Summary
Free will is one of the main objects of discussion in philosophy. In its philosophical understanding, the free will is the ability of an individual as the primary author to cause volitional acts. Therefore, the owner of the free will is a person capable of making decisions based on the choice of many options for behavior models, regardless of external circumstances. In philosophy, for a long time, there has been a dispute about the existence of free will, its limits and nature. From there, the concept of determinism has arisen. According to Costello et al. (2019), “the most commonly used conceptualization of free will and determinism beliefs is a quadripartite model of Free Will, Fatalistic Determinism, Scientific Determinism, and Unpredictability” (p. 7). Determinism, in its essence, contains a doctrine of general conditionality of phenomena and events. Within the idea of free will, determinism proclaims its illusory nature, and the absence of personality as an author of conscious events.
However, it is important to note that determinism is rather viewed as partly a chain of causes hidden from the subject that generates his will as a consequence. Hoffmann and Michon (2017) claim that “If certain concrete psychological circumstances beyond the individual’s control were causing the choice, then the choice would once again be neither free nor imputable” (p. 21). If humanity really lives according to universal, global laws, then it can be concluded that every moment of the present, in which the world resides, completely follows from the previous one. Thus, one can discover the symmetry of the past and the future: the former is just as natural as the latter. With all the information about the world, it would be possible to accurately calculate what events will occur at a particular moment in time. This position is adhered to by rigid determinists; Sigmund Freud and Berries Frederick Skinner attributed to that.
The problem of determinism is that applying such a system to an individual would bring it to the point of absurdity. A complete determinism of a person is impossible: an externally motivated consciousness would become a pure appearance, and thus, consciousness would cease to be.
Behavior Prediction Possibility
The first point of view makes a bold statement, claiming that an individual’s life if determined strictly by the choices that this individual is not able to make. This opinion is based on the argument that other people can predict the behavior of the ones they know well, and operate on that behavior accordingly. This places the one who is being predicted one step behind the one who predicts, placing the first into an inferior position. As far as I can see, there is always the predicted one and the predicting one or ones who are able to mutually project the actions of each other every moment of the time. A person predicts and is predicted, so the process locks itself into an endless loop. I would like to argue with the initial statement – it erases an individuality of a person, making them nothing more but a set of already clarified actions. Moreover, it does not take into account the suddenness and abruptness of an, for example, schizophrenic – if one’s actions can be predicted every time, the mental illnesses simply would not exist.
On the other hand, the second statement seems much more reasonable to me. The author does not proclaims that anything has predetermined his life choices – rather, he asks a question to what amount had his own will influenced his life. I think there is quite a deep meaning to this, the implementation that life is neither a sequence of determined actions nor does it obey completely one’s will and intent. Each individual has the freedom of will but is also influenced by external forces. It is a balance; a never-ending loop of actions and consequences which determine one’s life through choices and the effects of these choices. In my opinion, this is a far more realistic approach – to know that there are external factors and internal decisions, working in unison.
References
Costello, T. H., Bowes, S. M., & Lilienfeld, Scott. (2019). “Escape from Freedom”: Authoritarianism-related traits, political ideology, personality, and belief in free will/determinism.Journal of Research in Personality, 1–57. Web.
Hoffmann, T., & Michon, C. (2017). Aquinas on Free Will and Intellectual Determinism. Philosophers’ Imprint, 17(10), 1–36.