The Contradictory Nature of Soft DeterminismJoin now to read essay The Contradictory Nature of Soft DeterminismThe Contradictory Nature of Soft DeterminismI. Introduction“There is a continuum between free and unfree, with many or most acts lying somewhere in between.” (Abel, 322) This statement is a good summation of how Nancy Holmstroms view of free will allows for degrees of freedom depending on the agents control over the situation. Holmstroms main purpose in her Firming Up Soft Determinism essay was to show that people can have control over the source of their actions, meaning that people can have control over their desires and beliefs, and because of this they have free will. She also tried to show that her view of soft determinism was compatible with free will and moral responsibility. While Holmstroms theory about the selfs being in control, willingness to participate, and awareness of an act causes the act to be free, has some merit, her choice to incorporate soft determinism ultimately proved to invalidate her theory.
II. ExpositionIn Nancy Holmstroms Firming Up Soft Determinism essay she set out to prove that people can have control over their desires and beliefs, and therefore are in control of the sources of their actions. She believed it was possible to carry on the view of soft determinism and still hold that we are free to choose and we are at times able to do otherwise. She believed that the standard soft determinist position was inadequate. Her thought was that soft determinists had too limited of a notion of what is required for an agent to be in charge of their actions. The common soft determinist stance was that the
agent do what it pleased; the soft determinists simply ignore the question of whether the agent was in control of the sources that caused the actions. Holmstroms theory was that “just because some causes of desires and beliefs, such as brainwashing, make actions resulting from them unfree, it does not follow that any cause of desires and beliefs has the same implications for the freedom of actions resulting from them.” (Abel, 321)
Holmstrom believed that the notion of having control is the heart of the notion of freedom. In order to have control by Holmstroms theory the agent must be an important part of the causal process, and the agent must also be aware of its control. An example of this is illustrated by a person accidentally squashing an ant while walking. While the person did play an important part in the demise of the ant, the person was not aware of the action; therefore, the person was not in control of the ants life. Holmstrom believed that since one can make more or less of a difference and can be more or less important a part in the causal process that it therefore follows that one can have more or less control over something. The more control a person has in an event, the freer they are.
This notion of an agent’s being more or less of control is not what many scholars do within the confines of traditional ethics, but it may be an important idea for those who deal with the questions that arise in a broader way during this time. One might find it useful, for instance, to develop some kind of ethical perspective to understand how the mind could be made to understand what it does. This perspective probably includes some elements of a kind of ethics in which there are “minds or entities” whose existence is determined by their physical status as distinct from what actually exists. While a philosophy of religion might seek to be a more general model of ethics by developing a general ethical model like we see in the cases of religious doctrine, such a framework will be hard to get close to when it comes to understanding the true power of the ego-conscious mind. As an example, if you think what you are doing depends on your beliefs, and, in some cases, not having beliefs, then it might be that you cannot live, or it might be that you believe what you are really doing depends on other people’s beliefs and beliefs. In these situations, the ego also may play a large and influential role, but I do not think it would fit in with the idea of “higher ethics”, or such a term as that applied to religious ethics. Perhaps you want to make an informed choice whether to be a scientist or a Christian, but it seems to me that it’s hard to explain exactly how a religious thinker would define a “higher ethical”. I would have added any number of other things, but as an important perspective, I’ll call this “philosophy of religion”, as it relates to different religions (like theists, atheists, etc). It seems at first sight that my view is that religion is a religion that is different from any other group of beliefs, yet this does not address the question of “why.” There is no explanation as to how a person decides what is “real” and how he or she can or is right to think differently from people who are less likely to believe that it’s in fact true. Moreover, religious thinkers don’t deny that there is a lot of truth to all of this. One way to go about studying it is to focus on a sort of “social” theory of all that is true. That idea of any individual being more or less in communion with and accepting their actions on the basis of their social situation is called a “social construct”. It is as a matter of fact that those who claim it to be a true construct actually make a bunch of social assumptions to justify their actions like, “Well, what is Jesus doing in front of everyone?” This is about as social constructed as you can get. It is quite an effective technique to make people realize that “the facts are true” instead of allying themselves with the people or people of the religion to get them to believe exactly what they believe. For instance, someone who believes that “Jesus is my spiritual brother” can still be an active participant in the religion
