Position
Hard Determinism
Causal determinism is true and incompatible with free will, so human beings do not have free will.
Classification
- Position level
- specific
- Domains
- Ethics, Metaphysics
Overview
Hard determinism takes both halves of the free-will question and answers each in the way that leaves no room for freedom: every event including every choice is necessitated by prior causes, and an action that is necessitated is not one the agent was free to withhold. Where the compatibilist adjusts what freedom requires so that it fits determination, the hard determinist holds the demanding sense fixed and concludes that nothing satisfies it.
The position's sharpest consequence is moral rather than metaphysical. If no one could ever have acted otherwise, blame and desert lose their grip, and the practices built on them — punishment above all — must be rebuilt on forward-looking grounds or given up.
Position on
Broader position
Rival positions
- Libertarian Free Will
Question scope: Free Will
- Compatibilism
Question scope: Free Will
References
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Free Will
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Free Will, §3.c (hard determinists are incompatibilists who hold that determinism is true of the actual world, so no agent in it has free will)
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Free Will, §3.c (both are incompatibilist; hard determinists hold that determinism is true and no agent has free will, libertarians that the world is not deterministic and some agents have free will)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Incompatibilist Theories of Free Will
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Causal Determinism