Blog Post 3

Ashli Benbow

Prof. Rex

Blog Post 3

Libertarianism

            Libertarianism means that us human beings have the ability to control and change our actions because we have free will. Whereas Hard Determinism is when humans lack free will because their actions are caused by earlier psychological or physical events. I believe that libertarianism is more plausible to me because it makes a lot more sense. I feel that as humans we make our own decisions and we can decide whether we want to fulfill with those choices or not. In life I believe we have free will to make our own choices whether it's based upon life experiences or just because. In libertarianism human beings have moral responsibility because they have spontaneous free will, we have the ability to control our actions and alter the course of our lives.

            In this debate I have to side with libertarianism because it can explain human behavior a lot better than determinism. I believe that most of our actions are determined not by events that happens in our lives but just because we decide them. For example in the reading about Free Will, when Gandhi fasted for a week it was his own free will and not like when Jones went a week without food because he was lost in the Desert. In life we sometimes make decisions based upon actions we have experienced, but it is simply up to us to decide whether we want to react based upon those experiences, so we have free will.

            Libertarianism explains explanatory breadth better on human behaviors because when someone commits a crime most times they're based on free will. When someone is arrested for armed robbery, when you ask the person why they decided to rob a bank, they say because they need the money. But at the same time no one told them to get a gun and rob the bank, they were not forced to do it, they simply did it because they felt like they needed to do it. They acted on their own free will compared to a person who has a bomb strapped to their body and was told to do the robbery or they would die. That person did not act on their free will, they're forced to do it.

            Libertarianism explains explanatory depth a lot better because it gives us two reasons on why and how humans make their actions. For example, when someone commits the crime of  premeditated murder. They can say that they did it out of self defense but in actuality it was premeditated; because they planned it. They constructed and formulated a plan of how they are going to take a person's life and even how they can possibly get away with it. Determinism only explains why that was not based on free will, that the act was on self defense and not premeditated.

            Determinism explains simplicity a lot better because determinism has fewer parts comparing to libertarianism. When having fewer parts it makes determinism less likely to conceal hidden errors.

            Libertarianism and determinism both explains conservatism the best because it depends on how you look at free will. People can believe that our actions are based upon life experiences or something that we learned from another person, whereas other people believe that we do make decisions based upon life experience but it is merely up to us to act out on it. Whether we choose or not.

1. Libertarianism and determinism are the most plausible explanations of human behavior

2. Libertarianism has much more explanatory breadth and explanatory depth, whereas determinism has a little more simplicity.

3. Therefore, libertarianism is the best explanation of human behavior.