Free Will

Essay 3 – Free Will

Free will is the ability to choose freely and control our actions. Ultimately, free will determines the level of responsibility we claim for our actions. Obviously, if outside forces determine our choices, we cannot be held responsible for our actions. However, if our choices are made with total freedom than certainly we must claim responsibility for our choices and actions. God is justified in creating a world whit existence of free will which philosophers such as Holbach debated over it and provided some objections; meanwhile, free will brought the potential for existence of evil. On the other side, John Bender introduces “The prediction Room” to analyze human‘s free will.

D' Holbach was a French-German author, and philosopher who argued against free will. In his work, the system of Nature, he presented purely naturalistic account of the world we live in, seeking to explain everything in term of mechanical laws of nature the determine everything. His essential claim in argument is that because nature is governed by these necessary laws, and human beings are within this nature, so humans are governed by necessary laws as well; therefore they have no power to determine the course of the universe. D’Holbach describes a deterministic system that entails a cause and effect relationship. There is a “universal nature” that determines how an individual acts- that individual has no influence in the cause or effect of his/her action. Furthermore, the mind creates the idea of will lends itself to perpetuate a thought that one can shift the laws of nature by following a different impulse than the original. In an example of this, In “I Am Determined “D’ Holbach says “There is, in point of fact, no difference between the man that is cast out of the window by another, and the man who throws himself out of it, except that the impulse in the first instance comes immediately from without whilst that which determines the fall in the second case, springs from within his own peculiar machine, having its more remote cause also exterior…” (p. 99) Holbach argues in this statement that there is in actuality no difference between a man thrown out of a window and one who jumps out. Although, there is no external or visible force throwing man in second cause out of window, there is in fact an invisible reason which caused this action. By this example Holbach defines that many might consider him to be a free agent because it seems the second man choice to jump out instead of staying, but he did not in reality have a choice as his passion overcame and put him into an unusual position which then forced him to the act of jumping out in an attempt to defend the idea that he is a free agent. In both instances the man is picked up from his seat by the same thing, irrationality. In one he is picked up by an irrational man wishing to throw him out while he rationally fights to survive, whereas in the second he is picked up by his irrational passion that blinds him of his rational thought and only allows him to see his pride being brought down which he then tries to protect by proving his point. There is then no difference in either situation as the man thrown out had in fact no direct choice, and therefore the idea of man not being a free agent is enforced.

Jean-Paul Sartre, who insists that human beings are free agents; therefore, responsible for everything they do would argue with the Holbach‘s statement. Sartre believed that humans are responsible for our actions and they are not powerless over their actions and decisions, so they would be a difference between the man who jumped of window by his own choice, and the one who was thrown by someone else ‘s decision. On the other hand, Stace defines that if an action is directly caused by a person’ s thoughts, wishes, emotions, and desires then it is free , and acts which are caused by outside forces, it is not free. He would use the example of Gandhi who fasted on his free will and the man who was in a desert and have no food to eat. The same goes with the statement provided by Holbach. The first man who cast out of the window by another man didn’t desire to end his life or go out of the window so it is not free will; however, the man who jumped out of the window by himself had desire and wishes to do this action, so it is a free will. Bender would say that we have free will and ability to do what we want to though there might be situations where we are in forcer-choice situations which these situations happen randomly.

Although these ideas may be true and proven true by Holbach, it is not true that man would not be responsible for the consequences caused by his action. Though he may not be responsible for certain situations in which he may not be involved, he is responsible for his choice on how he chooses to act in the situation whether they directly or indirectly affect the outcome of such situation, be it a wanted or unwanted outcome. Therefore man is not entirely a free agent, but he is always responsible for the actions he chooses.

Many people believe that problem of Evil ignores and refuses the free will. The problem of evil refers to an ongoing philosophical debate about the nature of God and the existence of God. The world we live in contains no small amount of "evil". Bad things happen to people since people sometimes are extremely cruel, also there are varieties of natural disasters that ruin and end people’s lives the fact is that bad things do happen. The argument is that if God is all knowing, all powerful, and all kind then why evil exists and why God does not prevent Evil? The argument