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Exploring the concept of free will

again both options would not be desirable. It would be worth noting that you can't just call something a choice when the options are advantageous because as seen by the examples not all options in life are gratifying.

Another example of a situation where our opportunities to choose is hindered could be with those who have a long standing mental health problem, such as a psychotic disorder. Let's say for instance the person with psychosis is experiencing delusions of grandeur'. You could argue that this problem could stop the person from being free to make their own choices. For instance, say if the person truly believed that they were the Sultan of Brunei who lived a lavished and overindulgent life. Then it could be these delusions that hamper the person's choice when deciding whether to shop at Marks and Spenser or Kwick Save. Mainly because if the person believes they are the Sultan of Brunei then the more expensive option, Marks and Spenser's, would only do. However, without these delusions of grandeur' the person may be able to act freely and choose differently. In other words their mental health problems control how they make decisions, which subsequently limits their freedom of choice.

Once we have sided with the free will argument we can begin to see what this means for responsibility. It was Kant who thought that free will was fundamental for genuine moral responsibility and this moral responsibility was about being free to struggle between two real choices. Also, Sartre recognises that because we are free to make our own choices we are also responsible for our own actions. Sartre takes this a step further by explaining that as human beings we are always trying to escape this freedom of choice which is too much for us, and one coping mechanism to overcome this responsibility is something Sartre called bad faith'. Sartre's most famous example of bad faith is of a caf waiter. Here it is explained that one solution to escape our freedom is to slip into a social role, such as a waiter and then we can just become things' or objects'. This means that we play at being ourselves and are not our true selves, which Sartre also describes as being inauthentic'.

Aristotle also gives a description of the relationship between making choices and responsibilities. Firstly, Aristotle supports the argument that we are free to make our own choices and we have control over how we act. He stated that our actions are eph hemin, literally meaning up to us'. This argument relates to responsibility explaining that we usually hold individuals responsible for their actions and if they could not help doing this then it would be strange to blame them. We live in a blame culture and if something has gone wrong we look for a culprit. This would suggest that if people are to blame then they can do otherwise. This notion of being responsible for our actions coupled with the instinctive feeling of being able to choose freely only adds weight to the argument that we are free to make our own choices.

References:

1. taken from an extract from Sartre, J P (1934), Being and Nothingness, reprinted in Cottingham, J (ed.) (2005), Western Philosophy: an anthology, Oxford: Blackwell, p 232

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