Free Will vs Determinism

• The free will side of the debate states that human beings are in control of their own behaviour and can choose their actions
• The determinism side argues that human beings aren’t in control, that other forces dictate human behaviour
• Deterministic explanations state all behaviour is caused by a factor outside of an individual’s control, therefore allows for scientific testing and the development of causal explanations which means behaviour can be predicted using these causal explanations
• Free will doesn’t allow for causes that lead to predictable outcomes. The notion of free will threatens a psychologists ability to form a casual explanation based on scientific evidence which means it’s almost impossible to predict behaviour
• Free will is the notion that humans can choose their own behaviour which means individuals have the ability to reject the influence of external forces on their behaviour
• Free will believes that humans are morally responsible for the actions they have chosen and are free to select their own course of action, behave in unconstrained ways, make their own decisions, and control their own lives
• The deterministic view states that behaviours are caused by some internal or external force that’s outside of an individual’s control which means all behaviour is an inevitable consequence of these other factor, and so can be predicted
• Determinism implies that individual human beings have no free will and can’t be held morally responsible for their actions
• Hard determinism believes that all behaviour has a specific cause and therefore all human behaviour can be predicted
• Hard determinism is incompatible with free will and moral responsibility. If our actions are pre-determined, we can’t be held responsible for them
• Hard determinism is compatible with the aims of science and can result in causal explanations which allows for scientific testing and the prediction of behaviours
• Soft determinism is a compromise between hard determinism and free will which allows for some scientific prediction of behaviour
• Soft determinism allows for moral responsibility, as there’s some freedom to choose behaviour from the options available to us. Therefore, we’re responsible for our actions and the consequences of them
• soft determinism is less compatible with the aims of science, it allows for some testing, but the acknowledgement of free will can have issues for causal explanations
• Biological determinism is the belief that individuals have no control over their biological processes and therefore no control over their behaviour and aren’t responsible for their actions
• Environmental determinism is the belief that behaviour is determined by the environments that we are raised in and exposed to throughout our lives
• Psychic determinism is the belief that behaviour is determined by the unconscious which could be a biological drive or a conflict that was repressed in childhood