We can experience the act of making choices. We may feel the burden of having to choose. There is a ‘Moral Self’ that, unlike personality, is not caused. It is the inner ‘moral self’ that responds to moral dilemmas. The principle of causality applies to the external, physical universe, but not to the inner world of morality. Making moral decisions is not like the mechanical world of cause and effect. Necessary and contingent truths: A necessary truth is one that must be so: ‘All bachelors are unmarried.’ A contingent truth is one that is not necessarily true: ‘A is a faster runner than B. A will win the race tomorrow.’ Key ideas supporting Libertarianism Sartre Hume Frances Collins

The ‘experience of free-will’ is an illusion. The principle of causation observes that everything happens in response to a prior cause. Nothing happens for no reason. Determining factors can be clearly seen. There are undoubted influences on behaviour: biological, cultural, environmental, political, theological, psychological. To claim we have free-will means to claim we have something that has no cause to it. Any decision we make as a result of free-will has no prior-cause behind it at all – it must be completely random, for no reason. Key Ideas supporting Determinism Locke; Spinoza D’Holbach; Laplace

Incompatibilists (either we are free or we are not): A.J. Ayer; Spinoza; D’Holbach; Locke Compatibilists (soft determinists): Kant; Aristotle Soft determinism: in some ways human beings are determined – factors such as genetics, up-bringing, culture and so on. Within that framework however, individuals are still able to exercise their free-will (like a game of cards- players are limited by the cards they are dealt and the rules of the game. Within that situation they are free to make choices and employ strategies. The idea of being determined and having free-will are compatible. Soft determinists make distinctions between external causes and internal causes…

An external cause is something over which we have no control and forces us to act in a certain way. E.g – the cards we are dealt or the rules of the game. An internal cause is our own wishes and desires. E.g – I want to play a certain card in order to win the game. An example of soft determinism: A student chooses to study A-levels because she wants to become a lawyer. It is a choice of free-will: the student wishes to become a lawyer and so chooses to do what is necessary. It is also determined to the extent that the student lives in a society where A-levels are necessary to become a lawyer, by their own intellectual abilities and up-bringing.

The Card Game Analogy Players in a card game are determined to the extent that they have to play the cards they are dealt by the dealer, and they have to play according to the rules of the game. They are, however, able to exercise their free-will in choosing how to play their cards. The student is determined by her social background and the educational requirements for becoming a lawyer. She is, however, able to exercise her free-will in choosing to become a lawyer.