Baron Holbach According to Baron

Baron Holbach

According to Baron Holbach, a person's life is " a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant." From his point-of-view, human life is under the sign of hard determinism. Human freedom is only an ideal concept. The truth is that all our actions are determined by something which lies beyond and outside our will.

First and foremost it must be mentioned that the author mentions nothing about god. Unlike other philosophers who have tried to demonstrate the lack of human freedom through the existence of God who is omniscient and omnipotent, therefore determining all the actions of the being that he himself created, Holbach speaks about nature as the determining entity, while making a very interesting point about what will is.

In Holbach's opinion will is something to be strictly associated with the brain. Man has the impression that he acts according to his wishes only or at least he can distinguish the times when he does something that the wants from the ones in which a certain action is imposed to him. The philosopher will argue that there is no will without an object and it is this particular object which determines will.

Another argument that Holbach brings into discussion refers to the influence of the surrounding environment upon the individual. There are a lot of coordinates which man simply can not control, nor decide upon, such as our parents, our place of birth, our early education. This, together with the values of the society that we live in and the personal experiences we have underwent action as forming agents. They form our preferences, our values and attitudes. These are the coordinates which orientate our will in all the cases, regardless of the circumstances. From this point-of-view, we are products of our environment, even if we believe that our capacity to discern makes us free.

A possible counter argument that can be brought to Holbach's theme is represented by the capacity of man to resist his impulses and desires. It has been argued that animals are unable to keep from satisfying their instincts. People on the other hand are and this is what proves that they are endowed with reason and freedom.

While this is true, it is just as true that whenever a person chooses not to satisfy an inner request, it is because there is a reason good enough for him to do it. This good enough reason does not appear independently of who the person is, his manner of thinking, his desires and his ideals. Since all these elements have been created under external influences. Therefore, since they are not under the control of the individual and the individual only, it can be considered that the individual is not free, but influenced.

Everything we do, Holbach argues, is to preserve ourselves and to be happy. No matter which of these two supreme ideals we choose to analyze, they are both something which come snot from inside the individual, but from outside it. One may wish to get drunk every day, but knowing that this will ruin his health, will probably not fulfil his desire. By doing this he does not demonstrate that he is free.

He demonstrates only how conditioned his body and his life are. The very fact that we are bound to die can be considered a supreme proof regarding our lack of freedom. Just like the incapacity to decide upon our own birth. We are born into this world regardless of our will.

One of the examples that Holbach remarkably makes refers to a situation in which a man might argue that the is free to jump from a window putting an end to his life. The philosopher argues that no matter his final decision, its character will be a determined one.

If he does not jump, it is because he wants to live and in this will to live we can read the instinct for survival, which is a print that has been put unto us by nature. If he decides to jump in order to prove his total freedom, his action will be equally determined by the need to demonstrate something.

This latter need is another characteristic that the individual was not born with but probably acquired during his life. A man who commits suicide may be considered man and madness can be connected to passions and not reason. However, no matter if one is a slave to his reason or to his passions, he is still a slave.

Happiness on the other hand is another concept which we all build in time, according to our own personal experiences. It is in our nature to search for things which make us happy. It can be argued that man doe nothing else but become what he was meant to become.

From the moment of our birth we are enrolled, independently of our will, into a race towards death. This is our nature. Everything that we do is nothing but become our nature. Our fulfilment is the fulfilment of our nature. From this perspective, the only conclusions that one can reach is that our actions are always necessarily determined and that the ideal of human freedom is a hoax.

Holbach is right from a multitude of perspectives. He draws attention to the fact that even when we make a choice, the choice we make is determined either by an object which is external to our will, either by an interior need which depends either on our blood (nature) or on some sort of belief that has been acquired through education and influences from the surrounding environment. The fact that we are free to make a choice does not serve as evidence that we are free in the true meaning of the word.

We could agree to Holbach completely, especially if we consider that his deterministic approach has nothing to do with mysticism, but rather with science. We are genetically determined by our forefathers. Every actions that we need to react to has a cause that can not be controlled (or it can be controlled but only partially). The universe has a mechanism though which it puts things into place and every excess is followed by something that will recreate balance.