Curiosity didn't kill the cat...

WARNING: This blog may contain information that contradicts what you believe, but I’m challenging you to open up your mind as you read further.

In The Scarlet Letter, guilt is strongly felt by many characters as sins are committed.  In class, we discussed how guilt would affect us if we had no free will.  As I was sitting there, twiddling my thumbs, thinking about what to write, it occurred to me that this question was very biased.  Instead of thinking of the answer to the question, I thought about how I could be sure that I did have a free will.  Maybe I don’t.  Maybe you don’t.  I researched what other people thought about this subject when I got home just to see what the views on it were.  I found out that the controversial topic of free will has been debated by philosophers and probably will be debated for a long time in the future.  When one throws a rock, does that rock decide where to go?  A lot of factors play into where the rock lands, but in a nutshell the laws of physics decide where it lands.  Now let’s take a bit more complicated thing, a cat.  The factors that contribute to what room a cat wonders in include the weather, where it’s owner is and the cat’s natural instincts along many other factor, to lengthy to list.  Our life form is on the spectrum of one celled organisms to where we are today so I question why we would be any different.  According to Ortega, “the very important point here is that both nature AND nurture, both heredity AND environment prohibit free will”(Ortega).  If everyone believed we that don’t have a free will, some people might say things like “since I don’t have a free will, I’ll just lay around on my couch all day” or “it isn’t my fault I stole from this person”, but that would be taking advantage of the fact that we don’t have a free will.  Most people would probably just go along in their daily life like normal because of our human characteristics.  The topic of free will should be looked at more so people can better understand that we are part of nature, just like everything else.  I think I should include that I am not trying to inflict these beliefs on you, but I feel that people should question everything they are supposed to believe and think for themselves.  If no one ever questioned that the world is flat, where would we be now?  Opening up our minds, always being curious, will make for a much more honest world.  So for the answer to the question, one cannot really know how guilt would be affected if everyone believed that we do not have a free will.  That depends on the morals one holds and the other factors that make the person up.