Incompatibilism Essay Example For Students

Incompatibilism Essay Is man free? If everything is determined by antecedent conditions, how can we consider mans actions to be free? Is the belief that everything is determined incompatible with the concept of freedom? If all actions are determined, how can one be held morally responsible? The three possible positions, which may be taken in regard to these question, libertarianism, compatibilism (soft determinism), incompatibilism (hard determinism) lead to very different notions of moral responsibility. It is my belief that the incompatibilist argument as described by Van Inwagen defeats the compatibilists notion of freedom. Incompatibilism is the most convincing of the three theories proposed regarding the relationship between free will and determinism. Determinism is the idea that at any instant exactly one possible future exists. Determinism is a thesis about propositions, and by definition a proposition has a certain truth-value which we can express. The belief that I am walking has at its core the proposition that I am walking. In opposition to determinism, the indeterminist stases that not all events are the result of prior conditions, there is perhaps one tenth of one percent of our actions that can be truly spontaneous. This incompatibilist philosophers hold is enough to justify indeterminism. Libertarianism, in contrast, is the denial of the belief that all human actions are caused by an individuals character. It holds that a free act is not an uncaused act as determinism believes it to be, but rather an act caused by the self as distinct from the character of an individual. (Campbell) Free will is perhaps best defined as the possibility of being capable of doing more than one action. We say someone has free will if, when pr esented with two distinct paths, of which they can only choose one, they are equally capable of acting in either way. For example, a man is offered a drink and can drink the beverage, or alternatively can not drink the beverage, if we hold this to be true and the man is in situations similar to this on a regular basis we say he has free will. In contrast to determinism free will is a thesis about agents. I shall argue therefor that free will is incompatible with determinism. Incompatibilist philosophers hold that because the world is determined we are incapable of having free will. Van Inwagens argument for determinism is still the most convincing of arguments in the debate of free will. ? P, all facts about universe before people were present. ? Neither I nor anyone else had any choice about control over P. ? If P then necessarily Q so only one possible future is conceivable. ? Necessarily Q must have come about and no one had any control over Q. So incompatibilism holds that our voluntary actions are based on our character, thus we do not really have free will as our character is controlled by our past. Incompatibilist philosophers easily defeat the idea of indeterminism. If John could be described as a calm, thoughtful, and a peaceful man but one night goes out has a few beers and gets in a fight, we might initially say that the tendency to fight is not a trait of his. All determinists agree that we need to have deeper analysis of Johns personality. There is perhaps something in his persona that leads him to this seemingly uncharacteristic action. Put simply determinist thinkers including incompatibilists maintain that just because we have not discovered the cause of a particular event does not mean it has no cause. In fact if we look back through history our knowledge of determined events increases as scientific knowledge increases. Therefor we have disproved the idea of indeterminism, as we cannot say an event has no cause, only that we have not found the cause of that particular event. It is always conceivable that under further inquiry we will reveal that an event was actually caused. Invetment Essay? If an action is not determined by the state of the world then it has no explanation in terms of causal relationships. ? But some free actions do have explanations in terms of their history. ? Therefor incompatibilism is wrong. This argument assumes that if an action is not a purely chance or random event, if it is influenced by or has an explanation in terms of the agents reasons or motives for doing it, then it is determined. A.J. Ayer (1946) put this argument in the following form:Either it is an accident that I chose to act as I do or it is not. If it is an accident, then it is merely a matter of chance that I did not choose to do otherwise; and if it is merely a matter of chance that I did not choose otherwise, it is surely irrational to hold me morally responsible for choosing as I did. But if it is not an accident, then presumably there is some causal explanation of my choice: and in that case we are led back to determinism. If we look back on the bulleted argument above premises 1 and 3 are beyond doubt as the first is merely a definition of incompatibilism, while the third must be true when we examine our experiences. We regularly give explanations of our own actions, I am doing this paper because it counts for a grade and I hope for an A. It is the second premise in this argument that is faulty. Ayer incorrectly assumes that either an action is determined or it is a purely chance event. Van Inwagen in his response to compatibilist theory say that their definition of freedom is imply a poor analysis and should be rejected. Incompatibilism is the strongest position to hold on the deterministic and free will dilemma. It is the only complete argument that has a strong analytically formatted argument. Compatibilism has support in numbers but philosophers have never given a strong support for its belief. Free will can simply not be acceptable if we also say that the world is determined. Bibliography: