This clearly is supportive of the title statement as if true, then all outcomes are already decided and therefore our decisions are similarly already decided by some sort of greater power. An implication of hard determinism is the possible rejection of ethics and morality – for if our actions make no difference to any outcome then why would we act ethically? For example, if a person is to make a decision between two
He argued that they lack the power to act so they are weak. According to Hamilton (1788), they possess “merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments” (p.256). Hamilton (1788) pointed out that the court may sometimes be biased but, “the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter” (p. 256). In respect to the interpretation of the law, Hamilton (1788) believed that the constitution is “a fundamental law…” (p.257) and, “if there be an irreconcilable variance between the two, the constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents” (p.257). He is indirectly saying; court’s rulings give back power to the people.
In Plato’s The Republic, there exists a struggle between the characters of Socrates and Thrasymachus to find the correct definition of what justice is. Thrasymachus, being a Sophist, expressed his views on justice in a manner of rash sequences whereby Socrates closely followed behind with his own counter-arguments. These counter-arguments effectively exposed weaknesses in Thrasymachus’s argument for justice, and further crippled it entirely. By outlining and explaining Thrasymachus’s views on justice, I will argue two things; first that the weakness in his argument comes from only himself in abandoning his method. Secondly, that justice may be our deep-rooted understanding and ability to identify good from evil.
Therefore, he would likely think that Plato’s ideology is too optimistic, if not ignorant, and that one must have a realist viewpoint to survive this world. Machiavelli’s “The Prince” directs rulers to be practical and do basically anything to stay in power, even if it requires being evil. He would reject Plato’s opinions regarding rulers, since Plato believed that rulers must “ascend until they arrive at the good” (55) and “the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and in the State in which they are most eager, the worst” (61). Plato's views directly contrast to Machiavelli’s views on the ruler, which is that the best and most effective ruler is one that does everything possible to maintain the power in which he holds. He is only worried about the attainable future and ideals, while Plato is more focused about the enlightenment of man, and the understanding of knowledge.
The degradation of dialect reveals how it is almost entirely impossible to object to the Party’s core beliefs. Through the protagonist character of Winston Smith, the importance of individualism is advocated through critical thinking. Firstly, the text illustrates how language and power can be used as a mechanism of control by discouraging an individual from expressing their true emotion. The controlled language, Newspeak, was created by the totalitarian state as a tool of power, its sole purpose being to restrict the people’s understanding of the real world. The gradually declining dialect limits the ideas that individuals have the potential of formulating and expressing, promoting a narrowing of thoughts and awareness to their system of control.
In total opposition to this belief is determinism, the theory that all behaviour is pre-ordained and we cannot chose our destiny so to speak. This idea can be most clearly seen in psychological approaches such as the biological or the behaviourist. Other approaches such as the cognitive approach present the idea of soft determinism, the suggestion that whilst some behaviour is determined we still have some degree of control and choice over what we do. The most firm believers in free will are humanistic psychologists. The humanistic approach has been praised for its great emphasis on autonomy, the idea that we have control over everything we do.
For Aristotle, Plato was a realist and Protagoras was a relativist. Essentially, he regards both theories as equally defective. J.D.G Evans attempts to analyze why Aristotle deems these theories inadequate and what position is left for Aristotle to take if both of the alternatives are defective. Repeatedly, Aristotle begins his accounts by criticizing the “answers of his predecessors” and, while there appears to be legitimate reasons to discredit them, he fails to provide an adequate alternate. The following passage from Eudemian Ethics (1235b 13-18) allows us to better comprehend Aristotle’s impression of philosophy, which in turn leads to a better understanding of how he reviews and resolves the aforementioned problem: We must adopt a line of argument which will both best explain to us the views held about these matters and will resolve the difficulties and contradictions; and we shall achieve this if we show that the conflicting views are held with good reason.
Kant broke the categorical imperative down into three rules which he called Maixms. The first Maxim Kant called Universalisation. “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” Kant calls this the formulation of the law of nature. This formulation of the categorical imperative suggests that everyone should think about how they act, and ask themselves if they would like it if everyone acted the same way as them in the same situation. If not, then you are involved in a contradiction and what you are thinking of doing is wrong because it is against reason.
In this case, the cause would be social conditioning – Baroch Spinoza said that although we may think that we are free, we are not, we are merely aware of our actions. “In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to will this or that by a cause, which has been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on until infinity.” This emphasizes the fact that we are contingent beings, and that although we feel that we have options in life, the choices that we make are in the end determined my one single factor, which started a chain reaction creating the world we live in today. The surrounding and environment we are brought up into and therefore the upbringing and social conditioning we receive it determined. Our actions are due to how
He has the subtle implication of “Civil Disobedience” while maintaining a failsafe of non-definitive “he should at least wash his hands of it”(paraphrase). He nevertheless correct on all (2) accounts. Henry David Thoreau is correct in that, for the most part one person cannot make a difference in legislation. Also laws are laws for a reason, usually good reasons and they are made difficult to change on purpose. However, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.