Arguments Against Free Will Essay

For speculative reason, the concept of freedom was problematic, but not impossible. That is to say, speculative reason could think of freedom without contradiction, but it could not assure any objective reality to it…Freedom, however, among all the ideas of speculative reason is the only one whose possibility we know a priori. We do not understand it, but we know it as the condition of the moral law which we do know ( KpV3-4). With a completely different strategy in the First Critique where freedom was explicated in order to confirm the possibility of morality, Kant reverses this doctrine by noting that the moral law is the grounding of the possibility of transcendental freedom. Kant reverses the doctrine of the First Critique, i.e., freedom is possible only under the conceivability of acting in accordance with moral law when he writes: For had not the moral law already been distinctly thought in our reason, we would never have been justified in assuming anything like freedom…But if there were no freedom, the moral law would never have been encountered in us ( KpV4

Nor can it be that a mere possibility the God exists, for such existence would be dependent and happenstance, and such a being could not be God. Therefore, a necessary being necessarily exits, that God does exist (Pojman

However, there are many qualifications the good will depends on, and not just the inclination to do your duty because it is your duty. The good will may not be the only thing good without limitation, as it must be acted on by something. For example, If Kant’s theory were true, it would mean that it would be very difficult to be a good person because utilitarianism does not allow for acts that go above duty. First, there must be a distinction between what is right and what is good. Doing what is right means more about in conformity with fact, correct in judgement, or truth.

In “Promising to Try”, Jason D’Cruz and Justin Kalef claim that though we take no comfort in the idea of ‘promising to try’, all one is capable of doing is just that and anything more would be deemed irresponsible. D’Cruz and Kalef theorize that, “... promising to try can genuinely restrict a promise in a way that is responsible and morally significant” due to uncontrollable factors that one might face externally and internally. They briefly reference Marusic, who is against the idea of promising to try and mention that an evidentialist would be faced with a dilemma of promising and not promising where there is some evidential uncertainty of not following through with a promise. Responsible promisers are keenly aware of the implications of promising to do something under conditions that might cause one to not follow through with their promise. In circumstances like these, there are reasons why promising to try would be significant.

This is a strong argument because the conclusion is proven by the premise. Example 2 Johan is a teacher. Therefore, Johan doesn’t swim. This is a weak argument because it does not prove the conclusion is true or false and the premise is unrelated to the conclusion. In conclusion, a strong argument is more credible than a weak argument.

From the other hand, a weak inductive argument is the argument that the truth of its premises makes the conclusion less probable. So, Inductive Reasoning’s conclusion can be false even if all the premises of the argument are true. Cogency: A cogent Inductive Argument is the Argument that is strong and all its premises are true. If even one of its premises is false then the argument is believed to be

The fact of the matter is yes, we can imagine such a device but yet, we do not have it. Why would God have it? We humans do a lot of things that are not completely ethical particularly when a lot of people is involved in the situation and yet end up choosing the most moral under the circumstances but not necessarily the most ethical because that is how we have agreed to live our lives. Licon says “The freewill defense cannot explain why God didn’t take such basic preemptive measures” referring to the device and the freewill defense does explain it, just as it explains why such device is nonexistent. His conclusions lack good support: “Freewill defense places too much weight on freedom, and not enough weight on the lives and wellbeing of innocents” (4) Wrong, freedom is and it is absolute.

Unless there is a way to prove that common sense is the ‘correct’ view then this “criticism has no force” (ibid). The problem with this response is that if utilitarianism does not cohere with humans’ common sense, then even if it does provide the ‘correct’ answers, it seems like a theory which is far removed for humans’ natural moral instincts and a challenge to understand, so would then not be the best theory to use when handling moral

In this context, it means that not only will the theory be unable to expect or explain such cognitive errors, it might also be incapable to describe the intentional states of a person executing these mistakes (Stich as cited in Funkhouser, n.d.). Since there is no guarantee that human beings are rational agents at all time, Dennett’s intentional system theory is false as the theory is only valid when the intentional stance has been adopted towards an entity in which we believe that after adopting the following theory, we’re only able to foretell and define its behaviour by giving treatment to it as though it were a rational agent with activities are administered by its views and needs (Kind,

Hobbes presents a false dichotomy with the choice between the absolute sovereign and the state of nature, and because of this I do not accept Hobbes's view on absolute sovereignty. Hobbes shows that there are only two opposite options - that there could either be a state of nature or a state with an absolute sovereign. He thinks that without having absolute power, the state would be unstable as it would revert back to the state of nature. This is untrue as states can fall even if there is an absolute sovereign. If the state no longer fulfills its contract of protecting its citizens, or if citizens successfully overthrows the sovereign, the contract is broken.