Determinism

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that philosophers debate, based on Newtonian Determinism, from two views with opposite implications for human life and moral judgment, whether humans genuinely have free will. The author points out that, according to the Hard Determinism point of view, since every individual event is a necessary result of prior causes, the eventual outcome of every single event, which occurs in the universe, is predetermined. The paper relates that Soft Determinism accepts the overall premise that all events in the universe are indeed completely necessary and unchangeable results of events and conditions that precede them, but the distinction between Hard and Soft Determinism is that the latter postulates that free will and the genuine ability to make decisions and to shape our own lives in an ongoing manner are nevertheless possible.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Hard Determinism
Implications of Hard Determinism
Soft Determinism
Implications of Soft Determinism
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"The argument is that only inanimate objects and events (such as the tides, earthquakes, and the solar orbits of the planets) are completely determined by preceding natural conditions and events in the manner that the course of Osmo's life was charted before he lived it. On the other hand, under soft determinism, internal living processes (especially human thoughts) are still subject to free will and mental choices by which sentient beings may determine what happens in their lives, despite the fact that the rest of the (inanimate) universe strictly obeys the principles of hard determinism.

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