Requested by the badass Grandpa previously mentioned. Here’s an example of an A paper in Philosophy… Kind of. This is the only thing I’ve written this semester that can be understood without prior research. It’s a draft of the first two sections of a paper, meaning it’s somewhat unpolished and missing the last section entirely, wherein I will present and respond to arguments against my views.
Holbach's Hard Determinism
Baron Paul Henri d'Holbach (henceforth “Holbach”) was a German-French Philosopher of the Modern period. He was a prominent Atheist (under a pseudonym, of course), a Materialist, and a Hard Determinist. It is the last of these that I will be focused on.
For Holbach, the entirety of human existence is subjected to the same natural laws as every other existing thing. To assert that we have an immaterial soul is to assert that some part of us is not subjected to these natural laws; since there is no empirical basis for such assumptions, Holbach rejects the concept of a soul which is immune to basic causation and other natural laws. In his own words, “man is a being purely physical; in whatever manner he is considered, he is connected to universal nature, and submitted to the necessary and immutable laws that she imposes on all the beings she contains.”
Having rejected one of the major (at the time) arguments for free will, Holbach moves on to examine the many ways in which our actions are determined: “He is born without his own consent; his organization does in nowise depend upon himself; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits are in the power of those who cause him to contract them; he is unceasingly modified by causes, whether visible or concealed, over which he has no control, which necessarily regulate his mode of existence, give the hue to his way of thinking, and determine his manner of acting.”
From these facts he concludes that we are always determined, and are never truly free to choose our own actions. He admits that not all of our causes are external – our temperaments definitely effect our decisions. Indeed, all of our desires and preferences have effects on our choices, but they are also completely beyond our control and thereby support Holbach's argument instead of harming it. I never decided to love pizza and hate sushi, so it would be fallacious to assume my pizza-filled, sushi-free diet was chosen freely.
Holbach then turns his careful eye on the process of deliberation, and finds further support for determinism. While it may initially appear that we pause, make a decision, and then move on, a detailed examination changes the story drastically. Deliberation occurs only when two or more options are presented, and we are not immediately aware of our preference. Our mind begins considering the implications of each choice, comparing them to our current preferences and desires to determine which is most appealing. Once this process is complete, we know which option to take. At no point do we actually make a decision; our minds just need time to determine our actions.
Not content to simply destroy the concept of free will in humans, Holbach then proceeds to explain precisely how we became so enamored with it in the first place: information overload. In short, there are so many influences acting upon us at any given moment that it is largely impossible (with current science, at least) to be consciously aware of them all. Because of this, man will always be unsuccessful when attempting to explain all the causes of an action. Those incapable of careful introspection then assume that they somehow cause themselves to act.
I am also a hard determinist, and thereby agree wholeheartedly with Holbach's argument. Some of the implications he pulls from his argument are more suspect (his thoughts on theology and morality, et cetera), but they are not the focus of this discourse. His careful examinations of thought processes is very impressive, and was refreshing to read considering how closely it matches my own methods of introspection. It is thereby not surprising that we came to identical conclusions (we are not free). The processes we examined, however, were sightly different - while Holbach examines the process of deliberation, I examined the more specific process of deliberation when two or more options are equally preferred.
Since philosophers love ice cream, imagine you are trying to pick a flavor. You're three favorites are Rocky Road (1), Chocolate Chip (2), and Cotton Candy (3). You had 3 last time, so you pause to deliberate over 1 and 2. Your mind, unfortunately, finds no reason to put one option over another, and you still haven't “decided.” The first time I went through this process and was consciously aware of it (at Subway choosing bread), I found that my mind still made the decision for me. I looked at the two options, and was suddenly compelled towards one of them. There was no conscious reason for this compulsion, and I truly do not prefer Italian Herbs & Cheese over Honey Oat. Yet somehow I chose one over the other, instead of standing there confused until I starved to death.
Poking and prodding at the minds of others, I have learned that everyone seems to have internal mechanisms for making these kinds of decisions. Many just go with whichever they see first; others cycle through their preferences methodically; and some (like myself) aren't even consciously aware of their mechanism. Not a single person claimed to actually make a decision in these situations.
It seems clear that when we deliberate, we are simply allowing our mind to compute a solution. It also seems clear that we cannot choose our desires, and that we cannot dismiss our desires when considering new stimuli. This is a pretty damning picture for proponents of free will, but belay judgment until you've heard both sides (like any good philosopher ought to do).
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