People's behavior is largely determined by forces not of their own making.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting

In western philosophy, there has been intense debate on the inconsistency between the sense of free will in human and the observed determinism in natural science. The existence of free will implicates that human can react differently encountering past events and external forces. However, the natural science posits that everything is governed by the perfect physical law, which precludes the possibility of such free will. While I admit the existence of free will, I believe people have very few control over their behaviors, which are essentially determined by innate factors, childhood experience and the society.

First, we should clarify the definition of external forces. People usually consider external forces as influence coming from outside such as school, family and society. Yet, we should also recognize certain other influence from inside as external forces. For example, there are people with innate disability and mental issues, which are certainly not controlled by themselves. These physical and mental restrictions would largely determine how they will live the rest of their lives. Physical-challenging people may eat differently, walk differently and sleep differently as opposed of people without these disabilities or mental issues. Although the limitations seem to be internal, external forces actually intensify their inconvenience, such as specific requirement of certain schools and certain occupations. Moreover, they may receive special treatment, and in return, being forced to respond to these special attentions, not in accordance with their own will. In general, we were born genetically different, which largely determined how we live our life.

After we were born, we instantly confronted overwhelming external forces such as family, school and society. There are numerous studies on how economic status of parents plays an important role in children’s behavior in school, leading to divergent academic performance. Psychological research reveals that students had abusing relations with their parents are tended to be bullies in school. Also, adults with childhood trauma have higher suicide tendency. These are influences on people’s minds which further determined future performance. There are also physical constraints which prevent free action. Besides, studies acknowledge the significance of ascribed status, that people with low economic status generally must overcome greater obstacles to moving upward in social ladder. They physically lack the time and energy to gain sophisticated skills, keep healthy diet, obtain high paid or meet the expectation from the society. Another more extreme example would be how slavery restrained freedom. Behaviors of African slaves in 1700s were completely controlled by their masters’ willingness. Nowadays, hierarchy and law system regulate individuals' behavior, with punishment mechanism to prevent people from abusing their freedom. Overall, factors from outside have great impact on us physically and mentally and rule our behaviors fundamentally.

However, the word “largely” does not tantamount to solely or completely. My argument does not preclude the existence of free will and its implication. Firstly, we should differentiate between free will and free action. While we mostly do not possess free action, given the existence of external forces, we have free will to determine our behaviors. Secondly, as rare as it is, free will does lead to free actions in some cases. For instance, Hellen Keller, the first deaf-blind person to earn bachelor degree of art, overcame physical limitations and external discrimination and lived her life by her will.

In summary, if we generalize our behaviors with an equation consisted of one thousand variables, we would unfortunately find most of them out of control. Our genes, family, school, and society determined or shaped most of our behaviors through different treatments, ascribed status, and laws and regulations. However, in rare cases, the seemly unimportant variable, free will, significantly modifies the outcome of the behaviors’ equation.