Which of the following statements do you (mostly) agree with, if any?
1. All people are responsible for their own actions, regardless of circumstances. There is no excuse for behavior that is hurtful, destructive, or criminal.
2. People are mostly responsible for their own actions, but their judgement, and consequently their ability to exercise free will, may be clouded by environmental, psychological, or other influences, which may share blame or praise for whatever the person does.
3. People are no more responsible for their actions than animals. The human decision-making process is governed entirely by factors such as upbringing, experiences, emotions, knowledge, ignorance, peculiarities of the physical brain, the evolution of ideas sparked by purely random thoughts, and countless other influences. "Free will" is a myth.
1. All people are responsible for their own actions, regardless of circumstances. There is no excuse for behavior that is hurtful, destructive, or criminal.
2. People are mostly responsible for their own actions, but their judgement, and consequently their ability to exercise free will, may be clouded by environmental, psychological, or other influences, which may share blame or praise for whatever the person does.
3. People are no more responsible for their actions than animals. The human decision-making process is governed entirely by factors such as upbringing, experiences, emotions, knowledge, ignorance, peculiarities of the physical brain, the evolution of ideas sparked by purely random thoughts, and countless other influences. "Free will" is a myth.
I am on the side of number 1, you choose your actions and are responsible for them. This being said, there are certain situations when an action you choose might be okay, when it is normally not.
Consider this:
Could you murder someone you love for no reason whatsoever? Likely not. Yet, this sort of thing does happen on occasion. People are shocked by this behavior, yet they themselves could not duplicate it it under any circumstances. This proves that people cannot "choose" to be cold-blooded murderers, because such ones are clearly operating under entirely different mental conditions than you and I. If free will exists, it must be immune to influences such as psychology. If psychology can influence a person's choices, then free will does not exist.
If you ARE a murderer, then I apologize for my ignorant assumption.
In this case, I do see your point, I will admit that I might be incorrect in my assumption.
Ironic, isn't it? :D
It's a trap, isn't it? :P
Random curiosity, don't answer if you don't want. How old is dappled?
People often express the sentiment that Adolf Hitler was among the most "evil" human beings in history because of the massive death toll that occurred during his regime. However, it is a fact that Hitler did not personally execute or otherwise cause the deaths of many, if indeed any of the people killed under his regime during the "Holocaust". Those people were killed by soldiers, or during the course of forced labor in concentration camps overseen by soldiers.
If individuals are responsible for their own actions, then the statement "Hitler killed millions of people while he was in power" would be logically incorrect, as those people were, in fact, killed by soldiers. Hitler, then, would be no more evil than anyone else who espouses his philosophies, which are legion.
Whether or not "evil" is even a valid concept is another subject.
But this logic must also hold true in every situation, for if there is one instance of free will, then it exists. But, one instance of free will does not disprove all determinism.
The term free will is used in conjunction with 3 dimensional individual organisms. But, reality consists of much more than what we may perceive through our senses; we see only 2 dimensions, with an illusion of the third. We see cause and effect as we perceive it, but the other aspects of reality that are imperceivable may not follow our logic; I will discuss this more after you reply.
"Anonymous Poll Creator
6 months, 1 week ago | pl
@: Captain_Kegstand
Everything that has ever happened to you in your life, those are the reasons. Your personality is like a computer. The data that is entered into that computer is every experience and thought you have ever had."
Here you seem to be insinuating that either personal identity consists of only experience and thought, or that there is a third entity (the computer) holding the data together. My following argument would depend on which possibility you are implying...please clarify.