Planet Index Blog

Is Free Will a Philosophy Invention?

July 31st, 2007

The twentieth century society has taught us that almost everything we think or feel is connected to philosophy or was at least generated by it. And, honestly, if you come to think about it, it really is so, because we live and act according to moral values and inner conceptions that have been previously been formulated and dealt upon by great philosophy thinkers. So, is philosophy really living our lives instead of us? Is our free will an innate gift, or rather a piece of philosophy that we share?

Philosophy has disputed the question of free will over and over again, without really reaching any conclusion. Those of us who consider themselves “on their own” are definitely advocates of free will and will therefore support the idea according to which people can make decisions by themselves rather than be obliged or influenced. Have you ever heard somebody saying “well, he did it out of his own free-will"? This means that people understand by free will having desires and dreams and acting upon them, without paying too much attention to the philosophy behind all this.

Philosophy is an ardent advocate of the cause-effect theory. However, just because the world works in such a way that your reasons are causally determined, that doesn't make them any less your reasons. It is just like the fact that you being the product of influences doesn’t make you any less yourself. The fact that everything might be pre-determined because that's the way the universe works, is not exactly tantamount to everything being pre-determined because some conscious entity chose it that way for his/her own purposes.

Philosophy and philosophical ideas always get people to think problems over and over again, until they really become questionable. The free will theory is very likely to remain a dilemma many years from now, as it is really a gang idea fight.

Posted in Education