D Holbach's View Of Free Will And The Compatibilist Theory Of Free Will

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Free will is the known as the capability to decide between different potential courses of action and is a highly questioned topic in the philosophical world. Free will, also closely accompanied to the views of moral responsibility, has some philosophers reason that only actions which are free willed are justified to accept the blame of the action while other philosophers oppose this view. Baron d’Holbach views free will under the idea of Determinism, which entails that only one sequence of actions is possible, which concludes that there is no such thing as free will or choice in the truly deterministic world. In contrast, Compatibilist theorists, like Stace, assert that free will exists and can be well-matched with Determinism.
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D’Holbach is on the Materialist side of the spectrum, whereas I fall on the Dualist side and therefore I can not agree with the view that human life is reduced to the physical brain and not the free soul. The problem with d’Holbach’s viewpoint on free will is that if there is no freedom of choice or free will, then there would be no meaning in our lives. Humanity would be diminished to existing as automatic machines subjected under the orders of external factors. But, humans do have a certain amount of freedom in the Compatibilist concept of free will. In d’Holbach’s concept of free will, all is condensed to the physical brain and subject only to external influences rather than a soul, and consciousness. Therefore, it is unacceptable for a Dualist perspective to accept his stance on free will. Since d’Holbach views that there is no such thing as free will, a major concern of his argument is brought up being that if a persons’ actions are pre-determined and in order to fit with his proposition, it would not be morally correct to punish that individual for their actions. It would still be practical to isolate a harmful individual from society from d’Holbach’s view, except it would only be done for logical reasons and not for disciplinary

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