Ehh! I just got back in from my exam. I argued that The existence of God was not as feasible as the theory of causality and interactionalism combined. I think one day I'll try to recreate it in it's perfected form for you guys. To be honest, I've got mixed feeling about this exam because I don't think I did as well as I could have and consequently I'll end up getting a lower mark than both the teacher and I had hoped. Somedays I wish I would let myself beat me up for my bloody failures. At any rate, I've decided that, instead of whinning about more of my failures and many short-comings that I'd put up an excerpt from essay regarding causality and free will. The Teacher gave me 90 something on it, so I was happy. And considering I spent less than six hours on it, I was proud. So if you've got about... I don't know, ten minutes to spare and you're in the mood - read it. Just don't ever say that I don't share my life with you. ----- "...From his writings, we can easily conclude that Stace is actually a believer in casuist type of causation, which actually discounts him as a determinist. To this end, his essays do not necessarily put him far away from St. Thomas Aquinas who similarly believes in a form of causation, but insists on it being derived from a deity. St. Aquinas states that “Man has free will: otherwise counsel, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain. ” I say that Aquinas has a legitimate point, however it is these very things, which creates the realm of causality which results in free will being a mere byproduct. Let us consider for a moment a man who, being in the Navy, is given an order by his Captain to swab the deck. In this situation, two options present itself – either the young officer can follow the order form his Commanding Officer or he disregard thecommand and carry about his business. Logically, in accordance with Stace’s theory of punishment, it would make sense for this man to follow the order due to the nature of the repercussions; ranging from days in the brig to hard labour to a demotion. Now, if you were to ask this same young officer, on any given day, if he would like to mop the deck of the ship, he would certainly say no. And so in this case, the possible outcomes, the rewards and punishments, dictates that this man would decide to swab the deck and in actuality, form the basis for the cause for his action. Regarding the above scenario, one could come to the conclusion that Free will does not exist, however, if we were to take this situation and extend it to a case of morality and ethics, we will see that indeed free will can exist. Let us return to the same situation. The Captain directly issues a standing order to the young officer to immediately carry out a task, which would not gravely effect anyone. Upon attempting to do so, the young officer encounters a crewman who is on fire in the mess hall. The officer is now caught in a dilemma, does he follow the orders of the Captain, knowing the consequences of disobeying, or does he adhere to his moral calling to render aid and assistance? Almost instantaneously, a series of logical calculations are done, weighing the two forces, attempting to decide which is greater: the possibility of the brig, or helping another in need. If the officer were to stop and assist, one would say that he did the right thing as, objectively, the greater need lay with the man on fire. This statement is consistent with the belief that the officer was compelled by his morals, and thereby resulting in the belief that his sense of morality residing in his conscience, became the cause of his actions. This theory should find agreement with practically everyone, as the theist would simply infer that the conscience was the medium which God choose to communicate with the officer, while the atheist would believe that it was his internal drive, his felt obligation toward a fellow human being. Both of which form a greater motivation within the officer than his duty to the Captain of the ship. Conversely, if this officer were to instead ignore this crewman on fire and move on with his errand, would it not be said that he chose to ignore his fellow man in need? It would be said that the officer would be said to be acting upon his own free will if he were to make an illogical choice, that is to say, that there was seemingly no logic present within his actions. Ultimately this is a form of consciously illogical choices; whereby the action perpetrated is ludicrous and the agent is aware of the fact that greater motivations and causalities exists in other options, but still acts in the apparently wrong manner. Therefore, can it not be said that it is in a person’s instinctive nature to choose an option/ motivation with the highest degree of causality/ logic for when we commit an unlawful or immoral action, we often recognize that it was wrong. We automatically admit that we did not adhere to the existence of better options – options, which originally compelled us in a certain direction. Admittedly, there are people who cannot see the error of their actions, but these people are generally individuals with mental illnesses - psychopaths; hence there must be a connection with the commission of freely chosen actions, caused actions and the mental state of the person in question. Generally speaking a moral action would be one in which, in the persons mind, consciously or subconsciously, holds maintains a greater sensibility, which can naturally be traced to various things: education, experience and so forth. A person who commits a lesser-caused action would appear to be working against their own nature; a form of anti-instinctive behaviour. Individualistic motivations appear to be another anomaly, which tends to impair the judgement which, St. Aquinas states as a necessity for free will. The self-promotion of individuality, with a total disregard for another does not count as a fallacy to the previously stated argument, as selfishness, in itself, is a motivation and can appear to be a greater cause in the mind of the agent than any other internal inclination to assist another. To that end, what appears to be actions procured by free will are actually actions negating the humanistic instinct towards proper actions. Baring in mind that our nature is in fact to act upon the option, which holds a more reasonable cause, or to a lesser extent, any apparent greater form of causality: with or without our knowledge of being influenced by various external forces – experience, education or otherwise. However, it is crucial to remember that these acts of ‘free will’ are not done so by the free will of the agent, it is merely a glitch, corruption or an oversight on the part of the agent and otherwise does not represent the average human understand or capacity towards morality or acting. Additionally, this manner of thinking need not necessarily discount justice or punishment, as criminals either suffer from some form of mental disablement or did not feel as though the repercussions of an apprehended immoral action was enough to deter them. In such a case, we must remember that the reality of the imposed punishment would be far greater than the potential of the imposed punishment. Naturally, it is relatively easy to make a clear distinction between acts of ‘free will’ and the inevitably caused actions in situations of such grandeur, and some would argue that on a daily basis this theory would be impractical. However, I say that there is still a distinction although it be subtle; I shall use the writing of this essay as an example. When faced with the decision to write this essay, two options presented themselves; to write it and not to write it. The first option, clearly the inevitable outcome for a sensible person, entails the causes of the value of parental and teacher satisfaction, university admittance, work ethics, competitive nature, the value of pride, and so forth. The second option. not to write, only had the motivational causes of manifesting laziness, relaxing, instantaneous pleasure etc. some of these motivations were unknown to me and not consciously thought of upon the commencement of the writing of this essay. Instinctively, I realized that it would be in my best interest to write this essay and this outcome was seemingly inevitable, for if beforehand a person were to have considered my actions, remembering that I had a fully and habitually functioning sensibility, they would have come to the conclusion that this was inevitable. The only way in which I would not be doing the inevitable would be if I illogically disregarded those motivations, discounted or perhaps miscounted the values of satisfaction, pride etc. Then I would be reducing, either intentionally or accidentally the influence of causality upon myself and thus apparently acting under my own ‘free will’ but really acting in a caused manner, which would be conducive to incorrectly assessing the situation..." ----- So yea, that was it. do what you want with it. Just don't steal it or else I'll cry and not be extremely happy (not that anyone really cares.) Hopefully you're all doing well, if not phone, email or fax me something. Better yet, come on up for a visit.. please? Just joking, but yea, if you need any of the above info (yes I do have a fax machine) just ask and I'll get the info to you and such. Sianara, -Captain B. Caused