The Delusion of
Free Will
	Robert Blatchford (1913)
	
	Introduction to Philosophy
	Professor Doug Olena
Hard Determinism
	40 The free will party claim that a man is responsible for his acts, because his will is free to choose between right and wrong.
	We reply that the will is not free, and that if it were free, man could not know right from wrong until he was taught.
Hard Determinism
	40 When a man says his will is free, he means that it is free of all control or interference: that it can over-rule heredity and environment.
	We reply that the will is ruled by heredity and environment.
Hard Determinism
	40 When the free will party say that man has a free will, they mean that he is free to act as he chooses to act. 
	There is no need to deny that. But what causes him to choose?
	This is the pivot upon which the whole discussion turns.
Hard Determinism
	41 I am going to appeal to common sense and common knowledge that the will is not free; but ruled by heredity and environment.
	For a man acts always from temperament, which is heredity, or from training, which is environment.
Hard Determinism
	42 Illustration of the humanitarian and the sportsman
Hard Determinism
	42 How do you account for a man doing the thing he does not wish to do?
	No man ever did a thing he did not wish to do. When there are two wishes, the stronger rules.
Hard Determinism
	43 A man is said to be free to decide between two courses. 
	But really he is only free to decide in accordance with his temperament and training.
Hard Determinism
	44 The apostles of free will believe that all menıs wills are free. 
	But a man can only will that which he is able to will. 
	And one man is able to will that which another man is unable to will. 
	To deny this is to deny the commonest and most obvious facts of life. 
Hard Determinism
	44 How can we predict what people will do? 
	Simply because their heredity and environment have so formed and moulded them that under certain circumstances they are predictable.
Hard Determinism
	46 We often hear that a man is to blame for his conduct because ³he knows better.²
	47 But a man cannot believe a thing he is told to believe: he can only believe a thing which he can believe; and he can only believe that which his own reason tells him is true.
Hard Determinism
	47 Free will has no power over a manıs belief. A man cannot believe by will, but only by conviction. A man cannot be forced to believe.
	Now truism as it may seem, I think it necessary to say here that a man cannot be convinced by abuse, nor by punishment. 
	He can only be convinced by reason.