Application of Free Will Skepticism to RoboCop Remake

Mind, Machine, and Body: Application of Free Will Skepticism to RoboCop Remake
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Mind, Machine, and Body: Application of Free Will Skepticism to RoboCop Remake
The RoboCop film is about a man placed in a robot's body after an accident, and a drone programs his actions. This is done against his will when he is unconscious. However, to enhance his performance, he is programmed to believe that his actions are his own. All this happens under the leadership of Raymond Sellars, who is the CEO of Omnicorp, the company responsible for creating the RoboCop (a cyborg police officer). He is also the main antagonist in the film. Watching the movie, one cannot help but wonder; what happens when a human being loses most of his humanity and becomes more like a machine? Does he have the illusion of free will, or does he have some degree of free will? Because in the absence of free will, how different are human beings from robots? Also, who are we without free will? As Mele (2017) indicates, the absence of free will would lead people to mistake who they are because the belief in free will is significantly embedded in each person's self-image. However, there are free will skeptics who have advanced and supported free will skepticism. Free will skepticism proposes that free will is impossible because our actions result from factors beyond our control (Caruso, 2017). This shows we lack agency over our decisions, and external factors control everything we do, and as such, we cannot be responsible for our actions. There exists a connection between the RoboCop film and free will skepticism because the film explores the concept of free will and challenges viewers to examine whether free will is an illusion or not.
RoboCop serves to function as a complication to free will skepticism. First, the man (Alex Murphy) becomes a robot (RoboCop) against his will and cannot demonstrate free will in his assignments because he does what he has been programmed to do. The film shows him waking up and discovering that he has been transformed into a machine, a decision he took no part in making. By this very action, his freedom and agency over his body have been taken away from him. This presents what Shoemaker (2017) refers to as freedom as free will in which people are free to make decisions and take actions that impact them and others. For the RoboCop, he lacked free will because the decision to become a robot was not his. Did this affect his life? Yes. He first wanted to die, and when he was convinced to live for his family's sake, he could not perform in full capacity as a RoboCop.
However, the film complicates free will skepticism because it reveals that human beings need free will or at least the illusion of free will to function properly and efficiently in society. According to Caruso (2017), many critics of free will skepticism argue that supporting the views advanced by free will skeptics would have severe consequences on society to the extent of threatening how people find meaning in life. However, free will skeptics maintain that it would not threaten the most crucial elements of society, such as finding meaning in life or creating positive relationships w...