1. 16 January, 2012
Hard Determinism
What does
determinism mean?
Looking at the contrasting
philosophies of hard determinism
and libertarianism
Would you like to be controlled like a puppet by a puppeteer?
In what ways do you believe that you are controlled or that your choices are already determined?
Is it morally wrong not to be able to make free choices?

2. TERM
• Hard determinism
The teaching that denies that humanity has
freewill and believes that all actions have a prior
cause. It removes moral responsibility for actions.
What is your reaction to this teaching?

3. Ted Honderich
• ‘... All our choices, decisions, intentions, other
mental events and our actions are no more
than effects of other equally necessitated
events.’
What does this quote mean?
What are it’s implications? How
Could it affect our society?

4. Is it murder?
• Psychological determinists believe that they
have made some progress in isolating
physiological abnormalities in the brain that
may cause people to murder without having
made a choice to do so. Could it have been
‘determined’ that these people would murder
because of a genetic defect?
What do you think? Why?

5. • Hard determinism is the view that all choices
are determined by other events or actions
prior to the choice.
So, did you ‘decide’ to do A level ethics or was it
a choice determined by other events and
actions going right back to your birth? If so,
what could those events and actions be?

6. Isaac Newton 1643-1727
• Newton said that all physical beings and things
are governed by a series of unchangeable
natural laws such as gravity or motion. These
laws assist in forming the basis for the cause
and effect that fills the discussion of hard
determinism.
• Hard determinists are very strict and rigid in
their beliefs. If everything is determined, and
we are not free at all to act in any different
way, then we cannot be held morally
responsible for our actions, as we didn’t
choose to perform or commit these actions.

7. John Hospers
• Modern hard determinists claim that
• there is always something within us
that urges us to make a choice that we
believe was a result of our free will. We aren’t
always aware of any ‘urging’ in our choice
making, however, we have all probably made
choices and not remembered why and how
we have made them.

8. • Does Prince William’s life prove hard
determinism is fact? Why ? Why not?

9. • If a human child were raised by wolves in the
wild, how would the child make decisions?
Would they be based on genetic determinism
or on upbringing? Could the child choose to
not be a wolf or human child?

10. LIBERTARIANISM – HUMAN
CONDITION AND MORAL
SELF
To understand how important free
will is to the human condition.

11. REVIEW
• Determinism says that:
• Our personality is causally determined
• We are physically determined
• Therefore our actions and our emotions are
causally determined.

12. Libertarianism (incompatibilism)
• This theory claims that we are morally
responsible for all our actions and are free to
make choices.
I don’t complete my homework. Whose fault is it?
I steal a pen from the teacher. Whose fault is it?
I get drunk on a flight home from holiday. Whose
fault is it?
Why?

13. LIBERTARIANISM
• Libertarianism makes a distinction
between a persons formed personal
character and their moral self.
• Personality is an empirical concept.
• Governed by causal laws.
• The personality one has formed
limits actions, influences choices and
may make us accustomed to certain
actions, e.g. Darrow
• But it is not definitive.

14. Personality and Moral Self
• In less than fifty words, describe your own
personality.
• What determines your personality?
Personality Moral self

15. Personality Moral self
Empirical concept Ethical concept
Governed by causal laws Operates when we decide what to do
it situations of moral choice
Capable of scientific explanation and Involved deciding between self-
prediction interest and duty
Known through observation of Can be undetermined
behaviour and psychoanalysis
Limits our choices – makes us more Can subdue inclinations of
likely to choose certain kinds of upbringing
actions. E.g. youth accustomed to
violence is more likely to decide on a Can do something that satisfies
career of violence BUT not moral duty
inevitable. Youth might be aware of
significance of his actions. Their
moral self might counteract. They
could become a policeman as a
result of their upbringing

16. THE MORAL SELF
• It is possible that the youths moral self will
counteract the tendencies of his personality.
• The moral self is therefore, an ethical concept
rather than an empirical concept.
• It is operative when we make choices.
• Most commonly this is in operation when we talk
about making a decision between self-interest
and duty.
• In the example of stealing / not stealing the moral
self is able to make a causally undetermined
choice.

17. THE MORAL SELF
• Through an effort of will the moral self
overcomes the pressures of personality and
becomes morally responsible for what they
do.
• It is this capacity which distinguishes men
from animals, the former are capable of moral
choice, whist the latter are not.
• What does this idea not cover?

18. THE PERSONALITY AND THE MORAL
SELF
• Political libertarianism investigates the relationship between the state and the
individual.
• We are free and morally responsible for our actions.
 JS Mill – On Liberty
 Contains an outspoken defence of free speech. Individuals should not be
crushed by the will of the many in society. The individual should be heard
at all times and they are the most important. the freedom of the individual
is primary.
 Individuality is part of what being human is. It is part of the human
condition and allows the person to develop fully and in order to do this
they must have free speech and freedom of action. (within reason)
 Our freedom to act marks both our moral capacity but also our personality.
 Who I am is defined by the choices I have made in the past.
 Freedom is important because it is an important part of what it means to
be a moral self.

19. MILL QUOTES
• In this age the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to
bend the knee to custom, is itself a service.
JS Mill • If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no
more justified in silencing that one person that he, if he had the
On Liberty power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
• The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of the
individuals composing it.
• The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far
as these concerns the interests of no person but himself.
• The only purpose of which power can be rightfully exercised over
any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent
harm to other members.
• The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited, he must not
make himself a nuisance to other people.

20. Tasks
• What are the differences between
libertarianism and hard determinism?
Critically evaluate each view..using quotes,
examples and opinion.
• ‘We do not possess any genuine freedom to
act ethically’. Discuss 10 marks