Free will is a concept in traditional philosophy used to refer to the belief that human behavior is not absolutely determined by external causes, but is the result of choices made by an act of will by the agent (Carroll). This means that all choices made with free will were not forced or imposed upon anyone. There are two theories on why humans act the way they do. There is the free will theory and the theory that we are molded by some other entity.

 

There are many different theories on what that “other entity” may be that makes us do the things we do. Many people believe that God controls everything a person does and therefore we as humans have no free will. However, even great philosophers such as Thomas Hobbs said that “God is the ultimate cause of every action, but as long as a person is not physically forced to do an act, the act is free.” This brings me to my argument about people committing crimes because they are forced into a life of crime by society.

 

I feel that people who commit crimes use society as an excuse. If even God cannot force us to do something, why should we believe that society made someone commit a crime? If a person decides to go out and shoots somebody, society did not make them do that. Society did not buy the gun, society didn’t load the gun, and society did not pull the trigger. More importantly, society did not make the person buy the gun, load it, or shoot anyone.

 

I truly believe that when a crime is committed it is committed in free will. However, Mr. Carroll does bring up a good point in his essay when he talks about the Christian philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas.
St. Thomas Aquinas believed that there were some exceptions to the free will rule. For instance, babies and mentally challenged individuals may not have the ability to form free will. A person cannot be accused of doing something in their own free will if it cannot be established that they were able to form a rational decision to do something. For example, if a toddler finds a gun in his father’s office and accidentally shoots his father, it cannot be argued that the toddler shot his father on his or her own free will and therefore cannot be called a murder. The toddler was incapable of forming free will. Now, if a mentally stable 21 year old adult is placed in the same scenario, a murder has taken place, not an accident. The difference in the two scenarios is that the adult has the ability to form a decision based upon free will.

 

I do strongly agree with the idea that there are some exceptions to the free will theory. If a person is incapable of making choices for themselves that rules out all possibility of them having the ability to do anything in their own free will. I believe that is why the insanity plea was put into place in the criminal justice system. I do feel however, that many individuals who made bad choices try and use the insanity plea as a scapegoat and it often works. But if a person is truly unable to do something in his or her own free will, I don’t believe that they should be held responsible for an action that they may have committed.

 

People who believe in free will are called libertarians (Carroll) .They believe that while people may not be able to control everything in the universe, human nature is controlled specifically by humans. It is not controlled by God, society, or anything else.