QuestionsAre we free?Man, a part of nature
Are we free?No free will

Man, a part of nature

Freedom as ignorance of causes

Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach 1723 · 1789Man is part of nature: everything in him is necessary; freedom is an illusion.
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What it claims

Man is not free at any moment of his life, and the feeling he has of his freedom is an illusion.

Why

Humans are part of nature and obey its laws: their wills have causes, and they are master of nothing they desire.

The same idea through history
Benedictus de Spinoza1677He already said that people think themselves free because they know their desires and ignore the causes that determine them. Holbach takes up the idea without Spinoza's God-Nature: for him there is only matter in motion.
Denis Diderot1756In a letter to Landois, his friend Diderot writes that the word liberty is a word without meaning and that there can be no free beings. He concludes that the evildoer is a man to be destroyed, not punished.
In short

"Man, a part of nature" is an argument by Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach (The System of Nature, 1770, I, chap. 11) on the question "Are we free?" (answer: no free will). Its claim: Man is not free at any moment of his life, and the feeling he has of his freedom is an illusion. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

The System of Nature, 1770, I, chap. 11
Valid with an implicit premise

The System of Nature appeared in 1770 under a false name (that of Mirabaud, dead for ten years). Holbach, a materialist and atheist, argues that man is a physical being like any other. In chapter 11 he attacks freedom: a will that chose itself would be a miracle in nature. We think ourselves free because we do not see the causes that push us. The book caused a scandal: it was condemned and burned, and Voltaire answered it.

P1Man is a part of nature, subject like all beings to its laws: he could be free only if he were stronger than the whole of nature, or outside it.
P2So his volitions have causes: he is master neither of his constitution, nor of his ideas, nor of what he desires.
P3A free will would be a will that moves itself and determines itself without a cause.
P4If people believe themselves free, it is for lack of tracing the causes that move them: this feeling rests only on their ignorance.
P5 · implicit premiseA feeling that is fully explained by ignorance of causes does not prove that we are free.
Therefore man is not free at any moment of his life, and the feeling he has of his freedom is an illusion.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a case where the feeling of freedom arises from ignorance of causes and yet reveals something true: the full conclusion no longer follows.
With P5 the conclusion follows. P1 and P2 say our volitions have causes; P3 says what a free will would be; P2 and P3 together rule out freedom. P4 and P5 set aside the best opposing argument, the inner feeling of being free. Without P5 one could reply: this feeling may come from ignorance, yet could still be right.
Analogy. Holbach compares man to gunpowder: it has an activity of its own, but it only unfolds when fire is brought near. In the same way our inner activity exists, but a motive is needed for it to act. If we do not see the motive, we think the powder caught fire by itself.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Rousseau (through the Savoyard vicar) 1762 · attacks premise 2

The source of all action is in the will of a free being, and one cannot go back beyond it. It is not the word freedom that is meaningless, but the word necessity. To suppose an act that comes from no active principle is to suppose effects without cause. Note: a character is speaking, as in the argument "Conscience, a divine instinct".

d'Holbach replies
H
Holbach Holbach (he does not name Rousseau)
The soul does have an activity of its own, but it will never unfold unless some motive or cause enables it to act. Unless one claims that the soul can love or hate without having been moved, without knowing objects. Gunpowder too has an activity of its own, but it unfolds only when fire is brought near.
The debate goes on (our summary) Holbach answers the idea, not Rousseau in person: his 1770 text does not cite him. They agree on one point, that there should be no effect without a cause. They part on the first cause: for the vicar it is man's will, which begins something; for Holbach it is always a motive coming from nature.
Hume (liberty and necessity) 1748 · attacks premise 3

By liberty we can only mean a power of acting or not acting according to the determinations of the will. Being free is thus not determining oneself without a cause: it is acting without constraint, and that is compatible with necessity.

d'Holbach replies
H
Holbach Holbach (he answers the idea, without naming Hume)
It is said that freedom is the absence of obstacles to our actions. But it does not depend on us to place or remove obstacles. The motive that makes us act is no more in our power than the obstacle that stops us.
The debate goes on (our summary) This is the heart of the debate between determinists and compatibilists. For Hume, whether the motive is itself caused changes nothing: one is free when one acts according to one's will. For Holbach, what matters is the origin of the will. The two use "freedom" in two different senses.
Kant 1788 · attacks the conclusion

Freedom is the ratio essendi of the moral law: without it, the moral law could not be found in us. Conversely, it is through the moral law that we become conscious of our freedom.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in 1788, after the author's death (1789).
The debate goes on (our summary) Kant writes eighteen years after Holbach. Holbach had defended in advance the idea that morality does not need free will: for him, "morals is the necessity of the relations subsisting between men". Kant replies that without freedom, duty makes no sense. The debate turns on what "responsible" means.