Blog 6: Free Will and Determinism

Throughout history and even today's society, there has been conflict and hard thinking on Free Will and Determinism. Do we have free will? Can we have free will with or without determinism? There are different elements that tie into the two of free will and determinism. Free will is to have choice options, no external pressure but yet internal motivation on any given situation. While determinism is the belief that there are things in life that have only one and definite outcome such as gravity, and death. In Oedipus the King and Minority Report, the main characters have come across the difficult path of free will and determinism.

In Minority Report, the citizens are living in a world of pre-crime. Pre-crime is a system in which precogs can tell the future of a murder so therefore it is within the force of the police to stop that crime of murder from happening and put the perpetrators in jail. In this mist of the pre-crime system, in order to be safe how much privacy do you have to give up in order preventing these predetermined futures from happening? Being that in the world of Miniority Report is so pre-prevented there is free will but to a certain extent in which hard determinism is a threat to free will.

"Having free will is thought to require two things: alternate possibilities and self-control.” (Heumer, 104). In Minority Report, John Anderton the chief of police finds himself in the situation of which his future is being predetermined that he will be the murderer of a man named Leo Crow. Anderton never heard nor see a man named Leo Crow. As he finds out that he will commit the crime of murder, he tries to escape his future but at the same is only getting closer than he expected. Anderton is now face-to-face with Leo Crow holding a gun. According to the pre-crime system and the precogs there’s determinism, only one future is possible – and that’s Anderton being the murderer of Leo Crow. “One thing that is often said is that when we make choices, at least some of the time, we are directly, introspectively aware of our freedom.” (Huemer, 108). John Anderton has two choices – to kill Leo Crow, or to not kill Leo Crow. Being that Anderton has a bit of free will, he has deliberated to think of alternate possibilities and have self-control. And with free will, he has made the decision not to kill Leo Crow, which proves the minority report of pre-crime.

As so in Minority Report, in the play Oedipus the King; Oedipus faces the choice between free will and determinism. In Oedipus case, he faced a choice of hard determinism in which only one future is possible. Oedipus the king of Thebes, went to the prophecy Teiresias. Teiresias told Oedius that he will kill his father and marry his mother. With this in his mind, he has yet to realize that he has already committed the crime of his father, and the incest with his mother. He tried to escape his future such as Anderton did, but he has already committed something that has already happened. He has his vision but didn’t understand. For Oedipus there was no free will involve, there was only determinism in which he only had only one and definite outcome.