Free Will vs Determinism

• Free will

  Free will means humans are able to freely choose their behaviours.
• Determinism

  says that human behaviours are caused by physical processes and that these psychical processes cannot be overruled
• Hard determinism

  human behaviour is entirely caused by physical processes that are beyond our control. So, free choices are impossible.
• Soft determinism

  human behaviour is largely determined by physical processes but humans can overrule these processes and exert their free will in some circumstances
• Biological determinism

  The biological approach- behaviour is determined entirely by biological processes beyond our control, such as genetics, hormones, brain structure, and physiological processes e.g. brain scans show that people with OCD often have increased activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain
• Environmental determinism

  The behaviourist approach- Behaviour is determined by conditioning from our environment e.g. being rewarded for working hard as a child, positively reinforces hard-working behaviours and makes you a hard worker.
• Psychic determinism

  The psychodynamic approach: Behaviour is governed by desires and conflicts below the level of conscious control
• AO3-consistent with our moral and legal intuitions

  if determinism is correct, then we couldn't hold people morally responsible for their actions. This would make it unfair to e.g. send murderers to prison
• AO3-subjective validity

  When we make decisions, it feels like we have free will
• AO3-Conflicting evidence

  Some experiments suggest humans do not have free will e.g. Soon et al (2008) used brain scans to measure brain activity as participants decided to press a button with either their left or right hand. The brain scans showed activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 seconds before the participants were consciously aware of their decision