Causal Determinsim Essay -- Philosophy

Causal determinism is the concept that preceding causes give rise to everything which exists such that reality could be nothing but what it is. Science depends on this idea as it aims to find generalisations about the conjunction of certain causes and effects and thus hold some power of prediction about their future co-occurrence. However, in human interaction people assume each other to be responsible for their acts and not merely at the whim of causal laws. So the question which troubles philosophers is whether causation dictates entirely the course of human action or whether we as agents possess some free will. I will argue that free will is an inescapable illusion of the mind, something which never did nor ever could exist under causal determinism. Compatiblists propose that free will and determinism coexist while to incompatibilists that would be impossible. If we are to decide for ourselves then firstly we must establish the meanings of causal determinism and freedom of the will. Proponents of causal determinism contend that 1. Every event has a cause 2. Human actions constitute a sort of event 3. Thus every human action has a cause 4. Every action ever executed is nothing more than an inevitable consequence of the preceding conditions in the universe So if causal determinism is true humans lack any capacity to choose or to will as nothing could ever be other than it is. (McFee. 2000, p. 21) Free will is a far more elusive notion. However authors seem to agree on a few aspects of it. In his paper Has the Self â€Å"Free Will†? Campbell suggests that an effective free will is confined to the domain of moral decisions. He asserts that to exercise free will an agent must be sole author of an act, not simply yieldin... ...scapable illusion of the mind. Similarly to how Strawson argues the truth of determinism would not make agents any less morally accountable, I believe the falseness of free will does not detract from its usefulness in clarifying our mental narratives and explaining the origins of our actions. Works Cited Fischer, J.M. (Ed.). (2005). Free Will: Critical Concepts of Philosophy. Abingdon: Routledge. McFee, G. (2000). Free Will. Teddington: Acumen Publishing. Perry, J., Bratman, M. & Fischer, J.M. (2010). Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings. (5th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Perry, J., Bratman, M. & Fischer, J.M. 1998). Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings. (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Campbell, C.A. (1957) On Selfhood and Godhood, London: George, Allen & Unwin.