Does it really matter whether we have a

free will or not?

To answer this question, we must first define free will, for the purpose of this essay we will
define free will as the power of an individual to make their own decision. So to simplify it, it
is the freedom for an individual to choose between option A or option B. Additionally, this
essay will be split into 3 different parts. We will first briefly touch on what really makes
something matter. Secondly we will look at the different arguments behind the various
viewpoints if free will really matters. This would include arguments such as nihilism, fatalism
in arguing that free will does not matter and to rebuttal those viewpoints and to argue that free
will does matter we will touch on the idea of moral responsibility and how it connects to free
will and as a result how that matters for every human being to have a free will.. Finally, to
conclude the essay I will put my personal viewpoint on this question. perceived as by
different philosophers but first let’s create a definition for free will that would help us tackle
this perplexing question. Free will is the ability to choose between option A and option B
with our owould be the libertarian, deterministic, compatibilism and lastly, we will on the
religious view. Finally at the end of this argument it is only correct to input my personal
belief on this question after proposing the various beliefs on free will.
Let us first break this question down into pieces and focus on certain areas. We will first
focus on the word ‘matter.’ What does it mean for something to matter or hold importance?
Well, different people will have different answers, but in this essay we will stick to one
definition. For something to matter it must hold a level of significance in a certain event and
therefore must have lasting consequences. This is quite obviously one of many definitions on
what ‘matter’ can be, but in this context, considering the question, we will stick with this
definition. Now we have a definition on what makes something matter, let’s put it into
practice and briefly answer if food and water matters for our existence. Considering our
definition of matter, food and water does matter since it holds a high level of importance in
maintaining our physical wellbeing, by providing the necessary nutrients needed to live. It
has lasting consequences of either improving our health or ruining our health, depending on
your diet. Nevertheless, regardless of having a good diet or not, without food and water we
would all be dead at a much quicker rate; thus concluding that food and water does matter for
our existence. Unlike food and water, free will has a much less obvious conclusion due to the
different philosophies that stems from this question. Despite this we will try to tackle this
question by talking about the two ends of the spectrum.
Let’s first argue that it does not matter whether or not we have a free will and lets link this to
the different philosophies that would agree to this statement. Fatalism is the idea that
everything is pre-determined so therefore every event that’s meant to be, will happen, it is
simply inevitable. In Greek mythology, if we look at the story of Oedipus, it almost proves
this theory. In short summary, Oedipus was destined to cause harm and doom his family, once
his parents knew about this they abandoned him and he was adopted by another family.
Despite this, a few years later Oedipus was prophesised to kill his father and marry his
mother. As he thought his real parents were the parents that adopted him, he chose to leave
his family forever, but when escaping he managed to kill his biological father and eventually
ended up marrying his biological mother. This is obviously completely fictional, but it does
help us understand fatalism. Taking this into consideration, fatalists may argue that it does not
matter if free will exists or not, what is prophesised to happen will happen eventually, even
when Oedipus’s parents had acted on their free will and abandoned their son to prevent the
prophecy; the prophecy still happened. Nihilism also somewhat agrees to the statement that it
does not really matter if we have free will or not. Nihilism is the belief that life has no
meaning. We can see in this in the word itself. ‘Nihi’ in Latin means nothing and ‘lism’ means
ideology, so to put it simply it’s the belief in nothing. If they don’t believe in nothing it means
that they don’t believe in free will, so it doesn’t matter to them whether there is free will or
not, because the event that happens has no clear purpose or significance, so why does it
matter if there is free will. So if both fatalism and nihilism believe that it doesn’t matter if
free will exists, then do they believe in human beings having a sense of moral responsibility
because surely the knowingness of the action that you committed was done by you creates a
sense of responsibility. However due to the posit that fatalism believes that every action is
inevitable and nihilism posits that free will in itself does not exist, then this almost reduces
the sense of responsibility that humans have when doing an action.
Therefore in terms of moral responsibility and the logic that free will allows for personal
responsibility; it does matter if humans have free will because if one believes that they have
no free will- hence feeling very little personal responsibility, then what is exactly stopping
them from committing the most heinous of crimes. While doing my research on this
question, I stumbled across the Daniel Dennett thought experiment which very much proves
the pointosit that free will does matter in a society. A person is diagnosed with obsessive
compulsive disorder (OCD) we will call him John, and the doctor, we will call her Megan,
recommends that they have a microchip inserted into John’s head to cure them from this
disorder. John agrees to the surgery and eventually has the microchip inserted. After the
surgery Megan jokingly said that John no longer has free will as the microchip controls every
bit of his consciousness so even if he thinks that he is acting according to their own will, he
really is not. John then goes back to his normal life, but he now thinks he has no free will
anymore, so what does he do? John getgets a little self-indulgent, aggressive and negligent in
how he decides what to do and eventually by indulging himself in terrible acts, he eventually
gets himself committing a crime. John is put into trial and he says “But, your honour I don’t
have free will I’m under the control of the neurosurgeon clinic.” Eventually the doctor is
called up and she said it was just a joke. But despite it being a ‘joke’ it pretty much
accomplished what she said to John. By telling him that he has no free will, effectively
disabled his free will and turned him into a morally incompetent person and you could even
argue a slave to his own desires. Having a free will therefore does matter since it allows one
to act accordingly and with a conscious that they have control of themselves. In the contrary,
if they had no free will, then individuals would think that they have little control over their
mind and consciousness so will act carelessly. However you may argue that Daniel Dennett’s
experiment is merely a theory, but we do see this happening in real life when Vohs and
Schooler set up an experiment to actually test if it really mattered if people thought we had a
sense of free will in real life. This test was made up of two groups of college students. Both
were given Francis Crick’s book ‘The Astonishing Hypothesis’. However, one group was
given a text about free will that said free will is not real and it doesn’t matter whether we
have a free will or not since free will itself is a mere illusion, while the other was not about
free will. After reading the passage both groups were given a puzzle to solve that has money
as its reward. However, the experimenters made the puzzle slightly defective so there was a
way of cheating on the puzzle, and this was inadvertently revealed to both groups. At the end
what they saw was that the group that read the text of free will being an illusion cheated at a
much higher rate than the other group. What we can infer from this passage is that by having
no free will and saying that free will is an illusion makes people less concerned about the
implications of their actions and they therefore become careless of their own decision
making.
Overall, it is correct to say that it does matter that every human being has a sense of free will
to ensure control and stability within a country or society. However, fatalists may argue
against and say if every action is pre-determined then it does not matter if we have free will
since fate is inevitable. Nihilists may say that it makes no difference in having free will or not
since nothing in life, such as events has no purpose and a clear ‘why’. Others may also
rebuttal and say that everyone knows that there are consequences to their actions, so in that
sense people can act with rationality. Though this may be correct free will itself allows for
people to have a higher sense of moral responsibility. Even if people knew the consequences
of their actions, they can still act in any way possible, but having this free will and
acknowledging that you have it makes everyone accountable to themselves and therefore
allows for greater responsibility and a more stable society. For example, in a universe where
there is no free will, according to the logic, that with free will comes personal responsibility
and the Vohs and schoolers test we can correctly say that their society may be much more
chaotic and unstable compared to a universe that has free will. Therefore, to conclude this
essay it does matter if we have a free will since for something to matter it must hold a high
level of significance, and free will does indeed hold a high level of importance in that it
fosters responsibility and rationality as well as stability in a society.
Abyan Mohammed