Comparing Hume And Holbach's Philosophy

In respect to the arguments of Ayer and Holbach, the dilemma of determinism and its compatibility with that of free will are found to be in question. Holbach makes a strong case for hard determinism in his System of Nature, in which he defines determinism to be a doctrine that everything and most importantly human actions are caused, and it follows that we are not free and therefore haven’t any moral responsibility in regard to our actions. For Ayer, a compatibilist believing that free will is compatible with determinism, it is the reconciliation and dissolution of the problem of determinism and moral responsibility with free willing that is argued. Ayer believes that

In order to explain my thoughts, we must first understand the full meaning of hard determinism. In Holbach’s essay on hard determinism, he says, “Nevertheless, in spite of the shackles by which he is bound, it is pretended he is a free agent, or that independent of the causes by which he is moved, he determines his own will, and regulates his own condition.”1 He explains that free will is an illusion and that all of our actions are pre-determined by prior factors. Prior factors would include: experiences from the past, how one was raised, genetic makeup and so on. No matter what you decide to do, you will never actually have a say in it because everything in your life has led up to that point.

Many times I find myself sitting and wondering whether I am fully free or not. I wake up every single morning and do the same routine, which is eat breakfast, go to class or work, do homework, go to the gym, shower, and then go to bed. Does this truly mean I am free? There are a lot of questions that you can ask yourself while following a routine. Is this really the path I should have taken? Were my choices determined by external factors? Determinism is the thesis that an any instant there is only one physically possible future. Robert Blatchford and Walter Terence Stace, two philosophers, both agree that determinism is true, although they have two different views on whether this means that people are free or not. Blatchford believes that everything is predestined. Stace on the other hand, believes that a person chooses what they do because of free will. In this essay I am going to discuss both of the philosophers’ views more in depth and why I favor Stace’s view over Blatchford’s.

Holbach argument of free will starts with his premises one. Every action is caused by a preceding event. Premise two states; no action that is caused by a preceding event is free. Thus, no action is free. Holbach supports his theory by his belief in determinism in premise one and being an incompatibles. He believes that are actions re not caused that they are only absence of the external constraint.

The subject of free will and whether it is compatible with determinism has been on the table for discussion for many years, however through discussion on this topic, a new argument emerged, whether alternative possibilities are required for responsibility. This paper will be analyzing two of the philosopher who discuss this subject are Derk Pereboom and Robert Kane. More precisely the essay will be analysing Pereboom’s tax evasion argument, Kane’s reply to it and Pereboom’s reply to Kane’s reply, as the topic of are alternative possibilities required for responsibility is too broad itself.

Baron d’Holbach and William James suggest opposite viewpoints concerning the existence of free will. d’Holbach claims that in any given situation, people always choose a course of action they deem to be most beneficial to them. Since their judgment of potential benefits stems from natural, unchanging laws, free will is simply a misconception caused by the great complexity of the variables involved. William James concedes that natural laws may narrow the choices a person considers, but argues that choices with multiple, equally beneficial outcomes render a person’s decision a matter of chance--and therefore free will. Furthermore, he defines the existence of regret as indicating an unfavorable outcome. According to determinism, however, this

Van Inwagen argues that Determinism and free will are incompatible, Dennett argues that they are. Van Inwagen presents a

Partly due to this being a critical part of everyone’s lives and also partly because determining if there is free will helps to address if a person is responsible for their actions, especially when they go against what is perceived as morally correct by society. The three theories about free will handle this issue in different ways. The first to be addressed will be the determinist. The determinist does not believe that there is free will, due to the belief that every action comes about due to a previous cause and cannot come about for no reason (Rachels 97). This would go against what is known about the world through our understanding of science. Therefore, this theory asserts that since a person cannot control the previous causes that would bring about their current action, there must not be free will. This has led some of its proponents to argue that man is not accountable to his actions, as he cannot control the circumstances that have led to an immoral action. One of these proponents, B.D. Skinner, believed that people’s choices were based on the conditioning they had been subjected to in their lives, and that this conditioning should also be to blame for the actions of people. He proposed that, since the actions had been determined by the conditioning of the person, that free will is not possible and punishment should be based on new conditioning

  In this essay, I intend to argue that a solution to this dilemma lies not in choosing free will over determinism, nor vice versa; but in the theory that determinism and free will are compatible – known as compatibilism.

The Free Will Problem presents three different theses that, upon first glance, seem both intuitive and reasonable as long as they are considered independently. It is not possible to entertain all three theses together while maintaining any level of consistency. The problem, therefore, is in determining which of the three theses to discard.

The existence of free will has often been brought into question. Moral responsibility, the assumed result of free will, has been equally debated. Some philosophers posit that humans possess free will in its entirety. Others believe that, although many aspects of one’s life are predetermined, one still possesses just enough freedom to be morally responsible. However, as one will find, neither approaches are tenable explanations of human decision making. The former concept of free will ignores the constraints placed on humans from both external and internal influences, and the latter cannot logically reconcile moral responsibility with determinism. In contrast to these two fallible positions, I find that humans do not possess any free will and,

Even with all of the technology and knowledge have available to us today, we are still unable to answer certain questions that have puzzled human beings for centuries. Determinism versus free-will is one of the great questions that, at this point in time, cannot be proved or disproved. There is much discussion regarding the issue of free-will versus determinism, and both present very important supplemental questions that both positions must face. Although a definitive answer cannot be given or proved yet, many disciplines make their own attempt to provide factual or subjective information to support both sides. Experts in philosophy, physics, psychology, theology, etc. all attempt to answer this universal question, whether it is through

As much as people like to say that they do things such as homework out of their own discretion, this may be far from the truth. In philosophy and science, the well-established concepts of causality and determinism directly threaten the existence of free will in people. The main problem is that the general definition of free will is the capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from different options (O’Connor, 2016). This conflicts with the deterministic belief that all events are completely determined by previously existing causes which means that only one true outcome exists. In this essay, I will prove that Baron D’Holbach’s and Thomas Hobbes’s theories on causal determinism and materialism are valid, leading to the conclusion that free will does not exist. A prominent figure in the French enlightenment, Holbach was a western philosopher who was well known for his atheism and for his writing against religion, the System of Nature. Whereas Holbach was a French Philosopher, Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher. Hobbes is considered one of the founders of political philosophy and was best known for his book, Leviathan. He believed in materialism, which is a theory that asserts that

Imagine if you found yourself in a state of bondage where every action desire and feeling was planned on an inexorable agenda that you could not help but comply with. Although this seems like a dark and fantastical world, if the idea of determinism is fully accepted than it may not be as distant as you might think. The idea of Free Will is one of the most timeless and dubitable philosophical questions and is imposable to disregard. The idea of Free Will has three prevailing schools of thought, consisting of Determinism, (The belief that every action is determined and therefore, not free.), Liberalism (the belief that our actions are not causally determined and therefore, free.)and lastly, Compatibilism (The belief that

Baron D'holbach believed that everything that's happening in the present now is a result of an chain of events (cause and effect). He said “we are just part of the physical world bound by its physical laws.” Every prior event is a cause but before that cause there was a cause of something else and the chain just goes on forever which means people never really ever have free will do do absolutely anything. Even