Free Will

            Do I have Free Will? After considering the evidence for the three views I have concluded that soft determinism is best supported. I will be arguing for soft determinism with evidence presented in the class readings. I will start out with the evidence of unconscious motivation. It is the unconscious that forces us to act out things we think are justifiable but can actually be hurtful. With the three factors of our unconscious state, the ID, super-ego and the unconscious ego, we tend to be in a tug-of-war with our mind over who has control. With the mind being in the unconscious state we tend to make compromises in our actions. With the unconscious working, we have the freedom of free will. Once the ID is in action it puts its demands in the table and wants satisfaction while the super-ego denies the wish. We need our unconscious to mediate between the two forces otherwise our mind would be in a constant battle. Another argument for the point would be of moral responsibility. According to Hospers we have none. We are conditioned from birth with qualities of our personality, social standing and attitudes. Most people are so set on their ways that unconsciously they block out rational thought and act on what they have been programmed to do. In the unconscious state we are just bystanders to our neurosis which is always in control and has already been unconsciously determined. If most of our acts are compelled then we have no means of true freedom. Now let us look at free acts versus unfree acts. First, we should have a definition of both: free acts are caused at that moment by internal states whereas unfree acts occur due to outside forces. A true Libertarian believes that there is no cause for anything, that everything happens as the self decides while a Determinist believes everything happens due to some outside force. The soft determinist has the right idea, that all acts are necessitated by previous causes.