Blatchford, The Delusion Of Free Will Essay Examples

According to Blatchford in the “Delusion of Free Will”, teaching forms part of our environment hence people act as they have been taught that they ought to act. Hence, although people may act as they choose, they choose as the environment and heredity cause them to choose. Using the two arguments on a person who is accused of having committed a criminal act could easily exonerate him or her since the end result is that he or she was obviously at a disadvantage by virtue of environment and heredity. This argument can however be challenged by arguing that all people brought up in the same environment and conditions should go on to commit offenses given their proximity to such conditions. This is usually not the case. Further, not everyone acts the way they have been taught.
In his article titled, “What Means This Freedom”, Hospers rejects the presence or absence of premeditation as a factor to consider while determining moral responsibility for a person’s action. He observes that in some cases an act is not premeditated but responsible and others are premeditated yet not responsible. He therefore suggests that one’s actions which are as a consequence of ‘unconscious forces’ such person should not be morally responsible. Hospers subsequently argue that moral responsibility should not befall a person whose action is as a result of coercion. The coercion could be by inescapable concerns of childhood circumstances, unconscious reasons, or peripheral forces. However, if all actions are referenced as against the three factors people cannot be held accountable for their actions given that their actions emanate from their characters which are shaped by influences that were not of their own choosing.
The most striking feature according to the determinists’ argument is that the present is determined by the past and likewise the future is determined by the present. Taking such argument into consideration it is safe to conclude that there is no room for free will in this line of reasoning. Consequently, it would not make any sense if a person is to be blamed for acts that turn out to be criminal since one could not have chosen a different choice given the fact that such an act had already been determined by the person’s genes and upbringing.
As far as the concept of free will is concerned, humans do not exercise ‘free choice’ because people make choices according to who they are. The aspect of free will is also eroded by the fact that people do not create themselves. Determinism therefore postulates that human beings make the only choice they could. As such, even if it was possible to refer a person back in time without causing any changes to the original causes without knowledge of what the person did at first instance, and in similar conditions, such person would make exactly the same choice. From a determinist point of view there is no sense of free.
An individual is not truly free to choose since according to determinists the past is already cast which henceforth influences the choices that an individual makes. According to Blatchford, will is not free and a person becomes aware of right and wrong based on what a person has been taught. Through the hard determinism approach it is possible to conclude that Robinson is freer than Williams if Robinson is more aware of right and wrong based on what he was taught in the past and in case Williams has not been taught the subject of right and wrong as comprehensively as Robinson.