Free Will and Determinism Compromised

Paper Summary:

The controversy between Free Will and Determinism has been debated throughout the history of philosophy, with great emphasis on human personality and choices, meaning that either all actions are freely chosen by this thing called Self, or it always has a prior cause that is beyond the control of the individual. The paper deals with concepts such as "Free Will", "Determinism", "Fatalism", "Compatibilism," and "Indeterminism". The paper clarifies what all these concepts stand for and illustrates how they influenced many diverse schools of thought throughout history by analyzing human behavior in light of these understandings. The paper proposes a compatibilist approach to human behavior, starting with free will, proceeding later with determinism, and finally concluding with compatibilism.

From the Paper:

"Determinism is a philosophical "doctrine which holds that every event, mental as well as physical, has a cause, and that, the cause being given, the event invariably follows". Therefore, any action, any choice, any decision made by the individual is bound up to prior causes that make him act in a certain way-hence there were no other possible alternative choices that the Self could have chosen, since it was determined beforehand by causes, either visible or concealed. Determinism therefore raises the problem of "moral responsibility" and eventual feelings of "remorse" and "regret" one may feel after a certain action, if they truly believed that they could have done otherwise."

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