"Hard Determinism" two ojections and one responce!! how does hard determinism over come the free will and determinism argument!!

Essay by tkllsharbUniversity, Bachelor'sA-, December 2003

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Hard Determinism

In this paper, I will argue that hard determinism is the only viable position with respect to the free will and determinism debate. I will consider W.T. Stace's objection concerning the semantic problem, which is explaining what the real sense of the word" free will" means, and the objection raised by the libertarians, which is how can a person want things and the wanting just comes up out of nowhere, but ultimately I will reject both.

Hard determinism holds that everything that happens must happen, because everything is causally determined by the given antecedent conditions and laws of nature. The argument hard determinists give goes as follows. Premise one: an event is causally determined just in case it is not possible for the event not to have occurred. Premise two: every event is either causally determined or it isn't. Premise three: for an act to be free, the act should be avoidable, and avoiding it had to come from our own will.

Premise four: it had to happen. Premise five: if an event is not causally determined, then it is a random event. Premise six: if the event is random, then it doesn't result from the exertion of anyone's will. Premise seven: every human action is an event. Premise eight: so, every human action is such that it is either causally determined or not. Premise nine: for any human act A, if act A is causally determined then the agent could not have acted otherwise, thus the act can not be free. Premise ten: if A is random then A is not a result of the exertion of the agents will. Conclusion: therefore, no action is free (Kessler 416).

In the first premise of hard determinism it clearly states what is meant by " free", if any act...