During our conversations in class and our readings, I tended to lean towards more of a deterministic mindset. I personally do want to believe in free will yet I feel as if determinism is more appealing, has more options for why something occurred and has a stronger basis for its actions. Yet, as someone is class mentioned, I do agree that it’s a type of cycle. I do think that at one point, free will was there to make one choice but as life goes on, both free will and determinism take place, yet determinism has more of an impact on life and causes more actions to occur rather than free will does since you grow and react from the experiences you’ve had and also learn from them. I think that the concept of Kane’s self-forming actions gives a stronger support for free will and I do think he is correct in that yet I think that determinism leads a majority of actions that one makes.
I really liked the idea of it being a cycle but I think it has to be more complicated. A cycle follows some sort of pattern and more likely than not a decision you make is based on the surrounding circumstances, experience in the past, etc. So I don’t know if you could necessarily call it a cycle. A free will situation I think has to present itself randomly in a sense because if you have too much time to think about what choice you should make, you will look at past situations, make a pro and con list, etc. And I agree with you that Kane provided a stronger support for free will.
I agree that the argument for determinism definitely seems to make sense, however, I think you seemed to somewhat suggest free will and determinism acting together and I think when it comes down to it, it is one or the other. I think Kane has a really good argument when he brings up self-forming choices which also gives a good argument for free will. I also don’t think that the argument of determinism is necessarily a cycle, which would suggest a circle, I think it is more a never ending line of determined actions since everything from the past determines who you are and what you do.