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Free Will and DeterminismFree will
The notion of free will suggests that as human beings We are essentially self-determining
and free to choose our thoughts and actions. A belief in free will does not deny that there
may be biological and environmental forces that exert some influence on our behaviour, but
nevertheless implies that we are able to reject these forces as the masters (or mistresses) of
our own destiny. This is a view of human behaviour that is advocated by the humanistic
approach.
Determinism
In contrast determinism proposes that free will has no place in explaining behaviour, though
there we are hard and soft versions.
Hard determinism, sometimes referred to as fatalism, suggests that all human behaviour
has a cause, and, in principle, it should be possible to identify and describe these causes.
Such a position is compatible with the aims of science - to uncover the causal laws that
govern thought and action - and always assumes that everything we think and do is dictated
by internal or external forces that we cannot control. For some, however, this is too
extreme a position.
Soft determinism The philosopher William James (1890) was the first to put forward the
notion of soft determinism - a position that later became an important feature of the
cognitive approach. Whilst acknowledging that all human action has a cause, soft
determinists also suggest some room for manoeuvre in that people have conscious mental
control over the way they behave. James thought that whilst it may be the job of scientists
to explain the many determining forces that act upon us, this does not detract from the
freedom we have to make rational conscious choices in everyday situations.
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