Evaluating Philosophical, Scientific and Psychological determinism
- Fu Lian Doble
- Jan 8, 2018
- 2 min read
Philosophical
John Locke presented philosophical hard determinism. He produced an analogy based on universal causation. This is the belief that says that all humans actions and choices have been determined by event sin the past that lead to a conclusion. This cannot be changed. The change of past causes is unbreakable.
All humans actions and choices have a past cause leading to the conclusion.
This lead to Locke concluding that 'Freewill is an illusion'.
William James supported this. He summed up causation as an 'iron block universe'.
However, Locke does not specifically mention hard determinism. He rather just says 'Freewill is an illusion'. It is just an implication that hard determinism exists.
Jean Paul Sartre said that just by saying that freewill doesn't exist, you are wrong. You have chosen to believe that therefore freewill does exist. We are radically free and must take responsibility for our actions.
Scientific
DNA demonstrates that all humans have a fixed scientific formula. We are determined by our DNA.
This is backed up by studies done by Daniel Dennett and his theory of 'genetic fixity'.
On the other hand, studies have been done in neuroscience that suggest that moral agents do have freewill.
Dr Sirigu: Freewill is in the parietal cortex of the brain.
Psychological
Psychological determinism is backed up by various tests done such the tests on dogs to look into conditioning by Pavlov. He said that just as dogs can be conditioned to produced saliva at the ringing of a bell, regardless of if food was actually produced, so humans could be conditioned to react in a certain way. This was also supported by Skinner who said that people were conditioned form a young age due to rewards and punishments being given in response to certain actions.
However, Carl Rogers argued that although children can be conditioned at a young age, moral agents can achieve freewill through self-actualisation. This involved getting in touch with our feelings and acting on them.
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