Final Exam Paper

Phil 201
Aya Sleiman
202151249
12/12/2022

The problem of free will is one of the most critical concepts philosophers have perceived;

as well as being the center of what truly defines our actions as human beings. Many intellects

provided their own intake to whether one has free will; that is, if we are morally responsible for

our own action, and whether we deserve the praise or blame we get. This notion is strongly

reliant to what extent causal necessity relates to event causality. Meaning, is an event truly an

effect of an action that rendered it, or is it pre-determined, that is, the cause was a necessity to

happen to render that event. In this essay, I will discuss the various approaches covered by

philosophers to address the problem of free will, as well as investigating the arguments against

them.

Starting with the argument of hard determinism, heavily claimed by the philosopher Paul

Holbach. He believed Determinism is true, and hence one does not have free will, but it is merely

an illusion. In his writing The Illusion of Free Will, he claimed “the actions of a man are never

free, they are always the necessary consequence of his temperament, of the received ideas, and of

the notions, either true or false, which he has formed to himself of happiness, of his opinions,

strengthened by example, by education, and by daily experience.” (Paul Holbach, p. 440).

Meaning, nature and experience is what determines a person’s next action, and thus humans are

part of the law of nature. Going more in depth, if free will is the capability of one to perform an

action without being influenced by external forces, and being morally responsible for their
actions, then it is not possible that one acquires free will because it is our desires and motives

that drives one to do a certain cause; and thus, effected by external forces. Although, Holbach

does acknowledge the fact that most people think they are free agents due to “every time he does

not see anything that places obstacles to his actions; he does not perceive that the motive which

causes him to will, is always necessary and independent of himself.” (p. 441). And thus, he

further backs up his argument that free will is an illusion, and not a direct discovery, because the

causes are internal and far more complicated than a simple trigger, making it harder to identify

them, and hence one might confuse his determined action with free will. He then gives an

example of a prisoner locked up with chains; they prevent hm for acting, but not form willing.

From a scientific approach, hard determinism seems to be consistent; taking the example of

causality from movement: If an object moves, then there must’ve been a force that allowed for

this movement. Thus, this concept of causality is also applied in beings, yet it holds much

farther complexities in the causes and is not as straightforward as science; causes form

experience, psychological experiences, childhood and more. Although the argument seems

logical, many approaches go against determinism by arguing the main impact this theory has on

a human’s life. For, if no one truly has a free choice or will, how does on explain the need of a

justice system? Not only that, but personal accountability would be hindered useless. Thus,

although it is scientifically logical, hard determinism offers little to no practicality on how our

society works.

Moving on, the complete opposition for hard determinism is that of libertarianism argued

by Rodrick M. Chisholm. He starts his writing by saying “Human beings are responsible agents;

but this fact appears to conflict with a deterministic view of human action (the view that every

event that is involved in an act is caused by some other event); and it also appears to conflict with
an indeterministic view of human action (the view that the act, or some event that is essential to the

act, is not caused at all)” (Rodrick M. Chisholm, p. 418). He claims the view that us human

beings have complete control of our own actions, and thus we have free will as they are not

affected by external factors. Before digging deeper, this theory as an outside perspective seems

reasonable; we have the choice to stay in or decide to go out with friends for example. Meaning,

we had several choices, and from our choice we lead our outcome: a key principle of alternate

possibilities that one has control over. Thus, this ideology is heavily centered around causal

necessity, the outcome is necessary to happen when there are specific variables and actions that

define it; further elaborating, it is not predetermined. Therefore, unlike hard determinism, one is

morally responsible for his actions once the action is not caused by a mere coincidence. There

were many key arguments against libertarianism, mainly on the fact that arguing that a human

mind can be able to cause a new chain of causality and get out of the determined is a weak claim

that is hard to defend. One criticism against the argument is the fact that the human mind is part

od the physical world, and thus it cannot escape the laws of nature; for, how can it have a set of

separate rules that allow for free will. Another criticism is through drawing an analogy on luck,

which is usually used to describe unforeseeable effects. However, it is merely the incapability of

accounting for high possibilities, making us illusioned to think that it is in fact the outcome that

is unpredictable. For example, take a coin toss, to an outside perspective, it is luck that drives the

outcome, but in fact if one knew the specific angle and weight in which the coin is being turned,

then they might pinpoint the outcome. Unfortunately, the human mind cannot come up with a

conclusion that fast. Similarly, just because the causes if an outcome in our brain can not be

identified easily, that does not mean the thought happened suddenly, it, means we can identify

the specific cause; leading one to assume they have free will.
 Finally, an argument that can be seen as the “middle-ground”, is soft determinism,

discussed in Freedom and Necessity by A.J Ayer. It is the view that attempts to find a

compromise between the determinism of the natural and physical world yet link it with the ideas

of personal responsibility. Starting off with rejecting determinism, Ayer claims that if one’s

choice is predetermined, then there must be a causal clarification of the specific choice. Here,

Ayer offers the solution that determinism and free will are compatible, and not the opposite;

stating that the opposite of free will is constraint. Ayer claims: “when I am constrained, I do not

act freely. But in what circumstances can I legitimately be said to be constrained?”. He follows

up his question by providing examples of compulsion. Thus, to further analyze, although soft

determinism does acknowledge causality of the past, it does not assume that with causality we do

not have free will, but instead it differs with hard determinism by taking into consideration both

the external and internal causation. Meaning, actions caused by external factors, detached the

human from moral responsibility. While actions caused by internal factors can be considered at

the brim of free will and moral responsibility. Although, this view can be an alternative between

the two arguments above, soft determinism does fall into a grey area; the different cases where

free will and choices become reasonable. For example, take a human with mental illness, if he

were to behave in such a way to harm others, the cause of his actions would be part of the

internal notion Ayer suggested. The debate goes: would one consider that with mental illness

blameworthy? Is he to be considered with the same moral responsibility as one with no mental

illness? This example provides a debate on whether the internal notion may not always be the

case of moral responsibility.

In conclusion, after critiquing and analyzing the three arguments on the problem of free

will, it is hard to truly identify an ideal option. On one hand, the assumption of people having
complete control on their mind and choices is useful when talking in the societal sense. Yet, it is

irrational to dismiss the logical approach Holbach provided, and quite delusional to believe

complete freedom of choice. I think things will become clearer once humanity dives more into

the understanding of neurology and the science behind making decisions, but for now I think soft

determinism is an acceptable as a reconciliatory option, being the one that takes both internal and

external notions at play, although it does hold some discrepancies as well.

References:

Feinberg J., Shafer Landau R., REASON AND RESPONSIBILITY Readings in Some Basic

Problems of Philosophy, 2017 version

The readings used are the following:

PAUL HOLBACH: Illusion of Free Will

RODRICK M. CHISHOLM: Human Freedom and the Self

A.J AYER: Freedom and Necessity