Most Persuasive Free Will

Which Will of Free Will do you find most convincing (Hard Deterministic, Compatibilist, Libertarian)?
Hard determinism is the belief that everything happens for a reason.
They believe there is a cause for behavior, but they disagree about what those causes are (Chaffee.,2016). They believe that universal causal laws govern the world and that previous events determine human actions and every event. They conclude that human freedom is a figment of the imagination. Determinism holds that human behavior is influenced by universal nature, and that certain instincts are present in every person at birth, influencing how they act. Chafee went on to say that we don't have control over our lives, whether good or bad. The different theories explaining human behavior include:
Free will.
People are responsible for actions they do from free choice.
Psychological forces.
Psychological forces govern people and make them act, think and act in a certain way.
Human nature.
There are certain instincts that are present at the time of birth of every person.
Environmental influences.
Environment shapes the people making them who they are as conditioned by their experience.
Compatibilist
It is the alternative of determinism. Psychologists in this school of thought agree to the theory of hard determinism, the human behavior and all events have a cause (Chaffee.,2016). The theory considers human actions to be free when the external influences or constraints are not the cause of the actions but the internal motivations. They believe that actions that are influenced by external factors such as threats are unfree. The action that is not influenced by external factors is not free. People are said to be free if they are not compelled to act on their natural desires even when their desires are determined by their historical factors. (Chaffee., 2016).
Compatibility tries to find a common ground for hard determinism and libertarianism. Some of the supporters of compatibilist such W.T. Stace tries to explain personal responsibility and free will within this deterministic framework. Perceiving the will of personal responsibility and free will is crucial in that it perceives the reality of morality. Free will is not an illusion, and if it is, then it can be useless to motivate people to make moral choices or holding them responsible when they fail to follow those moral values. An example that shows that compatibilist is a result of free will as the case of a judge and a defendant (Chaffee., 2016) where the judge asks the defendant whether he signed the confession from his goodwill. One of the defendants responds by saying that he signed from goodwill while the other says that he signed as a result of being coerced by the policemen. From this, we find the aspect of free will and an act that is from coercion.
The other school of thought is the libertarianism and the indeterminist. It holds that from our thinking we can make decisions then initiate actions in an independent manner (Chaffee.,2016). People are fully responsible for their actions. Libertarianism states that people can make independent free choices which are not affected by the past or previous events. Indeterminism does not always believe in the existence of the free will as compared to libertarianism.
Existentialism believes that each human is unique and distinct from abstract universal human qualities. William James considers self-improvement (Swann et al., 2010) and states that we try to improve the qualities of our lives and ourselves depending on how we believe that we have the freedom to make different choices from those which we previously made.
Morality.
We develop moral ideas as a society that helps us to live in a productive and harmonious manner. If people’s behavior is caused by genes as in the case of deterministic, then there is no need to develop an ethical world. In matters of religion, individuals are required to choose free matters of their spiritual destiny. The absence of free will mean that the religion is irrelevant. On the issue of social improvement pointed out by William James citing libertarianism, people will always try to make their world better which is free from discrimination, crime or any other or other destructive forces (Swann et al., 2010). For such to be achieved, then there should be the power to change the past and hence the aspect of freedom.
The more rational theory about human freedom is based on compatibilist ideas because mostly, in things that we do and the way we live tend to follow some degree of freedom of choice. Most of the actions that we do come from our free will unless in situations where excessive force is used. There is no judgment of regret or judgment of approval (Chaffe.,2016).
We can take the example of an armed robber who goes to steal and in the process of stealing he kills an innocent guard. The first issue that we can look closely at is the aspect of free will. He chooses freely to go and steal (Chaffee., 2016). The robber is fully responsible for his action. Someone may argue that the robber was probably in need of some money but the fact that stealing is an illegal way of obtaining something, the person could have chosen another more appropriate means of getting money. Stealing is not the only source of income, but instead, the person chooses to steal from free will.
We also take the case of a person who risks his life to rescue a kid who is stuck on a rail. This is a good action that results from free will. Before the person takes the step of rescuing the kid, he has the idea of what the train can do to him, but he takes the step out of free will to rescue the child. The person freely deals with the fear that the kid is going to lose his life and goes ahead to rescue the kid despite having the alternative of leaving him for the worst to happen.
We also take the scenario of teenage girls who get rid of unwanted pregnancy and decides to dump the infant baby. The girl freely chooses to abort the pregnancy and due to guilt and fear of getting rid of the unwanted child by killing she tries to hide the body. The girl had many other alternatives and hence in such a case like this; the girl should know he held responsible for her action (Chafee., 2016).
Following passage by David Home suggests that human actions follow mostly the desires and motives which are our mental life is. Long as there are no external constraints, then our actions are termed as free. Our actions and choices happen because they have to happen though this does not mean that our will is independent of other influences like desires and motives. Moritz Schlick argued that a man is free when his decision is not compelled by unfree. The consciousness of freedom of any action is the knowledge of acting on someone’s desires. The desires have their origin traced in the character of a person that is traced on a given situation. Dennet tries to explain the issue of compatibilist by saying that free will is real and it is a pre-existing feature of our existence.
The free will incompatibility is when the cause of the action come freely without external forces. The choices that we make freely are not determined by our past or strongly rooted in our genes. Whether bad or good, the choice is first planned within ourselves, when we implement our actions, then we can conclude that the human behavior is free. And we are fully responsible for such actions. The thought of libertarianism has been vital when it comes to fairness seeking a judgment an issue which in hard determinism is not fairly judged.
Compatibility has a positive impact on human behavior since you are responsible for every action that you undertake and hence the issue of moral responsibility. Every person should be genuinely responsible for his action. Human dignity also rests on the ability of people to make free choices. Dignity as human being consists the precise that you may be free and honorably mold yourself to the shape that you prefer, Paul Sartre emphasized this by citing out that you independently make choices that you want and dignity is an element of free will (Sartre., 2012). Sartre argued that if every person acted with dignity, then each person can have a genuine free control over his actions. In many situations, people act with dignity and therefore the aspect of free will is incompatible. (Fieser et al.,2004) Work Cited
Chaffee, J. (2016) – Thinking philosopher’s way
Sartre, Jean-Paul. The Philosophy of Existentialism: Selected Essays. Open Road Media, 2012.
Swann, William B., and Jennifer K. Bosson. "Self and identity." Handbook of social psychology (2010).
Fieser, James, and Norman Lillegard. "Philosophical questions: Readings and interactive guides." (2004).