Monday, 20 July 2015

Free Will Vs Determinism

Determinism: The view that an individual's behaviour is shaped or controlled by internal or external forces rather than an individual's free will to do something.

Free Will: Individuals have an active role in controlling their behaviour.

The determinism approach implies that people are not personally responsible for their behaviour, placing the blame on innate factors such as neurochemicals. This poses the moral question whether a person can be help personally responsible for something they've done. 

Soft determinism: If our actions are voluntary and in line with our conscious desired goals then they are free.

Examples in Psychology

Cognitive - Relating to soft determinism, considering problem solving and attentional mechanisms of thought and behaviour. These mechanisms operate with the parameters of their innate capabilities and our past experience suggests that we are not free to choose what we see.

Behavioural - An extreme environmental determinism approach, arguing that learning from the environment causes behaviour. Skinner argued that free will is completely an illusion created by our complexity of learning.

Psychoanalysis -  The view of unconscious determinism - that our behaviour is controlled by forces of which we are unaware - the reasons for our actions are merely rationalised by our conscious minds.

Biological - Look at the deterministic influence of genetics, brain structure and biochemistry.

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