Note: Since I didn't get any writing for writer's done this week (aside from what I'll try to get done within the next hour and a half), I'll share my recently graded philosophy papers. Two of them got A's, and one got a high B (my conclusion wasn't as solid as my prof was looking for). I'll let y'all figure out which paper got what grade.  

Paper 1:

Maya Nibbe

Dr. Schulte

Intro to Philosophy

6-28-2023

Critiquing D’Holbach

Do humans have free will to go against nature and do as we wish, or is every little aspect of our lives already predetermined by natural laws? This is a question that people have been wrestling with for centuries. On one side, you have the determinists, who believe that humans are predetermined by natural laws to behave in certain ways, and therefore have no free will (Timpe). On the other side, you have metaphysical libertarians, who believe people have some or complete free will regardless of natural laws (Timpe). Personally, while I lean closer towards the idea that we do have free will, I also think determinism has a point. After all, it’s a little more logic-based than free will, though determinism fails to answer many of my questions about it.

At least one historical philosopher believed in strict determinism. Baron D’Holbach, who was born in Germany in 1723, was a hard determinist (Encyclopedia Britannica). He believed that free will was an illusion, and that all human actions were already predetermined by nature. To defend his stance, D’Holbach wrote The System of Nature in 1770, in which he made many arguments to defend hard determinism, some of which I agree with, others I don’t. However, for the sake of time, I will only be critiquing one of his arguments, that one being that human actions are necessary reactions to previous events (D’Holbach 4).

In D’Holbach’s worldview, everything that happens has a reason for happening. Therefore, everything can be explained and predicted via natural laws (D’Holbach 6). For instance, cars don’t just randomly start. Something has to turn the ignition, which lights a spark, which creates enough energy through fire to get the engine going and keep it idling. Human brains work similarly. In order for someone to do anything, neurons must be activated via electric pulses within the brain. Therefore, like a car starting up, people only do things when their brain starts up, all thanks to natural laws.

However, the problem I see with this argument is that humans aren’t as predictable as car engines. We can know exactly how and why a car started, but we don’t yet know exactly why someone decided to do something, let alone predict it.

On Youtube, there’s a video titled, “We’re Conjoined Twins. Ask Us Anything.” by Jubilee, where people ask conjoined twins, Carmen and Lupita, questions about what it’s like being conjoined twins. Right away, we learn that Carmen is a college student, but Lupita is a college dropout (Jubilee 0:24). How is this the case? After all, wouldn’t natural laws argue that both twins ought to be college students or college dropouts, but not both, given that conjoined twins basically live exactly the same lives?

D'Holbach acknowledges this problem by writing, “Nevertheless it must be acknowledged that the multiplicity and diversity of the causes which continually act upon man, frequently without even his knowledge, render it impossible, or at least extremely difficult for him to recur to the true principles of his own peculiar actions, much less the actions of others: they frequently depend upon causes so fugitive, so remote from their effects, and which, superficially examined, appear to have so little analogy, so slender a relation with them, that it requires singular sagacity to bring them into light.” (D’Holbach 7).

In other words, D’Holbach argues that everyone, including conjoined twins, live different lives, and experience different things, which sets off a chain of events that cause them to be… well… different. Even if these different experiences are impossible to figure out. However, I find this argument lacking, because there seems to be no way to prove this point, and it doesn’t actually address my initial question “How can natural laws predict human behavior the same way they can predict a car engine starting, when humans tend to react very differently to the same things?”

Again, we know how car engines start, and can predict that every time the ignition is turned, the engine will start the same way in one car as it will every other car like it. But, humans aren’t nearly as predictable as car engines. So far, there seems to be no natural law(s) that can explain why Carmen is a college student, and Lupita is not, despite the fact that they are conjoined twins. If human actions are events, and natural laws can explain and predict these events, why haven’t we figured out why Carmen is a college student, and Lupita is not? What miniscule event (or events) determines whether a person goes to college or not?  

D’Holbach fails to properly answer this question. He simply shrugs his shoulders and says, “Nature did it.”, which to me, isn’t a good answer to, “Why is Carmen a student, but Lupita is not?”, for the same reason you can’t explain away lightning with, “Nature did it.” The question, at least to me, isn’t what happened, but why, in detail, something happened, which hard determinism can’t seem to answer when it comes to human (and animal) behavior.

Works Cited:

D’Holbach, Baron. Chapter XI: Of the System of Man’s Free Agency. 1770. file:///C:/Users/mayaj/Downloads/DHolbach%20Chap11%20System%20of%20Nature.pdf.

Encyclopedia Britannica. “Paul-Henri Dietrich, baron d’Holbach.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 17 June 2023. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Henri-Dietrich-baron-dHolbach.

Timpe, Kevin. “Free Will.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed 30 June 2023. https://iep.utm.edu/freewill/#SH6b.

“We're Conjoined Twins. Ask Us Anything.” Youtube. Uploaded by Jubilee. 17 Apr. 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8bPdC5YXnA