Dialectic Explanations of Free Will
While critical social work has a strong commitment to structural change, it does not discount the role of free will. Critical analysis in social work looks at competing forces such as the capitalist economic system, the welfare state or human free will as all affecting individual choices. Therefore, according to critical theory the aim of social work is to emancipate people from oppression and allow individual liberty to prevail.
“A dialectical approach to social work avoids the simplistic linear cause-effect notion of historical materialism and the naïve romanticism associated with the notion of totally free human will." (Mullaly and Keating, 1991). "Dialectical analysis helps to illuminate the complex interplay between people and the world around them and to indicate the role of social work within society” (Mullaly, 2007:241)
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