Soft Determinism

Soft Determinism

1. Not as harsh as hard determinism.

   • Hard determinists mistake 'caused' for 'forced'
   • Soft determinists do not try to distinguish free and unfree acts in normal life.

2. We do have to take moral responsibility for our actions.

3. John Locke

   • If a man wakes up in a room which has been locked from the outside, but he decides to stay in the room, does he have free will or is it a mere illusion?
     • The man may not have the ability to open the door, but he has free will to try and open the door.
   • Tabula Rosa - We are born as blank slates and ideas are imprinted on our minds through sensory experiences.

4. Hume

   • Disagreed with Buridian's donkey
     • In this puzzle, it is suggested that if a donkey has no obvious choice about which bale of hay to eat from, due to them being the same distance from him, he would die, due to the lack of rationality to make a decision. Buridan argued that this is not the same for humans – we have autonomy to make a random, spontaneous decision.
       • Hume rejected this and argued that our decision is not based on randomity but on necessity, given the prior predetermined events.

5. Sits best with humankind