Free Will (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2021 in the subject Philosophy - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,3, University of Luxembourg, course: Introduction to Metaphysics, language: English, abstract: The discussion about the Free Will raises mixed opinions. Some share the belief that Free Will must exist, because imagining a world where we do not have the liberty to choose what we ought to do, does not seem right. Hard determinists, however, fully deny the existence of the Free Will and at the same time, ignore the notion of moral responsibility. The opposition to hard determinism is created by the Libertarians. Their opinion is that science is not able to talk about the human mind. For they say that science is trying to analyze humans as if they were machines, which is not possible. Humans have a Free Will, even without science being able to justify it.

The goal of my paper will be to show if we can be satisfied with the definitions of free will given so far. For this, I will briefly explain the main point of view of the ones who defend the idea of the free will. How does free will exist and how do we know that we are acting freely? Mentioning all the issues that raise when talking about the free will, would go beyond the scope of the discussion, this is why I will mainly focus on the idea of events caused by luck. Since to me, this is a point that neither libertarianism nor compatibilism seems to consider, I will base my main argumentation on how luck is not mentioned in their speeches.