Skip to main content

Choice

It has been argued that the way we act is caused by things outside our control (our upbringing, our culture, or our genes, for example). People with this belief would argue that people behave badly because it is in their genes to behave badly, or because they learned it from their parents growing up; and people behave well because it is in their genes to behave well, or because they learned it from their parents growing up. This is a form of what’s called determinism, or the idea that everything we do is determined by past events and by something called natural law (a law set by nature and that is valid everywhere). Why is this important? Saying that we behave the way we do because of our genetics or the environment means we aren’t really responsible for our bad behavior. If I do something wrong, it isn’t my fault because I didn’t really have a choice anyway. Contrast this with the idea of free will. Those who believe in free will argue that our choices are our own, and that we have full responsibility for them.

The implications of both of these ideas are enormous. If we have little control over our actions, for example, then why should people be punished for we do; or why should we be rewarded for what we do? Ultimately, that behavior was determined by something not completely in our control. On the other hand, if we have free choice about what we do, then we should be punished, and we should be rewarded.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...
Post a Comment
Read more

Comparison

Psychologists and others have studied ways in which we compare ourselves to each other. One man named Leon Festinger argued that we tend to compare ourselves to other people when we don’t know how good or bad we are at something (like football or playing the guitar). One way we do this is when we compare ourselves to those who are not as good as we are, to protect our self-esteem (called “downward social comparison;” example: we’re playing basketball and miss most of our shots, but we feel okay because a teammate wasn’t even given the ball). Another comparison we make is when we compare ourselves to others who are doing much better than we are (called “upward social comparison”). When we see others who appear to be doing better than we are, we can respond by trying to improve ourselves, or by trying to protect ourselves by telling ourselves it’s not that important. There was a study published in 1953 by Solomon Asch, who asked students to take part in a “vision test.” The par...
Post a Comment
Read more

Noise

I started writing this on Friday. It's far from perfect, and I might change things around, but it's done for now. It's a narrative poem whose main character loses hope, hears a familiar sound from heaven, and finds himself alive again. It's a spin off of a poem I wrote on as part of another post in January. In any case, I hope you like it. Noise Silent songs stop playing Through chambers cupped and curved Through insides of once softened space Through dreams once less deserved Familiar sound pours forth past gates Past sentries long in dream Reaching ears that long went deaf To roar its endless theme Piercing past the sound of noise Through whispers breathed for free Booming, distant, fast-felt sky Makes its quiet mark on me On again, and up to play Songs come from deep below May not be played for list’ning ears Still thunder soft and slow Mirroring their master’s tune With awkward tarnished rings Played through doubt on hopeful frets Play sile...
Post a Comment
Read more