influence on their actions. 1. What is compatibilism and what are the implications for understanding human behavior if you adopt that view of the debate? 1. Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. Compatibilists believe freedom can be present or absent in situation for reasons that have nothing to do with metaphysics. They also define free will as freedom to act according to one's determined motives without hindrance from other individuals. Because free will is typically taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed in terms of a compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism. The Compatibilist might argue that determinism is not just compatible with any good definition of free will, but actually necessary. ...read more.

Conclusion

The implications of these research findings would be that there would be an increased support for determinism, and in turn an increased disregard for personal morality, since individuals would feel that there is no choices they would be able to make to affect their lives: everything happens out of their control. In regards to the control of human behavior, people would begin to lose faith in their ability to control any human actions at all. 1. What would you do to Adolf Hitler as a child? 1. Personally, I would take the route of showing all the evidence of the Holocaust to Hitler?s parents, and have them take it from there. Whether they choose to believe me or not, is their choice, but I would much rather take that route than kill Hitler, simply because as a child, he still has the potential to grow up and live a normal, happy life instead of being doomed to becoming the awful person that he was in reality. ...read more.

The above preview is unformatted text

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge section.

Found what you're looking for?

  • Start learning 29% faster today
  • 150,000+ documents available
  • Just £6.99 a month

or


Not the one? Search for your essay title...
  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

See related essaysSee related essays

Related International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge essays

  1. Knowledge Vs Opinion Vs Propaganda

    The original data from the experiment can be seen as the raw information or even as propaganda, which is being tested to either support or disprove the hypothesis, or opinion. By doing so the scientist is in fact attempting to prove the hypothesis to be wrong rather than right, to establish a theory and then later a law.

  2. Supernatural causes vs. Pathogen model of infectious disease

    Human kind was not aware of the existence of germs and bacteria, and ignored the possibility of infection. It was believed that diseases were ruled by supernatural Causes and could not be avoided. Even in the book "Promessi Sposi", written by Alessandro Manzoni, we find that Manzoni talks about the

  1. TOK summer assignment - Art Questions. Experiencing art, artists reputations and "what is ...

    the art as they can relate to it with more depth by knowing some background information of the piece of art. Historic details, for example in the case of the Indigenous collection made it much more interesting and more connections were made only from knowing when and where the art was produced, along with the social conventions of the art.

  2. Freewill vs Destiny and Science vs Religion essays

    One way was to look to religion while the other was to base your understanding off of facts. Religion is based mainly around the use of faith and belief without proof. Then on the other side of the spectrum there is science which tests and concludes only if there is enough proof to substantiate that claims.

  1. Science cannot be separated from ethical concerns. Discuss. Choosing what type of ...

    This would also lessen the occurrence of over-production of children for women in less developed countries due to the traditional mindset that having a son is better than a daughter. However, I believe that this is an atrocious claim to make.

  2. Free essay

    Are moral values invented or discovered? What importance does this question have for moral ...

    Now the western realist must hold that this is morally corrupt, and so is forced to say that these cultures are just mistaken. That they have failed (or not yet managed) to discover the correct moral nature of female genital mutilation.

  1. Gun Control

    Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." One of the questions that has been asked, is whether people need to have guns in order to fight off an invading enemy...

  2. Free Will and Determinism

    that can change how individuals know what is going on in the natural universe 1. Ethical implications of this debate apply directly to humans and their direct actions. Like in the example with the man and the prostitute, there were two ways of describing the event to make it seem that he was guilty and not guilty.

  • Over 160,000 pieces
    of student written work
  • Annotated by
    experienced teachers
  • Ideas and feedback to
    improve your own work