Free will represents the capacity of a rational agent in order to select a course of action from the several alternatives. Free will is regarded as the power of the up-to-usness (Campbell, 2013). It means that the actions performed by the individuals are in fact up to them in a robust way. Moreover, free will is also the source of actions. The freewill is important because its implications are powerful enough for touching the roots of the objectives and purpose of lives of human beings. The moral implications of free will, however, reach the law, politics, psychology, ethics, epistemology, psychology, education, and design, etc.; every field is of great interest for the human.
One of the important implications of free will is the self determination. Every individual wants to have control over the life. People face the consequences of their actions regardless of their choice by default or by freewill. So, it seems sensible to make an effort for the exercise of the freewill, and to make such decisions that help in bringing the individuals closer in order to maximize their lives for setting the goals and achieving them afterwards. However, increased control demands increase responsibility of the individuals for their actions and lives. Additionally, it can be said that the freewill scope is a good indicator in order to measure the humanness of individuals. The explicit and the implicit acceptance and appreciation of the freewill is the significant factor in the sense that it helps the individual in determining who he is. However, the use of freewill cannot be imposed by any external force.
In the society, its use can be encouraged but the lack of responsibility is discouraged, and every person has to choose the utilization degree of the ability of their will. However, the self-esteem that is generated internally contains innate commitment in order to use the freewill. But, there at the same time there are several social practices and policies that discourage the belief of freewill, demoralize the personal responsibility and accountability, and rely on the externally simulated self-esteem instead of the real thing.
Moreover, in the modern era, there is nothing important than the freedom. The free will is connected closely to the concepts of blame, responsibility, justice, praise and punishment. Free will is, however, also considered as the central to the notion of a moral obligation (Kane, 2011). Moreover, the individuals know that they have free will; this is because the moral responsibility necessities the free will, and individuals are morally responsible and accountable for their actions.
There are, however, cases of the responsible and moral actions when an individual could have performed otherwise. For example, the purpose of the moral education is to make an individual incapable of torturing and misbehaving with the innocent person in the exchange of few dollars or pounds. The individuals are trained since birth to reject such offers, but most of the individuals claim that when they are rejecting the offer they are not doing it with their free will. They are forced different types of actions and in this way they do not any any freedom to take the decisions of quitting on their own.
There are certain models that describe the free will; the models are Faculties model of the will, Hierarchical model of the will, and Responsive view of the will. The Faculties Model of the Will describes that the free agents are considered as free due to the capabilities and powers that they possess. All the living creatures have some capabilities, for example, the capability to grow and reproduce. The free agents are unique because of the volition, will and intellection. It can also be said that the free agents possess the faculties of the will as well as intellect. The rational faculty or the intellect is the power of cognition. Because of the cognitions, there are several things an intellect makes evident to the will, something good under description. Moreover, according to this model all the individuals that have intellect have a free will.
The hierarchical model of the will is indicative of the fact that there is a mesh or the structuralist account of will. As the will is free so, it have mesh or the internal structures among different levels of the volitions, will and desires. Furthermore, according to this model, individuals can have many different types of desires. However, some desires exist for the performance of a specific action. Further, the Reasons Responsive view of the will claims that the agency has sensitivity to the some issues. An agent will act with a free will if he/she is responsive to the suitable rational concerns, but he/she does not perform action with the free will if he/she is lacks the element of responsiveness. Two factors that undermine the freewill are manipulation and the coercion.
However, some Naturalists are of the view that free will equation and its moral implications are driven by the objective of eliminating the punishment, and vengeance culture. The deceptive reasoning in this case is that if there is a need of free will for the moral responsibility, then moral responsibility can be denied by denying the free will. However, this belief of Naturalists is similar to the ancient reasoning based on the religious arguments that the free will is exclusively the property of individuals.
But, the problem associated with the freewill is that if the determinism is considered as true then there is no one that has possessed free will. In this regard, to justify this statement, there are several views. Determinism is regarded as a claim, which past the events in combination with the laws and rules of nature, bringing about all the future events (Crisp, 2013). So, all the actions are determined for going in a particular direction, and there are no options available for acting, but, the method one will act. Abiding by the laws of nature and the past the individuals can act in one direction. However, some consider that it is not the threat to the free will as they think that the free will concept is compatible with the determinism thesis; these people are known as compatiblists.
Further, compatibilism claims that the free will and the determinism thesis are compatible with each other. Determinism is, however, compatible with the moral responsibility, but not with the regulative control that is required for the free will. Additionally, there is a theory of Incompatibilism, which explains that as there is no alternative for any action participated by the individuals. Hence, the determinism thesis is not compatible with the free will so paving the way to incompatibilism. The free will skeptics have considered that the viewpoint of the incompatibilism is true but they do not have free will. The naturalism is the argument that the humans do not possess the challenging free will. They are just free will skeptics, a specific type of the free will skeptic. They just disown the freewill adopted by the dualists as well as those that consider that humans can go beyond the casual explanations, rules and laws in their behavior. The libertarians have claimed that the imcompatibilism is true but free will also exits and individuals have free will (Double, 1990). Revisionism is, however, another claim that considers that the free will and the moral responsibility are dissimilar from what individuals normally considers. The claim of revisionism is that the individuals are misguided by their intuitive thoughts and ideas about the free will and the aim of revisionist is to fix this. However, some consider it as another form of the compatibilism.
In a nutshell, the freewill is the freedom and is the remarkable ability of mind of the individuals to reprogram, and to evaluate the emotions and thoughts themselves. All people have this ability, and they can choose to use it wither to a greater extent or to a smaller extent. Some believe that the free will exist while other believes that there is no existence of the freewill. But, as a matter of fact, it is just the freedom that has made individuals human.
References
Campbell, Joseph Keim. (2013). Free Will. John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey
Crisp, Roger. (2013). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics. Oxford University Press, New York
Kane, Robert. (2011). The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. Oxford University Press, New York
Double, Richard. 199o. The Non-Reality of Free Will. Oxford University Press: New York
