Kane on the subject of Free Will
In this paper I will argue that Robert Kane does not justify his reasoning for the existence of deeper freedom, that is, in freedom of controlling who we are and what we desire. All that exists are surface freedoms from which our character is molded by indeterministic outcomes of our choices. I will also argue that responsibility for an action is irrelevant in determining whether free will exists or not, because that is dependent on the existence of deeper freedom which does not exist.Kane believes that in order for free will to exist, a person must be ultimately responsible for their actions. If choices made by a person can be sufficiently explained by their character and motives (including prior conditions) which in turn were molded voluntarily by the individual by past choices or actions, they can be held responsible and can be said to have free will. Kane makes a point of saying that this does not require that all of our actions made in the past were voluntary or decided by us, but that at least some were. To this, Kane says, neither determinism (where all events are caused by antecedent sufficient conditions), nor indeterminism (where the outcome has nothing to do with antecedent
Not having control over what to choose or decide renders the person unable to take personal responsibility for what happened, hence, free will would not exist. But in order for a person to take responsibility for their character, they must have influenced it somehow by some self-forming action. Kane never justifies his reason for the existence of a deeper freedom, and for that I blame the fact that a deeper freedom simply does not exist because we are determined creatures. However, the choices that a person comes up with in the first place, in order to cause these self-formulating actions, do not necessarily come from deeper freedom. Kane says that he believes there is such thing as deeper freedom, which would mean that we have control over who we are and what we want. A person can never be responsible for what they want for the simple reason that they did not decide to be the person (i. " Here Kane suggests that a person must make effort to overcome one choice over another, and by placing this effort they can be held responsible for their attempt at a purposeful outcome. The actual outcome of her deliberation is undeterminable though, says Kane. From the time they were first created there were already determined characteristics which would determine what they want now, or in other words, the choices that a person is faced with now comes from the formation of their character over years of random character-building indeterministic events. Similarly, the same responsibility of the individual on their actions does not follow with indeterminism; if indeterminism were true, then the choices available to a person are essentially random, because a different choice could have just as easily been formulated given the same past. It seems as though self-forming actions are actually mere surface freedoms, rather than deeper freedoms, by virtue that the actual choices that a person formulates depends upon their determined-thus-far character. The individual in no way ever chooses to be the character that they are; rather, they are the result of a determined series of events, starting from the DNA of the embryo that they formed from onwards. What doesn't follow here is that this is a situation of surface freedom, not necessarily a case of deeper freedom.
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