FREEDOM

DETERMINISM—the
deterrent to
The freedom
view that we are
limited
in our choices and that
freedom isn’t always a
reality,
even for Americans
whose
circumstances may
often be
“determined” by things
beyond their control.
• Predestination
(Saint Augustine)
A type of determinism that
suggests that before birth our
lives are already mapped out for
us.

Institutional
Determinism
(Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
A type of determinism that
suggests that we could only be
free in our most innocent primitive
selves, and that as soon as
“leaders” and governments came
along with laws and other
institutions, freedom was
curtailed.
• Economic
Determinism
(Karl Marx)
A type of determinism that
suggests that freedom is curtailed
by social class and that the need
for money explains human
motivation.

• Behavioral
Determinism
(B. F. Skinner)
A type of determinism that
suggests that freedom is
determined by a network of
rewards and punishments that
weaves its web to deter us from
being totally free, CONDITIONING
us as soon as we are born.
• Genetic
Determinism
A type of determinism that suggests
that our genes determine the people
we become.

• Sociobiology
A type of determinism that suggests
that human behavior can be
understood in terms of the degree to
which we need to preserve and
reproduce our genes.
LIBERTARIANISM
—the possibility
for freedom
The view that we do
have
the possibility of
freedom,
that “free will” is,
indeed, a
possibility.
• Schopenhauer
Wondered if free will was always a
good thing, suggesting that
sometimes people are forced to act
because they have free will and that
the results are not always positive.

• Suggested
Williamthat James—
the world is a random
INDETERMINISM
collection of chance happenings
because of unpredictable acts of
people who are indecisive about
what they are going to do. These
people then experience regret or
relief depending upon the results of
those actions.
• Freud –
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Suggested that through
psychoanalysis, we can free
our minds and thus become
free to act as we wish, instead
of acting under the control of
something repressed in our
subconscious.
• Soren Kierkegaard & Martin
Buber
(RELIGIOUS EXISTENTIALISM)
Maintained that we are free to believe
or not believe as we choose, but once
having committed ourselves to a faith,
we must abide by it or face the bleak
possibility that life is without meaning.

• Jean-Paul Sartre, EXISTENTIALISM)

(SECULAR A. Camus, & Simone de
Beauvoir
Believed that no god exists, that we are
instead free to do whatever we choose,
but we must also accept the
consequences for the actions. We are,
thus, “doomed to freedom” and we
suffer “anguish” because of it.