Our freedom to Make Ethical Choices is Only an Apparent Freedom
Uploaded by sharmaine on Mar 23, 2007
‘Our freedom to make ethical choices is only an apparent freedom’
It is sometimes argued that the freedom we feel as though we possess is merely apparent. Therefore, when we make ethical choices the actions we take have already been decided. A hard determinist would argue that all actions are explicable in terms of their causes, and are therefore inevitable. Whereas a soft determinist would argue that determinism may be true but humans still have a degree of choice. However, a totally different view, is the one of a libertarian, they believe that we are in total control of what actions we take and are therefore responsible for our own choices.
If you are absolutely free to do whatever you choose, you can be held morally responsible for your actions. On the other hand are you ever free? A common form of defence offered by someone who has been accused of doing something, which is deemed immoral, is that he or she was not free to choose to do anything else. You may, for instance, find yourself acting as an agent, following rules that have been enforced by an individual, culture or even society. In this case you are conscious of what you are doing, but your actions are likely to be considered from a moral point of view only to the extent that you are deemed to be free to accept, reject or challenge the order you are given, or the function you are expected to perform in society. Thus, for instance, if you obey an order because someone is pointing a gun at your head, the fact that you will be killed if you disobey is a significant factor to be taken into account. Are you free in such circumstances? Another example is that of when people are culturally bound to do such actions that are seen as morally wrong outside the culture, such as female circumcision. You know consciously that it is morally wrong but you follow the rules to avoid punishment. Therefore, you are not free to make a moral choice, because of the values of the culture.
It is sometimes asked, how free do we actually need to be? If we were completely free of all external causes and conditions, we would never stop to think about what we ‘ought’ to do, because we would never be influenced by anything that might suggest one cause of action...