Free Will Philosphical Dialogue

MS. ThatÆs a statement so radical you might as well say that our physical sense of being present is also an illusion.

PH. I havenÆt said that. I do say that we do not ask to be born we have no control over our physical presence in the first instance. Moreover, material experience works on us, not the other way around. We are all subject to the laws of the universe, and the universeÆs physical conditions determine the whole of our experience.

MS. By that logic, it makes no sense for the human being who has figured out what you seem to have figured out to bother with the world at all. The only act of the will would be to opt for suicide.

MS. But what other conclusion can I draw?

PH. I am not advocating suicide. I am arguing that we must be realistic about humanityÆs position in the cosmos and the basis on which human experience takes place. Everything that happens to us comes from somewhere. Every decision we make and every action we take is caused by something. We have an impulse, and we act on it. We are motivated to do so by some cause.

MS. Or we donÆt act on it. ThatÆs simply an act of will.

PH. No, no. When we act on impulse that has a cause, our motive is a consequence of some set of reasons that make our action inevitable, or necessary. If we do not act on the impulse, ôit is because there comes some ne

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power and cunning and making irrelevant the experience of those who are their victims. In other words you are valorizing the problem of evil, which is for some a problem of human agency and responsibility and for others proof of the nonexistence of God. PH. I know that my book System of Nature has been called ôthe bible of atheistsö (418). I do not shrink from it. MS. Yet I wonder whether you, champion of atheism, realize that what you argue is much the same as saying, as so many people of faith do, that everything is ôGodÆs willö or that ôthereÆs a reason for everythingö? Your position justifies atheist and fundamentalist determinism alike. PH. I am entirely a man without illusion. MS. Absence of illusion to you means that the natural order of the universe, both nature and human experience within it, is well and truly in place out of necessity. PH. Certainly not because God willed it. MS. But look at this concept of order and necessity. Fine words for a shabby clerk or a beggar to hear, coming from a comfortable baron. PH. You cannot prove I am without compassion. I have also said that ôthe study of moral man [] is a task of [] difficultyö and that manÆs ôheart is an abyss, of which it is frequently impossible for him to fathom
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Some common words found in the essay are:
MS ThatÆs, PH Surely, PH God, MS Curious, System Nature, Louis XVI, MS ItÆs, , MS Absence, human experience, Schlick Moritz, ph king realize, cause motive, moral choice, act impulse, ph act, ph havenÆt, action act, human agency, nature human, ph king,
Approximate Word count = 1724
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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