FreeWill and Determinism - Essay Example

nment and chains, social constraints such as threat of punishment and censure, as well as mental constraints for example genetic predispositions, compulsions, and neurogical disorders. These constraints make individuals not to have free will. One might tend to think that since he or she can examine his or choices, conscious of making decisions and can perform corresponding actions then there is free will (Chorney et al 28). This is not true. It is possible that one could have the opportunity of choosing freely even though in fact one can never do.

Notable issue as far as free will is concerned is that we can’t prove that we have free will by just indicating out that it seems as if we do. It is clearly possible to have the experience of free will even if in reality we do not have free will itself. Compatibilists which means those who define free will without reference to determinism argues that determinism is compatible with free will. Additionally, they consider the argument between hard determinists and libertarians over free will versus determinism as untrue dilemma.

Another notable aspect of the compatibilists is that not being caused is not enough condition for freedom but not even a needed condition. They argue that if an action is uncaused, it seems to be random. Their main view is that free actions are not uncaused actions, but it refers to the actions that are caused in a certain way. The compatibilist indicates that first an action is free if and only if its cause is internal instead of being external to the agent. However, it is worth to note that this is not a clear definition since an action can result to internal cause yet it is not free.

For instance, even though sneezing has internal cause, it is not a free action. Secondly, they argue that an action is free only when it is due to agent’s beliefs and desires. Even though this seems to be acceptable, it is still faced with counterexamples since there are cases where an action is caused by