Issue of Free Will One of the insights to emerge clea

One of the insights to emerge clearly from Geisler and Feinberg's book Introduction to Philosophy is that the many seemingly different subjects of inquiry in philosophy are inter-related and that how one views, say, epistemology colors how one feels about the nature of moral philosophy. The issues involved in the philosophy of religion are also related to the broad questions analyzed in other types of philosophy and do not stand as separate, though discussions of these specific issues may often seem to be viewed as if they did stand alone. One of the issues that has been addressed by philosophers is the issue of free will, meaning whether human beings have freedom to choose their own actions or have those actions determined for them. This is an issue that is key for many issues facing us in philosophy and in everyday life. We hear a good deal of discussion of late about personal responsibility. Those accused in a court of law may often resort to various forms of determinism in explaining and even exonerating their actions, and the public has become disillusioned by claims that a person's crimes might have been caused by child abuse, stress, junk food, television, or whatever other outside influence is blamed as the determining factor:

One of the most important and yet controversial philosophical questions that we must face is the issue of free will. Again, it should be emphasized that morality, law, religion, as well as metaphysics all have a stake in our answer.

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moral laws are both universal, and this raises the issue of what differentiates the two. Physical laws are different because there is no volition involved in living up to these laws. Every person, animal, and object lives by physical laws which they cannot change, and there is no choice involved. Moral actions are of a different order because there is a choice involved, and to have moral worth such actions must be performed out of a sense of duty and out of a reverence for the law. Moral worth is not conferred by the outcome of these actions--doing good works because people will be helped are not automatically moral because of a good outcome. The good will that is created by moral actions is the only good without qualification and must develop from a reverence for the law. Kant indicates the importance of this concept and writes: The moral worth of an action consists, therefore, not in the effect resulting from it, and consequently in no principle of acting taken from such effect. . . Kant says that all possible effects might have been produced by other causes: It is therefore nothing else than the representation of the law itself--a thing possibly singly by Intelligents--which, and not that expected effect determinin

Category: Philosophy - I