In Defense of Free Will - 1055 Words

In this paper I will present an argument against free will and then I will defend a response to that argument. Free will is defined as having the ability to make our own choices. Some will argue that all of our decisions have already been dictated by our desires therefore we never actually truly make our own choices. The purpose of this paper is to defend the argument that we have free will by attacking the premise that states we have no control over what we desire. I will defeat this premise by showing how one does have control over his/her desires through the idea of self-control. I will then defend my argument against likely rebuttals that state that there is still no way to control our desires proving that we do have free will. 1. The Argument Against Free Will The argument against free will states that; what you do is always determined by what you have the strongest desire to do, but you have no control over what you desire. If what you do is always determined by something that you have no control over then you can never actually act freely. It follows from what has been said that one does not have free will. The first statement seems to not make a whole lot of sense right off the bat. You would think that if someone wants to do something but does not do it then they are not choosing their greatest desire. How does your brain tell you what you want? Do you have any control over what your brain says you want? According to what this argument states we do notShow MoreRelatedEvil And The Free Will Defense Essay1199 Words   |  5 Pagesloving and all powerful, or God does not exist. Although, I am going to try to give an alternative answer and possibly explain how God could coexist with evil. In order to fully understand the argument, we need to go over what evil and the free will defense are. The definition of the word evil is: morally wrong deeds or actions, misfortune or suffering. For example, Joseph Stalin was a man who committed the worse of all evils. He was the reason for the execution in millions of humans. This is calledRead MoreProblem Of Evil And The Free Will Defense1038 Words   |  5 PagesGall Harari PHI2010 Kearns 19 October 2017 Problem of Evil and the Free Will Defense Evil is something that exists in many forms. From big evils like Hitler’s Holocaust and slavery, to small evils like getting a papercut and getting stuck in the rain (perhaps to some this might be a big evil), evil is basically anything that is not good. For theologians, evil poses several problems, most notably when it comes to the existence of God. To most theologists, God has a set definition. 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Before we can discuss the free will defense, we must define the different types of evil thatRead MoreAnalysis of Evil in Peter Van Inwagen ´sThe Argument from Evil 1212 Words   |  5 Pagesa contradiction and moral perfection meaning never – not even once- doing something that is morally unacceptable. (Reason and Responsibility, 108) Inwagen’s objective in the essay, The Argument from Evil, is to present a â€Å"defense† against the problem of evil. Inwagen’s defense is not trying to prove he knows the reason why evil exists; rather, only to show that there may be â€Å"a very real possibility† that God has a morally acceptable reason for allowing evil to exist. (Reason and Responsibility, 109)Read MoreThe Existence Of Moral And Natural Evil1263 Words   |  6 Pagesbeing of the Omnis, whereas low theology acknowledges the existence of God without one of the key properties of the Omni-max god. 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