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 To what extent are human beings free tocontrol the fate of others?

I have chosen a short scene from a series called 24 to base my

philosophy coursework on. During this scene a CTU agent is operatingundercover with terrorists with the main objective to finding the 9canisters of nerve gas. During undercover activity jack is forced tomake the decision of deciding weather to maintain his cover, whichwould mean he would have to poison the air in a mall killing hundredsof people, or to blow his cover thus saving the lives of hundreds of innocent people. During this operation Jack’s superiors order him tohold his cover and to leak nerve gas into the mall. Jack however doesthe opposite thing and blows his cover failing his mission of finding the9 canisters of nerve gas thus putting millions of lives in danger.

During this operation government agent jack bower holds the fate of thousands even millions of innocent lives. Does Jack the free will tomake this decision? To what extent are human beings free to controlthe fate of others? Is free will an illusion? During this essay I willconsider different opinions to this question to try to find an answer tothis question.

 To answer this question I will need to look at the question of free will.Free will directly effects human control over the fate of others, this iswhy knowledge of the existence if free will answer the question of human control over others. If free will was possible then the extent towhich humans can control others will be limitless however if free willwas an impossible feat then humans would have no control overanything.

Firstly I will consider the answer to this question through a deterministpoint of view. A determinist believes that “all events, including humanchoices and decisions, have sufficient causes”. This belief leads themto assume that every thing is determined by an unbroken chain of prioroccurrences. So from a determinist’s point of view human beings arenot free to control the fate of others at all as the fate of everything isnot controlled by anyone and is completely unavoidable. Moderndeterminists hold the belief that fate is determined by an unbrokenchain of prior occurrences however they believe that the first link tothis chain was the creation of the earth which is largely believed tohave been created by the big bang. However to answer this question Icannot look at think from a determinist point of view as according tothem humans are not free and cannot control fate as it is unavoidable.

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Since determinists do not believe that humans have free will then theycannot possibly control the fate of another human life.

Another view that is important to use when attempting to answer thisquestion is to consider the opinion of fatalists. Fatalist’s beliefs are

very similar to determinists except that fatalists believe that they havefree will unlike determinists however everything will work towards aninevitable end. So if a fatalist was in the same situation as Jack was inhe would believe that whatever he did it would lead to an inevitableend. So according to fatalists we have the free will to control the fateof other humans, however this final end has already been determined.

A different approach to answering this question is by considering theopinion of a philosopher in history called Aristotle. According to his lifeworks he believes that “nothing of what happens is as chance has it,but everything is and happens of necessity.” We can assume from hisbeliefs he will agree with many determinists in saying that we have nocontrol over life thus we have no control over the lives of others. Itmay seem that Aristotle believes in free will when he said “nothing of what happens is as chance has it” the true meaning of this is that eventhough it may seem that we have free will through the decisions wemake however what we perceive as free will is actually just the only setcourse of events that is set by fate.

Predestinations are very different from determinists and fatalists in thesense that they believe in the higher being and that God determinedthe fate of the universe before his creation (humans). If this were truethen God would have created humans without free will as free willcannot exist without the ability to choose your own outcome whichcannot be possible if God has determined the fate of humans.

Another approach of answering this question is by considering theopinion of compatibilist’s. Compatibilist’s maintain the belief thatdeterminism is compatible with free will. However compatibilist’s also

believe that someone’s free will can be taken away in cases like rape,murder, theft, or other forms of constraint. In these cases, free will islacking not because the past is causally determining the future, butbecause the aggressor is overriding the victim's desires andpreferences about his own actions. The aggressor is coercing the victimand, according to compatibilist’s this is what overrides free will. Thus,they argue that determinism does not matter; what matters is thatindividuals' choices are the results of their own desires and

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preferences, and are not overridden by some external force. Thereforein a compatibilist’s view humans to some extent have the freedom tocontrol the fate of other human beings.

I can consider the views of another philosopher to help me to answer

this question. David Hume a classical compatibilist wrote in his lifeworks where he briefly his beliefs on free will and human control. Hestated that "this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong toevery one who is not a prisoner and in chains". According to DavidHume free will can only belong to those who are not being trappedagainst their own wills.

 To fully answer this question I will also need to explore a science basedtheory called the butterfly effect. An example of how this theory isimportant to my question of human control is that: A butterflies wingsmight create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter

the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent theoccurrence of a tornado in a certain location. If this theory is possibleand true then it could mean that humans have no free will and thateverything is controlled by ‘initial conditions’. Thus there is no controlover the fate of anything.

In conclusion I think that from every point of view that I haveconsidered that humans to a large extent can have the freedom tocontrol the fate of others. However if one human has control overanother then that person will have a lack of free will themselves. Sofree will can only be achieved if you are not willed or controlled byanother entity. Therefore In my opinion the situation with governmentagent Jack Bower is one that is made possible as the people whoselives are in danger have no control over what the outcome will be inthe situation. Jack Bower acts as a higher power controlling their fatewithout their knowledge of it.