Essays on Free Will

Oppressive governments and the psychological manipulation of the people are the strong themes and warning signs that these two powerful works of art, 1984 and V for Vendetta, attempt to delineate. 1984 and V for Vendetta have their similarities and differences yet their worlds are built around these basic tenets. Yet varying with their degree…

In Desiderius Erasmus’s Defense of Free Will. he refutes Martin Luther’s creed that God predestines everyone’s lives and alternatively asserts that adult male entirely possesses the power to take his ain way to either redemption or damnation. The drama Macbeth. by William Shakespeare. raises similar inquiries – did the supporter. Macbeth. volitionally choose to perpetrate…

Oedipus was a king that was torn between free will and the destiny of the gods. Even though fate seemed to control Oedipus’ life, he did still have a free will. The story was based on whether free will or fates were influencing the characters’ lives. Both fate and free will went throughout the play…

The conception of free will and its influence over human control has been at the forefront of philosophical debates and discussions for as long as the theme of philosophical thought has been interpreted. The notion of free will, as defined by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is the “canonical designator for a significant kind of…

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand             Atlas Shrugged, written by Ayn Rand is a novel on the subject of human action on a grand scale.  The author cleverly connects physical actions to essential values.  Even though in this romantic novel, portrait of the mind and analysis are also discussed, the author’s main point lies with…

In this paper, I will argue that the principle of universal causation is inconsistent with free will. Universal Causation is the principle that all events or actions that occur have a prior event or action that caused that specific event or action to take place. Varying philosophical schools of thought including the hard determinism, libertarianism,…

One of the greatest philosophical and scholarly debates since the age of Enlightenment is the argument over whether human free will actually exists, or is it just an optimistic illusion. This deliberation has been the subject and driving force of multiple tragedies, perhaps most famously Sophocles’ Oedipus Rexes and William Shakespearean Hamlet and Macbeth. These…

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…

In our normal perception, every human in this world have their own free will to do anything they want to in different situation. The question is does everyone think that we all have free will and are not being controlled by other? Would there be anything that is controlling our mind and our behaviours? In…

In the movie, The Adjustment Bureau, based on the book by Philip K. Dick, two strangers find themselves drawn together by the will of the universe. Others may refer to that as simple fate. I was surprised and then won over by The Adjustment Bureau, with its deep themes about our existence, free will and…