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If there was not a God, would you still believe in free
will? Because without God then this idea
of free will would have never existed. Various philosophers are brave enough to
talk about or go in depth with their beliefs on free will. When philosophers do
talk about free will, they also include this idea of “free will and
determinism” or the term “liberty” gets brought up as another word to describe
free will. Thomas Hobbes best defines
free will that “an agent is free, in those things that were in his power to
follow his will”(LN 73). This particular
view of Hobbes is very interesting because Hobbes is saying that if it is in
that persons will to do it then they act on their will by making their own
decisions which would give them free will.
But who is to say that animals do not have this will that they follow to
satisfy their needs as humans do. Wild
animals have the ability to make decisions where they live, where they like to
eat, whether to hunt or attack. A good example showing this type of free will
is say a bear is hungry and needs to feed his/her young, he/she has the ability
to go wherever he/she desires to hunt and also has the choice to hunt and kill
whatever they want. If animals really do
act on their will as a bear or any other animal would as humans do then that
would mean that animals also have free will.
So if animals have free will then that changes things drastically. Would there be a new definition to “free
will”? Will you change your views on
free will? Its something to think about, explore, research and create your own
philosophy on these controversial ideas.
"without God then this idea of free will would have never existed" - I don't know what you mean exactly, but this begs the question before us. You could just as readily (and as falsely) contend that WITH God the idea would never have existed. Plenty of godless people (like Hobbes, probably-and he was a determinist) debate free will. They have an idea of it.
ReplyDeleteWe are in no position to declare with certainty that any particular idea is an infallible sign of divine creation.
I think you and I are freer than a bear, since we seem to be in a position to make choices that directly confound our interests as well as advance them. That's what makes the life of a human philosophically interesting: that we at least SEEM to be in that position. It wouldn't occur to a bear, would it, to go on a hunger strike or a spiritual fast?
Maybe the big question is not whether you'll change your views, but whether you're free to consider changing them.