Philo

Free Will and Determinism

Explain Universal Causation
This is the idea that every event has a cause. In this way, in principal, we could find out the cause of every event which has ever happened.

Explain Causal Necessity
This is the idea that given a set of conditions at which an event occurs, the outcome of the event will always be the same, as though it is determined it would happen this way. If a different event has the exactly the same conditions, the same outcome would occur.

Outline the distinction between action and ‘natural’ causation.
There are three main distinctions:
1. When a ‘natural’ event happens, we can find the causation, and hence explained the event. However, when explaining a human event, it is more than just finding the action. Many factors come into it, for example, why someone has done something, what was their motivation, how successful they were etc. Unlike natural events, actions don’t just happen.
2. When you do something, what you do is intentional. But there are many cases where it is unintentional, for example if you were to be pushed over, you would fall over. In this case, the person did not intend to fall over, it just happened.
3. We are responsible for our actions, but natural causes are not responsible for their effects.

Explain how human actions fall under physical laws.
Human actions can only fall under physical laws if the laws of nature apply throughout the universe. Our bodies are physical objects, so surely fall under the laws of physics or neurophysiological laws.
And if so, then it could be said our actions are determined. If we decide upon something, it is because the chemicals and neural connections in our brain are in a certain way. The neurons fire, the muscles move and our bodies respond. And given the exact same circumstances, our bodies would have responded in exactly the same way.

Explain how psychological determinism differs from physical determinism.
Psychological determinism claims a person’s psychology, their mental state and their experience, causally determines what they will choose to do.
Physical determinism claims a person will do something because of the physical processes in their body, and the physical events of their environment at a given time.
A mix of the two can be used to give a stronger case for determinism.









Outline libertarianism
1. If determinism is true, we have no free will.
2. We have free will.
3. Therefore, determinism is false.

When we choose to act, we cause certain events to happen. However, nothing causes us to choose to act. Our choice to act can be influenced, but influence is not the same as cause.

Explain the claim: I am free because I have chosen differently, I would have acted differently. How does it differ from the claim: I am free because I could have chosen differently?
To say that if you had chosen differently you would have acted differently is not free will, as someone could choose to act as they do, but be motivated by a third party, compulsion or addiction.
You have to be able to say that you could choose differently.

Philosophy – pages 11 – 16

Explain and illustrate Locke’s argument against innate ideas.

Locke believes an innate idea is a concept or proposition which is part of the mind from birth. For an idea to be part of the mind, or ‘known’, the mind must be conscious of it.
He then assumes minds are alike in that they hold the same innate ideas from birth, so every person would know it. Including children and ‘idiots’. However, there is no truth in which both children and idiots can hold. So maybe innate ideas are ideas known after gaining the use of reason, which children and idiots do not yet have. Locke argues that it is not the reason missing, but the idea itself. An example: a child cannot know that 3+8=11, if he cannot count to 11 and has no idea of equality. It is not a development in reason that the child must go through to understand that 3+8=11, it is more simply, knowing what the ideas are.
So we must first acquire the concepts involved. In the examples case, this means understanding equality and being able to count to 11.
But this does not fit the definition of innate – if it was innate why would you need to acquire anything? Surely you should already know it.
So Locke argues that no proposition is innate without the concepts involved being innate, and this is not possible, as all our concepts derive from sense experience.

Compare and contrast Locke’s idea of innate ideas with the rationalist’s idea of innate ideas.

The difference in the two comes in the definition of innate. The nativist argument explains how innate ideas don’t just have to be concepts, or ‘knowledge’, but could also be things that come natural to us. For example, when we are first born, we can only see approx. 30 centimetres, but within 8 weeks we can see much further. At a certain point in development, a child, as like all children, begins to use an idea that cannot be acquired from experience.

Explain Hume’s theory, giving examples.

Like Locke, Hume believes we are immediately aware of perceptions.
Perceptions are divided into two categories, impressions and ideas.
Impressions are divided into sensation and reflection.
Sensation derive from our senses, such as seeing a car.
Reflection derive from our experiences of the mind, such as feeling an emotion.
Ideas are faint copies of impressions.
There are ideas of:
Sensation; remembering that car.
Reflection; remembering that emotion.
Concepts are a type of idea.
We copy ideas from impressions, and we copy concepts from impressions.

So the difference for Hume is that it is not sensory impressions themselves, but copies that we remember and use in thinking.


Explain the empiricist account of complex impressions.

A complex idea is an idea made up of many ideas. For example, our idea of a particular dog comes from its shape, smell, colour etc. However, all dogs are different; the complex idea of one dog doesn’t correspond to all dogs. So we abstract, and leave the things that all dogs naturally have, such as four legs, tail, hair, barking.

There are some ideas, such as a unicorn, that seemingly cannot derive from sense experience, as no – one has ever seen one. However, empiricists claim that the inventor altered two impressions together – the complex idea of horse and the complex idea of horn.

Explain Hume’s analysis of the concept ‘SELF’.

People challenge empricists by asking for the complex concept of things such as necessity, causation, substance, and self. Because according to the empiricists, if the complex concepts cannot derive from different sensory experiences, surely they must have derived from somewhere else?
Hume agrees that they cannot be derived from sensory experience, but claims that each example has no application.
The four concepts are confused. In their place, Hume suggests using only concepts that derive from sensory experience.
For example, we have no experience of SELF, it is actually confusing similarity with identity.