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This is a blog for students in Meredith Aby-Keirstead's Introduction to Philosophy class at Jefferson High School in Bloomington, MN. There is an expectation by the instructor & the JHS administration that the same standards for behavior & respect at JHS apply to the blog.
Socrates
20 comments:
A decision I made because of response to stimuli and behavioral conditioning was going to school today because I knew if I didn't come, I couldn't do everything I want to do tonight. A free will decision was to get a muffin this morning. I agree with the behavioral conditioning argument more because I feel like that most things come with a good and bad consequence and people are kind of trained to want to do the good for a reward rather than have a negative outcome.
I made the decision to get Pokemon Black because of my concerns with the other Pokemon games. Black has a city where you can buy any of the evolution items that you need. This saves me time and the chance at losing an evolution because I do not have the proper items for the evolution.
Free will is applied to the choice of... well there really isn't one. Except maybe when I go to bed, which is rarely ever. Instead I tend to pass out more than actually fall asleep due to my own volition.
I agree more with Skinner because I can see the factors that have affected my decisions. There have been choices I could not make if I expect to live life and as such I assume that Skinner is more correct in how choices are made.
I really want to go to Madison, Wisconsin for college. I could say this is my free will, but really I have been conditioned to want to go there. My cousin went there, I have many friends that go there, they have a good program for what I want to study, and more. My environment programed me to want to go there. My actual free will was choosing to apply to a bunch of other colleges that I may also want to go to. I studied these colleges because of my own interest and then made a choice of where to apply. I agree more with Sartre because I feel that every decision is truly free will. Other factors may influence me but in the end the decisions I make are my free will.
a "decision" i made that was a response to my surroundings was that i chose to listen to my ipod during this blog post because it is loud with people talking and i couldn't concentrate. However, it was my free will to choose whichever song i wanted to listen to. i believe in a happy medium between the two, i can't say i like one more than the other. i believe that we have the choice to do whatever we want, but we do have some predetermined actions in our lives. each action we choose determines which specific path our lives will take. also, many of our decisions are effected by our surroundings and what we have been conditioned to do.
A decision that was made recently that wasmade because of behavioral conditioning was going to school. I didn't want to go to school but being told numerous times that I had to in the past now makes me make the decision to go to school. Something that was made by free will was when I decided to make a cheese quesadilla for snack, and it was very good. I think that they are both right.
When I went to shopping I saw a lot of shirts that I liked.I had $30 so I could buy a shirt around that price range.There was two that I liked that were $28 so I couldn't buy anything thats more expensive at the store.I made my decision to pick a shirt in the price range that I had because I didn't have a lot more money so I couldn't pick anything that I wanted.
I had a free will when I was applying for colleges.My gpa determined what schools I qualify for the admission requirements so whatever college I met the standards I could apply for.I picked the region I wanted to be in because it was completely my own decision.I will pick my major in business because it's my own decision.
I agree with Sartre more because free will is more common in our free country and I apply it more in my life.
I made a decision to play basketball at a young age because of the behavioral conditioning that skinner talked about. Many males in my life were playing basketball almost religiously so that probably had a lot to do with me playing hoops as well. A free will decision that I made was to transfer from Eden Prairie last year to jefferson this year. I believe that everything we do has already been paved out by God, so really its free will in our minds but God already knows what we will do before we do it.
Today, I came to school. I have come to school most of the school days for more than 10 years. This is because my parents tell me to and I am accustomed to it. However, this is also an example of free will. I made the decision to come to school; I was not coerced into it. If I had desired to skip school, I could have. However, I did not have this desire based on the likely outcomes of that action and past experiences in my life. I am a compatibilist; so I disagree equally with Skinner and Sartre in that free will and determinism are mutually exclusive. I disagree more with Sartre because I do not believe it makes sense to say that we can make decisions that are not completely based on our life experiences. We make our own choices based on what we want to do because of events in our past.
The most recent example I can think of where I made a decision that was almost pre-determined was going to the movies a few days ago. My brother offered to take me to see I am Number Four, for free, and of course I said yes. Now how many people are going to deny a free movie and popcorn? Not much I can tell you that. An example for Sartre's argument would be me saying no to eating McDonald's. Simple choices can be random and are not always determined.
I don't believe I have ever made a decision that was predetermined. It may have been steered in that direction by a free choice I had already made, but the action itself was not set in stone. There are many choices I've made for myself, one would be how I chose not to eat corn from a can last night. I don't like corn. Even though I don't like corn, it's not set in stone that I'll never eat it. So when I made the decision not to eat the corn, it was my own, even if someone were to have said I wouldn't eat the corn earlier. I agree more with Sartre than I do Skinner. Free will is how people make decisions. Those decisions may narrow down your choice options until you're eventually left with the basic 'do or don't' option. No one will be able to say 'you will do this' because it was your choice in the first place.
An example of 'free will' that is actually social conditioning is my appreciation of Apple computers over Windows computers. At first look, it seems as if I made this decision myself by weighing the strengths and weaknesses of each type of computer. However, because all throughout my life in the Bloomington schools, I have been using Apple computers. The person in our family that we all go to for computer advice strongly prefers Macs, and Macs are generally treated to be more sleek in our society. So, I have been socially conditioned to prefer Apple computers.
