There are several opposite points of view on the problem of a person's independence in his own life. Someone believes that everything is predetermined from the beginning of life to its end, that any of our decisions are determined by something that can influence our destiny. Such people are called fatalists, and their point of view has the right to life, because each of us becomes a fatalist in part when he utters the beloved phrase "what is not done is for the better" by many. Other people are sure that their fate is in their complete control. After reading this article, you will learn what determinism is and how it manifests itself in deterministic relationships, thanks to which a significant part of our life is built.
Free will and determinism
Philosophers of all times and peoples were concerned about the problem of the relationship between human ideas about free will and how the world works andthe extent to which determinants are able to influence us. The question of the cause-and-effect relationship of our life has always remained exciting. People tend to believe that the events that happen to them at this particular moment of time are deterministic - which means that they are predetermined by the events of the past. The endless chain of events, therefore, takes us to the very beginning - at the moment of the Big Bang. On the other hand, it seems as if we can influence the current course of events, change the space around us with one or another personal decision. There is a third position, which says that these deterministic events can be successfully present without preventing a person from making truly free actions and influencing how his future will turn out.
Manipulation Argument
Philosophers love to build speculative experiments, creating a hypothetical situation in which a person has to do forced actions. A typical example of a manipulation argument is a situation in which a person against his will (at gunpoint) is forced to do something, most often something that has negative consequences for himself. For example, at gunpoint, a bank employee gives the robbers all the money in the safe. Deterministic in this particular case is the decision of the bank employee not to save the money, but to give it to the attackers. His decision predetermines actions, depriving a person of the right to choose. In this case, we do not impose liability on the person who committed the seemingly illegalact. The American School of Philosophy claims on this occasion that a person, regardless of the circumstances, always does not act freely, that is, he only has the illusion of choice, but in fact his decisions are determined, and he acts like a person at gunpoint.
Three Situations: The Professor's Crime
This position is motivated by a thought experiment in which four situations are considered. The first one is as follows:
- The professor commits a crime, but during the act it is not his own brain that guides him, but a team of agents with special equipment for manipulating people.
- At the same time, the professor's mind is busy thinking about why he wants to commit a crime, he motivatedly argues in favor of the impending violation.
- But even these thoughts are led by agents.
- Determined by these agents, the professor's transgression seems to be beyond our condemnation.
Situation 2: programmed to commit crimes
The following hypothesis from philosophers says that:
- Professor before his birth was programmed by scientists to commit a crime in a certain year, month, day and time (similar to what happens in the movie "Terminator").
- As in the first case, due to the fact that the professor did not have the slightest chance to influence his fate, we will assume that we carry anypunishment the professor should not.
Situation 3: reality
Finally, philosophers propose to imagine a more realistic situation in which our professor commits a crime in the same way, but this time it is predetermined by natural laws and nature, the character of this human professor himself. Imagine that he grew up in an environment in which committing crimes is a universal norm, not condemned by anyone. In this imaginary situation, it is no longer possible to say with certainty whether the professor is responsible for the act he committed, because it seems that he could make an effort not to commit a punishable offense. The "culprit" of this deterministic offense seems to be life itself! After all, the professor did not choose the society in which he happened to be born.
Results
Most scientists come to the conclusion that the laws of nature are a kind of objective determinants of our world, because everything on the planet Earth obeys the laws of nature. Thus, we do not impose the burden of responsibility for someone's fate on nature, which to a certain extent predetermines our existence. Man, on the other hand, stands out sharply against the background of the "inanimate" world, a man is a complexly organized creature who is responsible for his actions if they are not predetermined by external determinants, which means that he has a certain degree of freedom in his activities.
