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THE ILUSION OF FREE WILL


Through out history there have been numerous philosophers who support different positions in the problem of free will. The difficulty of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions. There are 3 mail positions, libertarianism, soft determinism and hard determinism. Liberalists believe that men’s decisions are made by our own thinking and they are a result of a rational agency. Soft determinists believe that determinism, witch according to their believe is compatible with free will and responsibility, is true. Finally, hard determinists believe that every decision made, has been prearranged, and that responsibility is caused by the concept of free will. There are various arguments for the problem of free will, yet in this essay we are going to focus on Paul’s Holbach theory, the illusion of free will, in order to support the hard determinist position. In this essay we will try to prove that free will is a fictional illusion of the human’s perception of free will.

To begin, I am going to explain the theory of Paul Hollabach. This French philosopher states that the errors of philosophers on the free agency of man are caused by concerning his will as the original motive of their actions, and that the will is composed of complex causes and actions of the brain. He believes that the will is caused by particular motives that are gathered through our interactions with the environment. He proposes that actions of men are never free; moreover he believes that these actions are the result of external motives, which create impressions in the brain that could be good or bad, agreeable or painful. These motives create impulses that can result into action. Therefore, men actions are the result of an impulse he receives. Nevertheless if any human did not acted according to this impulse, then, there would be a greater impulse that has given a new...