Topic > The Great Unknown - 1510

We are presented with a scenario where a friend offers me an A grade essay to turn in as my own, but due to my moral compass, I decline his offer even though I was quite tempted to accept. The question remains whether or not I freely rejected his offer, and if we are to assume that determinism is true, we must ask whether or not my decision was the result of free will. What appears to be a simple case of decision making, we will discover, is loaded with arguments both for and against the existence of free will. To answer whether or not my decision to reject my friend's offer was the result of free will, we will hypothesize the opinions of three men who would hold starkly different views on the subject. After analyzing the opinions of Baron D'Holbach, Benjamin Libet and Harry Frankfurt, we will come to the conclusion that Frankfurt's opinion - that is, that my decision was made freely - is more acceptable in this situation for several reasons, mainly because of importance of the Relative Choice (RC) ratio in the scenario. For the rest of the topic, I will refer to myself as "A" and my friend as "B" to avoid confusing pronouns. D'Holbach's Hard Determinism Simply put, D'Holbach rejects that free will exists in any capacity. His belief in hard determinism, according to which everything, including human action, is determined by previous circumstances and the laws of nature, leads to an incompatibilist view, in which free will and determinism cannot coexist. To demonstrate that determinism disproves free will, D'Holbach refers to the philosopher and martyr Socrates, who decided to remain in prison when, in theory, he had other alternatives. Although opponents would argue that Socrates remained in prison of his own free will, D'Holbach insists that Socrates' actions... at the center of the card... Sopher Laplace's example of determinism as personified by a demon, who knows everything and can predict every future event; this assumes that the Demon knows everything a god would know. Even so, this is unrealistic and not suitable for practical application in our human society. We are not gods and we are not demons. Furthermore, some might argue that the original Frankfurt drug addict example disproves the validity of CR because both U and W are physically capable of not otherwise injecting/snorting/consuming drugs. However, although there are indeed cases of drug addicts who quit smoking "cold", it is still a question of physical (and perhaps psychological) ability. Realistically speaking, not all drug addicts are physically capable of not using drugs. Ultimately, RC and SD allow for free will and resolve the A and B scenario, where A rejects B's offer because A is free to do so.