philosophy course work william lee

8/14/2019 Philosophy Course Work William Lee

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Philosophy Coursework:

To what extent human beings should be treated equally due to thedeterministic nature of our life?

In this modern world, we human beings are forced to survivethrough such complex and busy society. As well as getting morecomplex and busier, the size of the society and culture is growingtremendously due to globalization. International social interactionsare now crucial factor in our life. However, despite the fact thetechnology and culture is exclusively expanding, fundamentalquestions are still not answered. Fundamental philosophicalquestions raised by human beings seem impossible to be answered.In addition, it is quite obvious that there are no ultimate answers

for these questions. Thus, only opinions and ideas can be suggestedto these questions.

In this essay I would like to tackle this fundamental question andexpress my view on why and to what extent human beings shouldbe treated equally due to the deterministic nature. Firstly, I wouldlike to investigate our understanding of human beings in general.Secondly, discussion of deterministic nature of human beings will becontinued. My view of human beings was stimulated from anadvertisement of Benetton. In the advertisement there are three

hearts of human beings and each of them are labeled as white,black and yellow. The message of the advertisement is apparent.The message from Benetton is that all human beings are equal andsame. The hearts visually symbolizes the common factor of humanbeings. As we are well aware of the fact, the heart is the mostimportant organ in our body. Without it, human beings can notsurvive a single day. Therefore, Benetton suggests that as all heartsare identical, all human beings are also identical.

Human beings are multifaceted and mysterious beings that aredifficult to deal with. Even with high technology we have these days

can not fully understand human beings from both physical andpsychological perception. For this reason being, we often face thedifficulty explaining and understanding what human beingsfundamentally is. What are human beings? is one of the mostphilosophical questions that have been touched upon numerousphilosophers throughout the long history. However, none of thosephilosophers were able to explain clearly what human beings reallyare.

Therefore, defining human beings strike us as a great struggle.

However, explaining or describing what human beings is also anintricate problem. We all study and describe human beings from


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biological perspective. We all surely can describe what humanbeings look like. However, does biological appearance of humanbeings define and symbolize who we really are? If so it should notbe due to the fact all human beings have varying biological system.Different race, gender and age of people have distinguishing

biological factors. Thus, biological perspective of human beingscannot define us.

My question is, so what does human beings actually all have incommon? Despite all those race, gender, age and religion is thereone unifying factor that combines and unifies human beings as one?My answer is this; we all human beings are determined to die oneday. Human beings can be defined and symbolized as beings thatwill disappear and die one day. There are many doubts andquestions on what human beings are. However, it is the absolute

thus, undisputed that we all die. Death is the only unifying factor.All human beings are equal in front of death.

Determinism is a theory that states that every event has a cause.In other words, everything is determined to be what is supposed tobe. However, strictly speaking determinism is not a theory ofnormative ethics but the doctrine of universal causation.Determinism may not be or cannot be used to justify any unmoralethical actions. The theory determinism is closely related towhether human beings possess free will. Discussion of free willleads determinism to split into three different views, which are hard

determinism, libertarianism and soft determinism.

Philosophers have reacted to this problem in a variety of ways.Firstly, hard determinists accept determinism and therefore rejectfreedom and moral responsibility. Secondly, there are the so-calledlibertarians, who accept freedom and moral responsibility and thusreject determinism. Lastly, there are so-called soft determinists orcompatibilists, who argue that determinism is essential to thenotion of free action.

Hard determinists maintain that everything in the universe,including all human actions and choices, has a cause whichprecedes it; and that this is the same as saying that once theycause has occurred the thing itself (the effect) will occur. Thisargument, known as the theory of universal causation, carries withit the further proposition that all events are in principle predictable.In other words, hard determinists claim that all causation isdetermined thus, it is out of human beings control. This can beviewed as very dangerous argument due to the fact all sorts ofimmoral actions can be justified. Therefore, hard determinismtheory can be simply conveyed as excuse of immorality for thosewho do not believe in hard determinism.


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Another important point raised by hard determinists is that humanbeings are not free at all. Thus, if a man appears to have a moralchoice, this appearance is an illusion. The philosopher John Locke(1632-1704) strongly suggested freedom of human beings is merelyan illusion. In his classic case, suppose that a sleeping man is

placed in locked room. On awakening he decides to stay where heis, not knowing that the room is already locked. This is a realdecision taken by him, it is freely made and he might have decidedto leave; but in reality he has no choice and it is only his ignoranceof his true condition which made him think otherwise.

Libertarians stand at the very opposite side of hard determinists.Libertarians do not reject determinism entirely, however they do notagree with the principle of causation which claims human action andhuman behavior is predictable. Libertarians distinguish between

persons formed character or personality and a persons moral self.For libertarians, personality is an empirical concept, governed bycausal laws, thus capable of scientific explanation and predictionand known through observation of behavior and psychoanalysis.However, the moral self is not an empirical but an ethical concept,operative when we decided what to do in situations or moral choice.Libertarians argument seems quite logical; as they assumed theexistence of free will in situations of moral choices, but has providedno evidence for it.

Both hard determinism and libertarianism seem to have their

reasons, logic and ideas behind it, on the other hand I personally donot agree with both theories. Instead I agree with soft deterministswho express similar idea of mine.

Soft determinists simply claim that human freedom and moralresponsibility, far from being incompatible with determinism, isincomprehensible without it. In addition, soft determinists conveythe assumption of that determinism is inconsistent with free willcomes from the result of considerable confusion about whatprecisely we mean when we say we are free. The theory fatalism is

closely related to soft determinism Fatalism is the view that humanbeings are powerless to change the cause of events and that whatwill be, will be. Simply saying, soft determinists support both viewsof free will (that we have choices to certain extent) and fatalism(that we are determined thus can not change the cause of events).

If I apply this soft determinism theory to human beings, it seemsvery reasonable that human beings should be treated equally. As weare well aware of the fact, us human beings believe and realize thatwe have choices to some extent. This so called freedom allows usto change the future if we desire. However, as well as we have freewill of some kind we are still determined. All human beings aredetermined to die one day.


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For human beings, birth is a cause of death. Thus, as we are born,we are born with the fate to die one day. In addition, we are bornequally. The birth of human beings is a foreshadowing of the death.Thus, death is not a tragic. It is the most fundamental truth thateveryone can agree upon. It is the most logical and natural

occurrence that can happen to human beings.

However, the society we are living in exaggerates and presentsdeath as something negative and distressing. Thus, human beingsare internalized to fear death. As human beings fear death, we loseour meaning of life. We become obsessed with physical possession.

This obsession and fear of death causes discrimination anddesegregation between races, genders and religions. Human beingsforget the fundamental reality that we are all equal. I personallythink that this misconception of inequality is caused by the illusionof free will. As human beings can change accordingly through freewill, people consider that one can be better than others, thustreated differently. However, this is not the case as all humanbeings are equal in front of death and determined to die.

My conclusion is simple, that all human beings must be treatedequally. As I have explained clearly above, from a soft deterministsview, we have some free will but we are also determinedmeanwhile. However, I am aware of the fact that this may not bepossible due to lack of ignorance of people. It is clear that people

will continuously evade seeing the ultimate truth called death.However, if my essay made the readers to think twice about humanbeings and its deterministic nature, I firmly believe that I haveplayed the role of stimuli by raising the issue of human equality.

philosophy course work william lee

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