The Three Isms Modern Literature

To which do you subscribe? 1. All of my actions and experiences have already been determined ahead of time. Therefore, I have no control over what happens to me. Even though I feel like I make choices, it was already decided for me what decisions I would make. 2. All of my choices are based on what I have experienced in the past. Therefore, I may stop or change something I do if I experience negative enough consequences. Similarly, I may do something new if I observe someone else gain rewards by doing that activity. As a result, life is a series of trial an error. 3. I am my own person, and so I must take responsibility for the choice I make because in the end, I am the one who has to live with those choices. I do not make choices based on past experiences because those experiences no longer exist. For that matter, I don’t feel the need to adhere to rules or laws because they were created by someone else. If it appears that I am following the rules, it’s only because I have independently decided to act the way I do.

Behaviorism Scenario #2

Behaviorism Your choices (behavior) is learned through conditioning. (Think Pavlov.) Your environment can shape you through your behaviors. Learned behavior comes from consequences and rewards. "Give me a dozen health infants, well- formed, and my own specified world to them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one of them at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select--doctor, lawyer…beggar man…thief." - JB Watson, 1924

Determinism Scenario #1

Determinism "Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws." --Charles Darwin "Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper." - Albert Einstein Everything is set for you to follow. You are born the way you will be. You make choices according to your plan.

Existentialism Scenario #3

Existentialism "...the individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. He justifies his existence by a movement which, like freedom, springs from his heart but which leads outside of himself.“ ~ Simone de Beauvoir, 1948 "Forever I shall be a stronger to myself. In psychology as in logic, there are truths but no truth." ~ Albert Camus, 1955 People are more than just biology and study. Human kind will act against programming and circumstances. Man is able to break apart from the whole to form a self.