What is determinism & can you give me any examples?
I am doing a debate in psychology on free will vs determinism and am struggling on coming up with examples for determinism. Determinism is the view that all behaviour has some definite cause or causes whereas free will is the notion that we are free to make decisions. I need to think of a good example as i will be presenting this to my class! Please help! Many thanks for your answers.
Answers:
There is a lot about this question that overlaps into philosophy and would sincerely recommend you at least scan the contents of a book called 'Sophies World' by Jostein Gaarder - a book based on all the essential philosophies - centred around the concept of the 'Nature/Nurture' debate..
essentially you are asking : 'What is determined by nature?' and 'What is determined by nurturing?'... in both senses there is a sense of determinism - as others have tried to explain...
Even without reading this or other literature centred on this debate, it may well be in your interests to decide a view point - whether you agree or not - and then take your arguments for -or against- from there .,,,
The essence of your 'devil's advocate' point would be (depending on which side of the fence you wanted to argue) to argue as to whether human actions are determined by their nature or by their nurturing ... now within that context I am sure you could construct a scenario and an argument for or against a given situation ..ie are juvenile delinquents delinquent by nature or by the nurturing they have experienced? and is the argument more or less advanced and enhanced by something within an individual that is already inherent and, dependant on the nature of that indivudual/ or the nurturing that individual received - their actions determined by whether or not that 'something' becomes more prevalent, and thereby determines the later 'nature' of that individual... I know I may seem to have somewhat complicated your questioning, but I hope I have also simplified it for you ..if you take a stance - any stance - then you you have a base and basis from which you can work ... you could create an argument based around how much of the 'nature' of the individual will be influential in using the 'nurturing' it receives/received during it's upbringing to enhance its 'natural' 'nature' or.. was that natural 'nature' devised and determined by its upbringing? Look at the questions of such things as homosexuality v. heterosexuality, or racism against patriotism, or masculinity v. femininity or subjugation v. the essence of 'free will'.. it doesn't matter whether there are those who agree or disagree - that's what the subsequent debate will be about - the point of your involvement is to put forward, with intentioned and well thought out arguments, a view point that can be debated...
it might serve you better to consider that you are a prosecutor in a court of law representing a client that you didn't really support - how would you put forward their case with the determined intention of getting them off their alleged offence ...?
I wish you well - I also wish I could be there to hear your viewpoint and arguments - I suspect they would be extremely interesting ..
Ask your teacher
aaaai would judge religion to be determinism,all others free will.
I dont really know about this, but probably some example of determinism are:
1. some people are born as homosexual or heterosexual, so they are motivated to do the behaviour as what they are born as.
2. human has the concept of God in his mind, so he is forced to do something that make him closer to that 'God'. that is why the religious rituals are different in many places. but basically human are determined to realize the bigger power that role him.
3. Human is believed to have ‘instinct’. Like to love, to protect themselves and the ones they love from dangers, to help, etc. Isn’t that can be count as determinant?
Hope that can help.
Good luck for the presentation!
I suggest you pick a bad example. There are plenty to choose in the anti-genetic literature. It is constantly asserted that if one has a particular gene one will therefore behave in a definite way. In reality, genes just act probabilistically, tending on average to one action over another. I doubt if any biological systems are in fact deterministic.
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Answers:
There is a lot about this question that overlaps into philosophy and would sincerely recommend you at least scan the contents of a book called 'Sophies World' by Jostein Gaarder - a book based on all the essential philosophies - centred around the concept of the 'Nature/Nurture' debate..
essentially you are asking : 'What is determined by nature?' and 'What is determined by nurturing?'... in both senses there is a sense of determinism - as others have tried to explain...
Even without reading this or other literature centred on this debate, it may well be in your interests to decide a view point - whether you agree or not - and then take your arguments for -or against- from there .,,,
The essence of your 'devil's advocate' point would be (depending on which side of the fence you wanted to argue) to argue as to whether human actions are determined by their nature or by their nurturing ... now within that context I am sure you could construct a scenario and an argument for or against a given situation ..ie are juvenile delinquents delinquent by nature or by the nurturing they have experienced? and is the argument more or less advanced and enhanced by something within an individual that is already inherent and, dependant on the nature of that indivudual/ or the nurturing that individual received - their actions determined by whether or not that 'something' becomes more prevalent, and thereby determines the later 'nature' of that individual... I know I may seem to have somewhat complicated your questioning, but I hope I have also simplified it for you ..if you take a stance - any stance - then you you have a base and basis from which you can work ... you could create an argument based around how much of the 'nature' of the individual will be influential in using the 'nurturing' it receives/received during it's upbringing to enhance its 'natural' 'nature' or.. was that natural 'nature' devised and determined by its upbringing? Look at the questions of such things as homosexuality v. heterosexuality, or racism against patriotism, or masculinity v. femininity or subjugation v. the essence of 'free will'.. it doesn't matter whether there are those who agree or disagree - that's what the subsequent debate will be about - the point of your involvement is to put forward, with intentioned and well thought out arguments, a view point that can be debated...
it might serve you better to consider that you are a prosecutor in a court of law representing a client that you didn't really support - how would you put forward their case with the determined intention of getting them off their alleged offence ...?
I wish you well - I also wish I could be there to hear your viewpoint and arguments - I suspect they would be extremely interesting ..
Ask your teacher
aaaai would judge religion to be determinism,all others free will.
I dont really know about this, but probably some example of determinism are:
1. some people are born as homosexual or heterosexual, so they are motivated to do the behaviour as what they are born as.
2. human has the concept of God in his mind, so he is forced to do something that make him closer to that 'God'. that is why the religious rituals are different in many places. but basically human are determined to realize the bigger power that role him.
3. Human is believed to have ‘instinct’. Like to love, to protect themselves and the ones they love from dangers, to help, etc. Isn’t that can be count as determinant?
Hope that can help.
Good luck for the presentation!
I suggest you pick a bad example. There are plenty to choose in the anti-genetic literature. It is constantly asserted that if one has a particular gene one will therefore behave in a definite way. In reality, genes just act probabilistically, tending on average to one action over another. I doubt if any biological systems are in fact deterministic.
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