Blog Post 3

Neli Pani

Professor Rex

PHI 100

2 November 2014

Hard Determinism

Libertarianism defines that a human has certain free will, which is an uncaused reason. There is no reason behind those actions we have done. Hard determinism is where free will doesn’t exist. People will force you to makes decisions you wouldn’t necessary think of.

         Hard determinism seems to be more plausible. An example is as a kid we have been told that we need to go to school and graduate high school. Then go to college to get a degree and get a job in the field you majored. We weren’t given free will because our parents always told us to go to school and to not drop out. We are just going with the flow and we don’t know if going to college is our choice. Hard determinism is more plausible than libertarianism. The reason is in this world we have people who force us to do actions we want to do and not. There certain moments where we have free will but when we are pressured we tend to do the opposite of we want to do. Libertarianism defines itself saying everyone has free will. In reality, it’s not true. We do actions for no reason. When we do things and we always think about that circumstances that will happen. The effects that happen to people will definitely have affect us in some certain way.

         For explanatory breadth, libertarianism explains more types of human behavior. When we want to do something we do it without thinking, which shows what type of person we are. Hard determinism fails to address the fact that people do whatever they want, without thinking about it.

         For explanatory depth, libertarianism describes what people do what they want. As for hard determinism they are constrained to do certain things. Libertarianism explanations are more detailed because we have free will and choose to do what we want even without bearing consequence.  

         For simplicity, libertarianism have fewer parts because when people get into trouble they aren’t held responsible. There could be hidden errors because they do want they want. Hard determinism is more complex because we don’t have free will even though we think we do.

         For conservatism, hard determinism is more current with our common sense than other theories because we think we have free will but we actually don’t, for an example we think we want to go to college and we think its our actual decision but we have been all our life hearing our parents talk about us going to college that it is actually what they want for us, causing a constrained choice on our part. It is more consistent because we deal with hard determinism everyday of our lives, we will always hear the others pushing for our decision we have to make.

1.  Hard determinism and libertarians are the most plausible explanations of free will.

2. Hard determinism has more conservatism, whereas libertarianism has little more explanatory breadth, explanatory depth, and simplicity.

3. Therefore, hard determinism is the best explanation of free will.