Essays on Determinism

Question 3: If Blatchford’s deterministic view is correct, does it follows that it is pointless to punish (or praise) people for what they do? Can you think of any justification for punishment that is compatible with hard determinism? Blatchford’s deterministic view presents another method or perspective of reviewing the responsibility of human behaviors. It focused…

Paper #1 From the arguments discussed in class, I choose to evaluate Thomas Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument. Aquinas offers a believable case for the existence of God through five arguments. The arguments are “a posteriori arguments” with five strategies (Aquinas 52). The first argues that there is an unmoved mover that originated all motion but the…

The Prussian philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883) was regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of the 19th century (History Guide, n. pag.). In the mid-19th century, Marx, along with German philosopher Freidrich Engels (1820-1895), founded Marxism, a body of thought which espoused “(the important role of) class struggle…in understanding society’s development from capitalism to…

The way in which life is viewed can change the way in which one reacts to scenarios and interacts with other beings. Although I do not think simply learning philosophy can change the way I live, I know that learning and exploring deeper into specific philosophies can completely alter my outlook on life. Life is…

William James wrote, “Determinism leads us to call our judgments of regret wrong, because they are pessimistic in implying that what is impossible yet ought to be. ” (1) I intend to make an argument against James, on the basis that determinism does not consent human beings to completely neglect moral responsibility. I shall first…

The debate between Determinism and Free will has long been discussed, but while debating both of these subjects there must be an understanding as to what both mean, unfortunately the meaning of both are not as straight forward as first thought. The idea that we always could do otherwise than we do is often thought…

In a situation with more than one realistically possible choice of about equal likelihood, for example: “about face, via turning left” and “about face, via turning right” given that I chose one way, I could have chosen the other. Or, in the thought experiment of being able to repeat this act ten times, all else…

Free will is something that has been debated through generations of philosophers. We have opinions of philosophers that range from believing that free will is free in nature and cannot be constrained, to free will being something that is pre-determined. With the presence of free will, we are in control of our lives and we…