[Music] are we really free this is one of the most classic philosophical questions one that will continually trouble both academic philosophers and stoned college students it has implications over moral responsibility the nature of causality and the notion of what subjectivity really is what does it mean to will something friederick n illustrates the strangeness of this situation in his exploration of free will to will something is to imply command over something that is thought to obey us our will freedom of will he explains further is a function of willing something in oneself that will obey our
Command from this some sort of action is executed once acted out the commander of the will the subject rejoices in the execution of the task and so commander and executioner become one this could be likened to the self as process we are both the initiator and initiated but are we this video will briefly go over some different views of what free will really is firstly there is determinism the argument that all event are completely predetermined this means we have absolutely no say in what we choose to do including when you decided to watch this video
according to determinism the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe determine the course of events in a predictable and deterministic manner in the context of Free Will determinism can make things pretty confusing are we responsible for our actions is a murderer destined to be a murderer and thus not to be held accountable for their actions there's varying levels of determinism hard determinism asserts that determinism is entirely incompatible with the idea of Free Will and argues that if all events are determined by prior causes then human actions cannot be genuinely free this does
mean if we follow the logic of the hard determinist that moral responsibility and personal accountability are losery Concepts in a deterministic universe as individuals have no genuine control over their actions soft determinism while still advocating for the idea that we are still somewhat unfree nonetheless asserts that it is a mix of environmental constraints and biological makeup but only to a certain extent we'll get back to this in a moment libertarianism is the philosophical position that asserts the existence of genuine Free Will and moral responsibility the libertarian fundamentally rejects the idea that our actions are causally
determined by external factors and believes instead that Free Will allows us to make genuine and authentic choices that are unpredictable and actually free from the laws of nature according to Libertarians individuals possess the ability to initiate new causal chains and make decisions that are not entirely determined by previous causal factors this is a pretty nice and freeing idea many existentialists for example advocate for this level of Liberty at the individual level and encourage people to embrace their freedom at every turn however such advocacy can be seen as somewhat deficient logically as it fails to account
for how we are ruled by the natural laws of the universe such as our neurology physics and chemistry and then we have compatibilism which we've briefly already addressed under the term soft determinism which is the philosophical position that seeks to unite the claims of determinism with the possibility of Free Will perhaps this was born out of the fear that if determinism is real then there is no real moral accountability whatever the case compatibilists argue that Free Will is still compatible with determinism hence the name provided that IND individuals are able to act in accordance with
their desires intentions and rational capacities without any external coercion or constraint compatibilism then advocates for a version of free will that sees the individual as reasonably free in the absence of constraints we have more choices available than before according to compatibilism Freedom is not incompatible with causation but rather consists in the absence of external straints that might prevent individuals from acting in accordance with their desires and values many psychologists believe in this view on Free Will seeing the individual as still technically free if they are no longer weighed down by oppressive factors evidence for this
is seen in the relative psychological health of individuals when they view themselves as acting autonomously compatibilists emphasize the importance of distinguishing between external constraint such as coercion or manipulation and those more blurry internal factors such as desires and beliefs that shape human actions however the question of whether we can desire the wrong things and if there is an essential authentic self does throw compatibilism into question the following theories of Free Will can provide us with a useful framework in determining moral agency psychological health and how to predict Behavior perhaps right now our scientific tools simply
are not accurate enough in predicting what people will do and so a future like The Minority Report where we can predict and prosecute criminals before they commit crimes is thankfully still Out Of Reach or maybe human choices are in fact entirely free and thus could never be accurately predicted whatever the case I find the words of Jean Paul SRA especially relevant in discussing freedom freedom is what you do with what has been done to [Music] you this video is sponsored by brilliant hey everyone let's talk about a subject that's often misunderstood but incredibly important statistics
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