It is also of the essence to understand libertarianism which is a set of related political philosophies upholding liberty as the utmost political end. Libertarianism emphasizes on the primacy of individual liberty, voluntary association, and political freedom. It is the opposite of authoritarianism. Usually, libertarians advocate for a society with a greatly reduced state or not have any state at all. Hard determinism is another concept on free will which views that determinism is true, and it is incompatible with free will, thus free will does not exist (Honderich 11).
This argument became known as Pascal’s Wager. If we examine Paley’s argument in Natural Theology, we see that it is not a good argument for the existence of G-d. It makes a jump from a designer of the universe to the assumption that this designer is somehow the Omni-G-d without any proof. Nevertheless, from Paley’s invalid argument we can create an argument that shows the existence of a designer of the universe. Through the idea of irreducible complexity, we see that there must be designer to the universe.
He would continue to disagree with this statement because he claimed that because everything in the universe is contingent, it must mean that the universe as a whole must have a cause behind it. Philosopher Gottfried Leibniz would have disagreed with this statement as his key idea was the principle of sufficient reason. His argument was that even if the universe had always been in existence it would still require an explanation, or a sufficient reason. He believed that we need to establish why there is something rather than nothing and to do this, we need to question why the universe exists and look outside the universe as there is nothing within the universe that tells us why it exists. The heart of Leibniz’s argument was that there must be a cause for the whole which explains the whole.
It is important to note that although all moral absolutists agree that there are fundamental ethical laws they disagree on the origin or authority of these laws. They may be religious or like Kantian ethics based on God and the existence of natural law. In general there tends to be a consensus that Absolutism comes in three distinct types. Platonic Idealism is the first significant example of absolutist theory. This theory is referred to as the theory of forms, the forms are eternal constants which give meaning to the world.
Most ancient philosophers’ theories fall somewhere in between these two ideas. Determinism also creates the dilemma of moral responsibility; if one cannot control one’s own actions, how can one be held responsible for them? Forces outside of an individual’s control determine many events and actions, but there are always decisions that one can make for oneself. “Determinism is the idea that everything that happens, including all human actions, is completely determined by prior events” (Determinism). Not only are the events around humans out of their control, their very thoughts and feelings are determined separately from any free will that they might possess.
This tells us that regardless of differing religions, all experiences originate from the ultimate reality and act as proof for the existence of God. Lastly, there is pragmatism. James was a pragmatist and therefore believed that truth is not fixed. It alters as our values change. From looking at the
Natural Law Theory is a complete theory within itself, in that it contains everything you need to deal with character, motive and actions, and gives a day to day system for living a complete moral life, of which there is the benefit of fulfilling the purpose of which humans are designed to be on the Earth, according to the belief of Aquinas. Another strength of Natural Law Theory is that it is also very flexible, in that the primary precepts are unchanging, but the secondary precepts which create the apparent absolute rules of Natural Law, can change dependant on any culture, circumstance or perspective, so that it can be literally applied anywhere. Also, Natural Law Theory has no definition of slight or partial acts that may be considered wrong; there are only absolutes, such as it is wrong to murder. Thus it can call certain acts intrinsically wrong, like fraud, sexual exploitation, thievery, torture, etc. A final strength of this proposition is that the humans are capable of using reason to work out how to live, and are therefore not in strictures by our passions or our genes.
In the philosophical view of determinism with respect to free will, it focuses more on the circumstances surrounding the agent instead of just the individual agent. A strength to determinism is that there is a cause for everything, therefore nothing is left to chance and that there is always a reason to be traced back to. On the other hand, the same theory states that agents are not responsible for their own actions because previous events dictated their behavior, and that is considered by many to be a weakness of determinism. Critics of determinism claim that having a universal view of determinism will lead to moral irresponsibility and moral decay (Nichols and Knobe 664). Compatibilism, also referred to as soft determinism, is “the view that all events, including human actions, are caused.
Today it has become more of a psychological problem that is affected by causes in natural phenomena [2]. There are many stances one can take regarding free will but the two extremes are Determinism (where the belief is that there is no such thing as free will, everything is determined) and Libertarianism (where the will is free and choices are not determined). The small part of the long going argument I’ll be focusing on in this essay is on Libet-style experiments. Many determinists have used these experiments as evidence against free will. I will be putting my arguments whether that is the case.
‘The moral argument for God is not convincing.' Discuss. (10 marks) Kant’s moral argument attempted to answer questions surrounding the idea of “right and wrong” and whether we got these ideas from a God and subsequently whether our morality depends on God. Thus his argument obtains a stronger focus on morality and duty as he felt it was not in human knowledge to prove God’s existence which is arguably why part that proves God is not necessarily as convincing and Kant merely states that we should postulate the idea of God as to explain morality it is necessary to believe that God exists. Kant believed that everybody had an innate moral awareness, “two things fill my mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe... the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me”.