Do you have free will or are you determined - Essay Example

?Philosophy is a science that builds upon itself. Starting at the most basic level of metaphysics, one soon after begins to address issues of knowledge, of ethics, of politics, and of art. However, before moving on to these subsequently higher levels of thinking, one most deal with the most abstract level: that of metaphysics. When talking about whether people can be held morally liable (and punished) for their actions, this clearly rests upon a notion of whether people can actually do otherwise than what they have done. In other words, in order for people to speak productively about a question in moral and political philosophy, they must first settle a question of metaphysics: namely, whether or not people have a free will. For the sake of simplicity, many try to avoid this more fundamental debate, which in turn offers roadblocks to agreement in these other areas of philosophy. In an effort to try to settle these other debates, philosophers have addressed the question of free will versus determinism, the belief that all events are ultimate consequences of antecedent sufficient causes, which is often meant to deny the freedom of will. The philosophers W.T. Stace and Baron d'Holbach are two examples of philosophers that believe in determinism, but with qualifications. While d'Holbach represents a determinism-only view, Stace offers a view compatible with a free will, and this compatibilist thesis is more correct. Compatibilism, as represented by W.T. Stace, is the view that free will and determinism are compatible without being logically inconsistent. This allows claims about individual autonomy in actions to make sense, whereas under the incompatabilism approach, it is logically inconsistent to speak of the coexistence of free will with determinism. An incompatabilist such as Baron d'Holbach, rules out a kind of metaphysical free will because determinism, the view that all of our actions are the result of antecedent causes, means that no actions are truly free in the sense that the person actually chose to do them. With this foundation, we can differentiate the views of Stace and d'Holbach with respect to freedom of the will. d'Holbach argues that human beings are very similar in nature to a machine, which is created with a very narrow range of functions. In his System of Nature, d'Holbach writes, “There is no such entity as a soul, but we are simply material objects in motion, having very complicated brains that lead the unreflective to believe that they are free” (Pojman 333). In fact, human beings are so complex that they actually believe their actions are free, which is the symptom of religious beliefs, according to d'Holbach. Claiming that all of man’s ideas and senses can be reduced to his physical characteristics, the philosopher believes that these ideas and senses are involuntary and forced upon him. This incompatabilist, hard determinist stance is impossible to prove, which makes it difficult to accept d'Holbach’s arguments (Pojman 335). He argues primarily from analogy to machines and other human artifacts, which seems to undermine the premise that man is incapable of original, free thoughts. In addition, it is difficult to get past the brute fact that if all of man’s arguments are determined by antecedent causes, then d'Holbach’s claims here are determined and therefore possibly false. In contrast, W.T. Stace offers a compatibilist (or soft determinist) view that upholds the truth of morality. Stace defines an act that was produced from free will as one that is directly caused by a person’s thoughts, emotions, and desires (Roberts). In other words, an act is only free if it is the result of internal mental states, not the outside influences of other antecedent causes. For instance, fasters on hunger strikes do not consume food because it is theoretically within their power to abstain from food, while someone who fasts because he does not have access to food is not doing so according to his free will. Stace defends compatibilism because of how he defines the notion of free will. Essentially, all actions are caused, which supports a notion of determinism. However, certain actions can be caused by internal states, such as desires; these are compatible with external causes because that distinction between external and internal exists. Stace saw the free will versus determinism debate as a mistaken concept of free will as the negation of determinism. If one relies on this notion of contraries, then it leaves determinists of all kinds to deny the existence of free will. However, as Stace said, “As soon as we see what the true definition is we shall find that the question whether the world is deterministic, as Newtonian science implied, is wholly irrelevant to the problem” (Stace 408). Stace’s view was that a linguistic confusion was getting in the way of a clear recognition of the philosophical solution: namely, that acts caused by internal states are free while acts caused by external factors are not. d’Holbach would disagree with Stace by saying that human beings themselves are created by external factors, which leads to the possibility of so-called “internal states”. This fact rules out the possibility of free acts for hard determinists. However, Stace might respond that human beings are not the machine-like entities that d’Holbach and other advocates of Newtonian physics might believe. In fact, since the world no longer abides strictly by the philosophical underpinnings of the Newtonian universe, there is an increasing need to move away from the hard determinist philosophical views that it implies. From a brief survey of two philosophers, d’Holbach and Stace, one begins to understand the depth and importance of understanding whether human beings are causally determined by outside affairs (hard determinism) or causally distinct from these outside affairs (compatibilism). From the perspective of Stace, this compatibilism is the better philosophical understanding of the problem because it acknowledges the intuitive difference between an act caused by an outside cause and an act caused by a thought or feeling. Even though d’Holbach’s hard determinism is impossible to prove, Stace’s arguments have received their fair share of criticism, partly because they undermine the nature of the debate happening with respect to free will. Regardless, Stace makes the superior argument for a more intuitive view of human freedom. Works Cited Pojman, Louis P. Philosophy: The Quest for Truth. 5th. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Roberts, Matthew. "Precis: W.T. Stace’s Compatibilism." 2002. University of Colorado Philosophy Department. 20 April 2011 . Stace, W.T. Religion and the Modern Mind. New York: Lippincott, 1952. Read More