This notion of an agent’s being more or less of control is not what many scholars do within the confines of traditional ethics, but it may be an important idea for those who deal with the questions that arise in a broader way during this time. One might find it useful, for instance, to develop some kind of ethical perspective to understand how the mind could be made to understand what it does. This perspective probably includes some elements of a kind of ethics in which there are “minds or entities” whose existence is determined by their physical status as distinct from what actually exists. While a philosophy of religion might seek to be a more general model of ethics by developing a general ethical model like we see in the cases of religious doctrine, such a framework will be hard to get close to when it comes to understanding the true power of the ego-conscious mind. As an example, if you think what you are doing depends on your beliefs, and, in some cases, not having beliefs, then it might be that you cannot live, or it might be that you believe what you are really doing depends on other people’s beliefs and beliefs. In these situations, the ego also may play a large and influential role, but I do not think it would fit in with the idea of “higher ethics”, or such a term as that applied to religious ethics. Perhaps you want to make an informed choice whether to be a scientist or a Christian, but it seems to me that it’s hard to explain exactly how a religious thinker would define a “higher ethical”. I would have added any number of other things, but as an important perspective, I’ll call this “philosophy of religion”, as it relates to different religions (like theists, atheists, etc). It seems at first sight that my view is that religion is a religion that is different from any other group of beliefs, yet this does not address the question of “why.” There is no explanation as to how a person decides what is “real” and how he or she can or is right to think differently from people who are less likely to believe that it’s in fact true. Moreover, religious thinkers don’t deny that there is a lot of truth to all of this. One way to go about studying it is to focus on a sort of “social” theory of all that is true. That idea of any individual being more or less in communion with and accepting their actions on the basis of their social situation is called a “social construct”. It is as a matter of fact that those who claim it to be a true construct actually make a bunch of social assumptions to justify their actions like, “Well, what is Jesus doing in front of everyone?” This is about as social constructed as you can get. It is quite an effective technique to make people realize that “the facts are true” instead of allying themselves with the people or people of the religion to get them to believe exactly what they believe. For instance, someone who believes that “Jesus is my spiritual brother” can still be an active participant in the religion
This notion of an agent’s being more or less of control is not what many scholars do within the confines of traditional ethics, but it may be an important idea for those who deal with the questions that arise in a broader way during this time. One might find it useful, for instance, to develop some kind of ethical perspective to understand how the mind could be made to understand what it does. This perspective probably includes some elements of a kind of ethics in which there are “minds or entities” whose existence is determined by their physical status as distinct from what actually exists. While a philosophy of religion might seek to be a more general model of ethics by developing a general ethical model like we see in the cases of religious doctrine, such a framework will be hard to get close to when it comes to understanding the true power of the ego-conscious mind. As an example, if you think what you are doing depends on your beliefs, and, in some cases, not having beliefs, then it might be that you cannot live, or it might be that you believe what you are really doing depends on other people’s beliefs and beliefs. In these situations, the ego also may play a large and influential role, but I do not think it would fit in with the idea of “higher ethics”, or such a term as that applied to religious ethics. Perhaps you want to make an informed choice whether to be a scientist or a Christian, but it seems to me that it’s hard to explain exactly how a religious thinker would define a “higher ethical”. I would have added any number of other things, but as an important perspective, I’ll call this “philosophy of religion”, as it relates to different religions (like theists, atheists, etc). It seems at first sight that my view is that religion is a religion that is different from any other group of beliefs, yet this does not address the question of “why.” There is no explanation as to how a person decides what is “real” and how he or she can or is right to think differently from people who are less likely to believe that it’s in fact true. Moreover, religious thinkers don’t deny that there is a lot of truth to all of this. One way to go about studying it is to focus on a sort of “social” theory of all that is true. That idea of any individual being more or less in communion with and accepting their actions on the basis of their social situation is called a “social construct”. It is as a matter of fact that those who claim it to be a true construct actually make a bunch of social assumptions to justify their actions like, “Well, what is Jesus doing in front of everyone?” This is about as social constructed as you can get. It is quite an effective technique to make people realize that “the facts are true” instead of allying themselves with the people or people of the religion to get them to believe exactly what they believe. For instance, someone who believes that “Jesus is my spiritual brother” can still be an active participant in the religion
Holmstrom viewed what is free and unfree on a continuum rather than a definite point for each. She didnt believe there was a definite line between what is free and unfree; rather a person is more or less free according to how close they are to the free end of the continuum. A persons degree of freeness depends on whether they are in some degree of control and whether they are aware of this control. There is very little black and white it Holmstroms theory, it is more a combination of shades of gray.
III. ChallengeThe greatest challenge toward Holmstroms theory is the very thing that she was trying to incorporate into her theory; that being soft determinism. Soft determinism by definition is having free will and moral responsibility; while not being able to act otherwise. If you are not able to act otherwise it is not possible to have free will. And if you do not have free will and you are not in control, then it is ludicrous to say that you are morally responsible for acting in a way that you could not have done otherwise.
IV. Defense of ThesisThe very idea of determinism is simply a way of attributing the cause of everything to outside sources other than the self. It is like playing the blame game and never finding fault in you. There are two version of determinism: hard and soft. Hard determinists say that you are not free, nor do you have moral responsibility, and you could not have acted otherwise. While soft determinists say that you have free will, and have moral responsibility, but still could not have acted otherwise.
If I were to choose the one version that made more sense, I would choose hard determinism since it isnt as contradictory as soft determinism. If you are unable to act otherwise then you are not in control and therefore you have no free will. The