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5/28/2014 6:13:41 PM
9
Nobody has entirely free will?
Nobody's decisions are solely their own. I do not mean from a philosophical or theological way, but naturalistic.
Culture, subcultures, and other societal structures are a large impact on what people think about many things. Inequality is also a huge factor in predicting one's actions. As the Strain Theory puts it "when the myth of equality is met with the reality of inequality, deviance may occur." Many things contribute to deviance, as well as other actions, many of them social.
Biological forces also greatly influence one's actions. I am not suggesting having a larger forehead means someone will definitely be a criminal. If you want to see the effects of biology on one's reasoning, simply speak with a drug, or someone under the influence of various drugs.
You may say "but they still choose" but if one's choices are influenced so greatly, is it is not truly "free" will, but limited will. If a number of armed men stormed into your room right now, and handed you an apple and told you "if you do not eat the apple, we will kill you" is your choice to eat the apple a free choice?
Or as Johnathan Edwards put it "You can do as you please, but you cannot please as you please." If one's biology influences what they desire so greatly that it is the only thing on their mind, was it actually free will?
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In my opinion, free will is an illusion based on how you define it. From a social/political standpoint, free will is more or less being allowed to make decisions. Whether or not you have free will in this case is based on your government, your legal guardians, your captors, etc. Are you allowed to use profanity or discuss the taboo? Yes? Then you have free will. From a more philosophical point of view, free will is the actual ability to make decisions, and whether or not we have that is a question of whether or not a decision is influenced primarily by the conscious or the subconscious. Going on a hunger strike, for example, displays free will in a way such that your conscious is overpowering your subconscious. In this way, all humans have free will. Another point of view that some might argue is slightly more scientific; you don't actually have this philosophical free will as all your decisions are made by the subconscious and your conscious is simply the subconscious's tool for communication. In this way, free will is an illusion as all of your decisions are just decided by the chemicals in your brain and then projected outwards through the conscious. It's still technically "you" making decisions, but as you are a physical being made out of cells made out of molecules made out of atoms and not an entity conjured and constructed out of pure thought, your decisions are in a way predetermined based on the structure of your brain.
