Hard Determinism Analysis

Nancy Holmstrom’s account of soft determinism makes it simple to understand how free will and determinism can be compatible due to an individual’s experiences and decisions. Combining the environmental factors that influenced my decision to attend the University of Kansas, my decision would fall the middle of Holmstrom’s continuum but slightly to the side of free

There are those who think that our behavior is a result of free choice, but there are also others who believe we are servants of cosmic destiny, and that behavior is nothing but a reflex of heredity and environment. The position of determinism is that every event is the necessary outcome of a cause or set of causes, and everything is a consequence of external forces, and such forces produce all that happens. Therefore, according to this statement, man is not free.

The debate between free will and determinism is something that will always be relevant, for people will never fully admit that we have no free will. But, while we may feel that we control what we do in life, we simply do not. The argument for free will is that individuals have full control and responsibility over their actions, and what they become in life as a whole (The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility by Galen Strawson, page 16). Determinism, on the other hand, is saying that we have no control over our actions and that everything we do in life is determined by things beyond our control (Strawson, page 7). After analysis of The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility by Galen Strawson and Freedom and Necessity by A. J. Ayer,

Compatibilism, in theory, is a world where everything is deterministic but accepts the fact that we have free will. David Hume summarized free will as, some actions are determined by internal interactions. Our internal thought process and physical needs are presumed to allow one to choose anything one may desire. He also stated that, other actions are determined by external constraints. Meaning the choices people make using

Many Philosophers, such as Hoderich and John Calvin, believe that humans do not have free will to act in moral situations and that all moral actions have uncontrollable prior causes. Hard determinists, therefore, follow the belief that humans can not be morally blameworthy for their actions, evil or not, because their actions are predetermined. However, this is a ridiculous stance to take as humans are free to make moral choices, meaning they are entirely responsible for their evil actions.

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.

Determinism supporters claim that all consequences are inevitable since conditions are met and nothing else would occur by any chances. And determinism could influence and controlling everything in the universe with causal laws. According to determinism, we could make predictions about the occurrences of certain events or actions of human beings. There three types of determinism that I will discuss in the following, the Hard determinism, Soft determinism and Libertarianism.

To establish determinism, we can admit by denoting that some events in our lives happen because of prior reasons without yet losing our sense of freedom. It is actually evident that the events and actions that an individual undertakes action have different effects upon him even though they may be past or present events. Though we might not be sure whether our past event result to our present status in life, it is pertinent to note that freedom in decision making is an open forum for each individual and impacts on later activities. We can admit that some events, for example, a next domino fall, are bound to happen because of a prior event. It is possible that if we have no power to act other than us, in fact, to act, then we have no free will. This argument for hard determinism is persuasive. It is certainly valid, and none of the premises appears to be clearly false. Although we have discovered a plausible argument in defense of hard determinism, most people find this argument to be impossible to accept. In our lives, we hold each other in account of our deeds that we had made wrong choices.

What Holbach seems to be saying is that because there is a reason, motive, or cause, there is no real freedom in the choice of action. But where would one be without motives in choices? This leads us to the idea of chance. Is freedom the equivalent of chance then? I think not, because I question whether or not chance really exists. True, events may appear to be the result of chance, but this goes against

Determinism isn't causality. Determinism is the meaning that all events that occurs with the universe and the people, including moral choices are completely determined by previously causes that happened in the past. That is also called the theme of Cause and Effect . Determinism can be differ in many ways because it has five types of it, like Biological determinism, Behavioral determinism, Social determinism, Environmental determinism, Compatibilism or also called soft determinism.

Soft Determinism has many perspectives about Free Will, however, it ties down to where in some situations where we are limited to our actions due to certain events such as life and

     Before one can properly evaluate the entire debate that enshrouds the Free Will/Determinism, each term must have a meaning, but before we explore the meaning of each term, we must give a general definition. Determinism is, "Everything that happens is caused to happen. (Clifford Williams. "Free Will and Determinism: A Dialogue" pg 3). This is the position that Daniel, a character in Williams’ dialogue, chooses to believe and defend. David Hume goes a little deeper and explains in his essay, "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding of Liberty and Necessity," that determinism is this: "It is universally allowed, that matter, in all its operations, is actuated by a necessary force, and

Determinism is centered around the idea that anything that anything that could ever occur, will occur. This meaning that god, the universe, or any other supernatural force has planned out each moment of everyone’s life

Casual determinism put simply, is the theory that all things happen for a particular reason and everything is predetermined. It is the idea all the events in one’s life can be explained, and each event has a particular reason for being. If everything is predetermined, then this therefore suggests that the future is fixed which further suggests that we can possibly predict the behavior of things. The theory of determinism ultimately suggests that we don’t the capacity to have free will because all future events are destined to occur, and furthermore we do not posses the knowledge to figure out whether it can be proved true or false (Hoefer). There has been three positions that have developed concerning the theory of causal determinism: hard determinist, compatibilist or soft determinist, and compatibilist.

A compatibilist or also known as a soft determinist holds the belief that free will and determinism are evidently linked or are compatible with each other. Determinism states that every event is casually necessitated by antecedent events, that