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Single Idea 4311

[filed under theme 16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / a. Determinism ]

Full Idea

Men think themselves free because they are conscious of their volitions and their appetites, yet never give a thought to the causes which dispose them to desire or to exercise the will as they do, since they are wholly unaware of them.

Gist of Idea

We think we are free because we don't know the causes of our desires and choices

Source

Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675])

Book Ref

Cottingham,John: 'The Rationalists' [OUP 1988], p.160

A Reaction

This encapsulates the determinist idea nicely. In the end we just choose, but we have no idea why we prefer one reason to another, or simply opt for one thing rather than another.

The 30 ideas with the same theme [natural causes have no room for free will]:

21670 Democritus said atoms only move by their natural motions, which are therefore necessary [Democritus, by Cicero]
6033 Democritus said everything happens of necessity, by natural motion of atoms [Democritus, by Cicero]
5088 Some say there is a determinate cause for every apparently spontaneous event [Democritus, by Aristotle]
330 No one wants to be bad, but bad men result from physical and educational failures, which they do not want or choose [Plato]
14521 If everything is by necessity, then even denials of necessity are by necessity [Epicurus]
1770 When a slave said 'It was fated that I should steal', Zeno replied 'Yes, and that you should be beaten' [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius]
3799 A dog tied to a cart either chooses to follow and is pulled, or it is just pulled [Zeno of Citium, by Hippolytus]
20835 Chrysippus is wrong to believe in non-occurring future possibilities if he is a fatalist [Plutarch on Chrysippus]
20808 Everything is fated, either by continuous causes or by a supreme rational principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
21391 Some actions are within our power; determinism needs prior causes for everything - so it is false [Carneades, by Cicero]
6029 Whoever knows future causes knows everything that will be [Cicero]
20875 If we could foresee the future, we should collaborate with disease and death [Epictetus]
5982 If the future does not exist, how can prophets see it? [Augustine]
5769 Does foreknowledge cause necessity, or necessity cause foreknowledge? [Boethius]
5768 God's universal foreknowledge seems opposed to free will [Boethius]
4311 We think we are free because we don't know the causes of our desires and choices [Spinoza]
7828 The actual world is the only one God could have created [Spinoza]
2119 People argue for God's free will, but it isn't needed if God acts in perfection following supreme reason [Leibniz]
7841 We think we are free because the causes of the will are unknown; determinism is a false problem [Leibniz]
3441 If a supreme intellect knew all atoms and movements, it could know all of the past and the future [Laplace]
21477 We don't control our own thinking [Schopenhauer]
4170 Man's actions are not free, because they follow strictly from impact of motive on character [Schopenhauer]
20231 People used to think that outcomes were from God, rather than consequences of acts [Nietzsche]
23210 That all events are necessary does not mean they are compelled [Nietzsche]
8352 To believe in determinism, one must believe in a system which determines events [Anscombe]
22371 Determinism threatens free will if actions can be causally traced to external factors [Foot]
8424 Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis]
3892 Every event having a cause, and every event being determined by its cause, are not the same [Scruton]
14939 Two versions of quantum theory say that the world is deterministic [Ladyman/Ross]
12410 There once was a man who said 'Damn!... [Sommers,W]