Holbachs Hard Determinism

1
Holbachs Hard Determinism

• Man is not a free agent in any one instant of
  his life.
• because we are subject to the universal laws of
  nature as everything else is.
• Yet, the common view is that we are free agents.

2
Holbachs justification of punishment

• Holbach claims that this results from another
  mistake thinking that in order to punish persons
  for misdeeds they must have committed those acts
  freely.
• Suggests that we justify punishment by its
  deterrent effect.

3
Hospers, Meaning and Free Will

• Free act voluntary act?
• this view does not tell us how to regard
  unpremeditated acts, e.g., acts from feeling or
  habitual actions
• Free act act unhindered by compulsion?
• Hospers holds that this means no acts are free.

4
Hospers psychoanalytic view of action

• According to the psychoanalytic account, our
  actions are determined by forces within us that
  are beyond our control, and that were shaped by
  our infantile and childhood psychic development.
  
• Hence we are internally compelled in all our
  actions.

5
Hospers argument against responsibility

• P1. An occurrence over which we had no control is
  something we cannot be held responsible for.
• P2. Events E, occurring during our babyhood, were
  events over which we had no control.
• C1. Therefore events E were events which we
  cannot be held responsible for.

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• P3. But if there is something we cannot be held
  responsible for, neither can we be held
  responsible for something that inevitably results
  from it.
• P4. Events E have as inevitable consequence
  Neurosis N, which in turn has as inevitable
  consequence Behavior B.
• C2. Since N is the inevitable consequence of E
  and B is the inevitable consequence of N, B is
  the inevitable consequence of E.
• C. Hence, not being responsible for E, we cannot
  be responsible for B.

7
Objections to Hospers

• 1. It is unsound
• P4 is based on an untenable psychological theory
• the claim in P4 is too strong because it claims
  that neuroses are inevitable consequences of
  certain events
• 2. Not all actions stem from unconscious
  neuroses, so we are not always unfree.