Soft Determinism Flashcards
(4 cards)
Beliefs?
There are physical, psychological and social limits to autonomy. Eg. Not everyone has the money to act how they please.
Parental values and peer pressure factors to.
However, individuals have enough of a degree of freedom to make choices and take responsibility. This is COMPATIBILISM: free will and determinism are compatible.
Hume?
Free will and determinism are a feature of moral living.
Cause and effect is true, but humans have the ability to make choices freely “by liberty.”
Uses the example of suicide.
Dennett?
Modern compatibilist.
Even if someone’s thoughts are the product of unconscious causes, we still have the ability to act freely despite living in a deterministic universe due to evolution.
While we cannot defy the laws of physics or freely become a world champion of chess, we have the ability to change, and don’t confuse determinism with inevitability.
Upbringing and education still have a profound effect.
Free will is younger than the human race and came through language and culture.
Dawkins?
Memes as replicators of ideas and behaviour which pass generation to generation.
“We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth… the selfish memes of our indoctrination.”
Believed that nobody is absolutely free.
Used altruism as an example of our genes ensuring survival by encouraging altruistic behaviour.
Hereditary component also important, like the possible existence of a gay gene, but doesn’t accept genetic determinism, adding that it doesn’t infallibly make you something.