An example of when I had free will was when I chose what book to read for an English project. I chose a book that was not one that the teacher had recommended, or one that any of my friends or family members had read. Nobody had hinted that it would be a good book to read, but I found it and chose to read it.
I think I agree with Sartre's arguments more. I think that if we lived in a world where people did not feel like they had responsibility for their own actions, a lot more awful things would happen because people could just push the blame onto other things. I think that a lot of tragic things happen today even, because people are unwilling to take responsibility. I think that in the end, no matter how hard outside forces push you in one direction, you always have a choice to push back. However, I think that it is important to realize the forces that may push people in one directions,in order to be more sympathetic of why they made the choices they did.
My decision of which college to go to, which is Mankato State University, was both a conscious and unconscious decision. One may argue that I was determined to choose that place. I do no know what my major will be, and the school provides me with many choices. It is close to home, so I can return if need be. Many of my friends will be going there, so I can stay in touch. All of these factors could be attributed to causing me to choose MSU. On the other hand, all those factors all contributed to MY decision. Those things didn't cause me to choose it, they helped me. The choice was ultimately mine, and if I did not feel that school best suited me then I would not have applied.
This morning I brushed my teeth! I do it every morning (pretty much....KEHEHE), which I was taught to do as a child. I also know that I am more likely to get cavities, which are no fun, if I don't brush. My friends might also ostracize me if my mouth is icky and smelly. Brushing my teeth is a part of my morning routine, something I'm conditioned to do and don't really think about as a choice.
This morning I also made the decision not to eat breakfast. This was in my free will because I weighed my options and sometimes decide differently. I wasn't very hungry and I was running late, so I decided to skip it. Fortunately, my pal gave me some pastry she made and it's all good.
My dad is making me go to my sisters play although I don't want too. I had free will when I go to bed every night. I agree with Sartre's argument but I also agree with Skinner's argument as well. I agree with them both even though I think there is more free will because I think that the decision you make is already chosen you just get to "pick" it.
I'm not really sure what decisions I've made that were based entirely on stimuli and behavioral conditioning. I know that when I eat at night it's probably an automatic response to just being hungry, which is based on stimuli, but a lot of the time I don't even get up to get something to eat just because I don't feel like it, which is free will. I think that the final decisions I make are all based on free will, but the process of finding a reason to make a decision is based on conditioning and stimuli. I definitely agree more with Sartre.
Something that I think was a decision that I made as a response is to say sorry after doing anything that didn't help someone. For example, if i bump into someone in a hallway or on the street, I always say I'm sorry before even thinking. Before trying to think of something else, the "sorry" just comes from learning to be sorry for mistakes as a kid in elementary school. I get to choose what tv show I get to watch and which ones I don't watch as free will. I agree a little more with Skinner because what you learn as a kid stays with you until you fell your individualism later on in life.
I forgot to say which guy I agree with more. I agree with Sartre more because if we analyze all of our actions, we usually do have the free will to do something different, and we can't blame our wrong doings on others.
I did not decide on coming to school today. That was a decision that was made for me because if I didn't, my parents would kill me. I would love to have just not come to school today (at least until 1 when I leave with Connection for Chicago). Something I did decide on is cutting in the breakfast line. It is technically against the rules to budge in line but I chose to anyway because I hate waiting and there was no one there to stop me. I am one of the people that thinks there is a balance between both the philosophers' ideas. I do not think this is a black and white situation. You make your own decisions, but things influence your decisions and sometimes so intensively that you pretty much do not have a choice.
The Cure is my favorite band because my Dad has been listening to them since I was a little kid. If he had listened to more Sublime, there's a possibility that they would be my favorite band instead. Either way, I was surrounded by music as I grew up. If I hadn't been, there's no knowing if I would love it as much as I do at this point.
However, there are some bands my Dad listens to that I have never really liked, even if I was raised with them. Creed, for example. I have chosen not to like that band even though my Dad has been like "Yo! Creed is awesome!" for the last eighteen years.
I agree more with Sartre because I think that regardless of people's upbringing and environment, they are completely capable of making their own choices. However, I think their environment helps to influence their decisions a little. And likewise, their free choices dictate their environment to follow!
A behavior made in response to stimuli was to get up and come to school this morning. I was tired and wanted to stay home, but I made the "choice" to come to school because I knew that the consequences of not doing so would be things I didn't want to deal with.
A free-will decision I can think of is when I decided to join the Speech team. It's nothing like ny other activity my family is involved in or was involved in when they were in school, and none of my friends did it. In short, it was outside my sphere of exposure, yet I heard about it and chose to do it anyway.
I definitely agree with Sarte more--no human being or any decision that human makes can be predicted. There are people who grew up in lower-class inner-city environments who end up happy, healthy, and successful; there are people who grew up in the white-picket-fence/two-kids-and-a-dog stereotype who end up as addicts. These end results are because of that person and their choices, not because of outside factors. You always have a choice.
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