The True Freedom Of Free Will - 1180 Words

An assumption about freedom is that logically it is something we can possess. Once we take away whatever it is that is holding us back, at our core there is freedom granted to everyone. Exploring the idea of what true freedom is and whether or not we have it we begin to see philosophical theories arise that gives us alternatives to these preconceptions. Freedom, specifically free will, is usually the one thing we believe we have. Even though there are obvious factors affecting us, our free will, or freedom, is what we think we truly possess. Free will is defined, for these purposes, as the ability to act on your second order desires. If we are able to act â€Å"otherwise† we have free will. It is when this ability is taken away that we loose†¦show more content†¦By definition the man does not actually have freedom because he does not have the ability to do otherwise. He cannot leave the room even though he does not want to. This is what Locke believes we are experiencing when we believe we have free will. We do not actually have the ability to do otherwise and determinism offers us another alternative for why things happen. Some people think this conflicts with the basic ideology of free will because if determinism is true then everything has a cause and what happens is not a product of our own choices, i.e. our free will. Because causal relationships mean everything when discussing freedom, we will look at the main facets of determinism and how those intersect with free will. Determinism has its own spectrum. Hard Determinism agrees with determinism but says that there is no free will. It does not allow for free will to exist because everything has a cause determined by these ambiguous external factors. This is what theologians call Incompatibilism. Determinism is therefore not compatible with free will. If incompatibilism is true and there is not such thing as free will then moral responsibility is left to the cosmos. The main criticism, or question, directed at incompatibilism is where does moral responsibility fit in? Moral responsibility is defined as what a thing has when it can be properly praised or blamed for something. If