"We do not possess any genuine freedom to act ethically" Discuss.
A person who acts ethically is one who will choose to make good decisions, those that are morally right and good avoiding the wrong decisions which may have negative consequences. We can link the idea of acting ethically with morals, as an ethical person will have a good set of morals, this is because it is our morals that help is to freely decide which decisions to make, and encourage us to act selflessly and ethically.
Believers in the Free Will or incompatiblism, would argue that the choices we make in life are entirely our own, and that if we live a moral life and make good decisions, that is something that we have chosen to do. They believe that Free Will itself is having the ability to choose to do whatever you like; to choose between right and wrong actions, we do however need to understand that we hold the responsibility for the outcome of those choices and have to deal with the consequences. This argument therefore supports the idea that we have the genuine freedom to act ethically, their belief that each person is born with Free Will and therefore the right to make their own decisions whether they be good or bad means they can choose to act ethically or not, making us morally responsible for our actions. This argument then, to a certain extent removes the idea of God, in that it is saying we can choose to do whatever we wish, it can however, be argued that God chose to give us Free Will and it is a way in which he will judge us by looking at the way in which we live our life on earth.
Libertarians claim that we have total free will. Therefore we have complete moral responsibility. All of our actions are based on the assumption that we are free. Therefore choices are not influenced by outside factors like upbringing or other outside forces. A kleptomaniac may be inclined to steal, but has the choice not to, therefore they are still morally responsible for stealing....