Are Our Decisions Pre-Determined?

Are Our Decisions Pre-Determined?
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Are Our Decisions Pre-Determined?
What if the decisions you make every day are already decided for you? What if the decision to wake up at 5 am is not really your decision? What if everything we do is pre-determined, and our quest to attain free will is but an illusion or mirage? These are scary thoughts that can interfere with the normal flow of life. People have become accustomed to certain routines that they believe they are in control of. Routines of life seem to be the result of firm decisions made by people with clear and free minds. Further, all these decisions feel personal, and most people believe they are completely in control of their lives. However, looking at how advertising is carried out today and how manipulative it has become, one wonders whether other sectors of life follow similar scripts. For example, simple and seemingly insignificant tags like $19.99 happen to influence people to buy certain products. In their study, Manning and Sprott (2009) indicate that retailers happen to use the ‘left-digit effect’ to influence or manipulate people into buying their products. The researchers reveal that people tend to be influenced by the left-most digit of the price of an item when they are comparing it to a substitute. For example, Manning and Sprott (2009) reveal that more customers will consider buying a pen priced at $3.99 than one priced at $2.00. The above example shows how people are influenced every day into buying certain products. The quality could be the same, but the majority end up buying the one that is most expensive. This could be one angle where the decisions people make are influenced and planned for. So, what if all other decisions that people make are premeditated? What if life decisions are a result of certain stimuli or subtle factors (price tweaks) that shape the way people behave, the decisions they make, and the doctrines and value systems people subscribe to?
This research paper will be guided by the question: Are the decisions people make every day pre-determined. Guided by this question, this paper will seek to discuss humanity’s decision-making system and the subtle factors that happen to influence behavior and decisions on a daily basis. Further, it will discuss the idea of free will being an illusion and the idea that no one is ever free regardless of the universality of freedom.
Does Free Will Exist?
Mainstream Understanding of Free Will
The mainstream understanding of free will is the ability to what one wants. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2018) defines free will as a person’s power over the choices they make and their actions. This means that someone believes that they have free will when their decisions are not under the influence of anything or anyone. The article further explains that there are two instances that often cause debate over the idea of free will. The first instance is, does free will factor in a person’s ability to go against their choices or actions? The other one is whether free will exists because a person is the originator of a choice, decision, or action. For most people, having free will encompasses both instances where someone can be the origi...