The Contradictory Nature of Soft Determinism :: essays research papers fc

The Contradictory Nature of gentle DeterminismI. IntroductionThere is a continuum between free and unfree, with many or most impresss lying someplace in between. (Abel, 322) This statement is a good summation of how Nancy Holmstroms witness of free will allows for degrees of immunity depending on the agents chink all oer the situation. Holmstroms main purpose in her Firming Up well-fixed Determinism essay was to show that people can rush control over the source of their actions, meaning that people can strike control over their desires and beliefs, and because of this they have free will. She also tried to show that her view of docile determinism was compatible with free will and moral responsibility. While Holmstroms theory about the selfs being in control, willingness to participate, and aw arness of an act causes the act to be free, has some merit, her choice to incorporate soft determinism ultimately proved to invalidate her theory. II. ExpositionIn Nancy Holmstroms Firming Up Soft Determinism essay she set out to prove that people can have control over their desires and beliefs, and therefore are in control of the sources of their actions. She believed it was manageable to carry on the view of soft determinism and still hold that we are free to choose and we are at times able to do otherwise. She believed that the standard soft determinist position was inadequate. Her thought was that soft determinists had as well limited of a notion of what is required for an agent to be in charge of their actions. The common soft determinist stance was that the agent do what it pleased the soft determinists simply ignore the question of whether the agent was in control of the sources that caused the actions. Holmstroms theory was that just because some causes of desires and beliefs, such as brainwashing, make actions resulting from them unfree, it does not follow that any cause of desires and beliefs has the same implications for the freedom of actions res ulting from them. (Abel, 321)Holmstrom believed that the notion of having control is the heart of the notion of freedom. In order to have control by Holmstroms theory the agent must be an importpismire part of the causal process, and the agent must also be aware of its control. An example of this is illustrated by a person accidentally squashing an ant while walking. While the person did play an important part in the demise of the ant, the person was not aware of the action therefore, the person was not in control of the ants life.