Today’s discussion was focused mainly on the concept of free
will and whether or not it exists. Free will separates form animals and makes
each person a unique, individual, but if free will is removed and everything is
planned out people will basically become robots. The idea of being able to do whatever
a person wants is what motivates them to get up every morning. I think it’s
ironic that societal institutions tease people with the idea of free will to
keep them from breaking off from the flock. Throughout a person’s upbringing,
they’re always told they could be whatever they want, whatever they can
imagine. However, that’s not true, most of the population follows the same path
for their whole life. Even if a person realizes society is preventing them from
having free will, it’s hard to actually break off from society because the
institutions are so omnipresent. I do think that people exercise their free
will in rather small ways, for example, doing the opposite of what someone says
out of spite or simply to not want to be predictable. Shapiro made an interesting
point about prison that the worst punishment in society is completely removing
a person’s free will, which removes their humanity.
No comments:
Post a Comment