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Single Idea 6213

[filed under theme 16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will ]

Full Idea

The will is not voluntary: for a man can no more say he will will, than he will will will, and so make an infinite repetition of the word 'will', which is absurd and insignificant.

Gist of Idea

A man cannot will to will, or will to will to will, so the idea of a voluntary will is absurd

Source

Thomas Hobbes (Human Nature [1640], Ch.XII.5)

Book Ref

'British Moralists 1650-1800 Vol. 1', ed/tr. Raphael,D.D. [Hackett 1991], p.16

A Reaction

A nice simple point, allied to Nietzsche's notion that thoughts are uncontrollable (Idea 2291). Even Aquinas, who is quite a fan of free will, spotted the problem (Idea 1854). Personally I agree with Hobbes. Free will is a shibboleth.

Related Ideas

Idea 2291 A thought comes when 'it' wants, not when 'I' want [Nietzsche]

Idea 1854 We must admit that when the will is not willing something, the first movement to will must come from outside the will [Aquinas]

The 101 ideas from Thomas Hobbes

23609 I act justly if I follow my Prince in an apparently unjust war, and refusing to fight would be injustice [Hobbes]
17233 Particulars contain universal things [Hobbes]
17234 Motion is losing one place and acquiring another [Hobbes]
17235 A cause is the complete sum of the features which necessitate the effect [Hobbes]
17236 Words are not for communication, but as marks for remembering what we have learned [Hobbes]
17238 Science aims to show causes and generation of things [Hobbes]
17237 Definitions of things that are caused must express their manner of generation [Hobbes]
17239 Definition is resolution of names into successive genera, and finally the difference [Hobbes]
17241 A defined name should not appear in the definition [Hobbes]
17240 Definitions are the first step in philosophy [Hobbes]
17242 'Petitio principii' is reusing the idea to be defined, in disguised words [Hobbes]
17243 Past times can't exist anywhere, apart from in our memories [Hobbes]
17244 To make a whole, parts needn't be put together, but can be united in the mind [Hobbes]
17245 A part of a part is a part of a whole [Hobbes]
14960 Bodies are independent of thought, and coincide with part of space [Hobbes]
16670 Accidents are just modes of thinking about bodies [Hobbes]
16621 Accidents are not parts of bodies (like blood in a cloth); they have accidents as things have a size [Hobbes]
17246 Some accidental features are permanent, unless the object perishes [Hobbes]
17247 The only generalities or universals are names or signs [Hobbes]
17248 If a whole body is moved, its parts must move with it [Hobbes]
17250 If you separate the two places of one thing, you will also separate the thing [Hobbes]
17249 If you separated two things in the same place, you would also separate the places [Hobbes]
16582 We can imagine a point swelling and contracting - but not how this could be done [Hobbes]
17251 The feature which picks out or names a thing is usually called its 'essence' [Hobbes]
16600 Prime matter is body considered with mere size and extension, and potential [Hobbes]
17252 Acting on a body is either creating or destroying a property in it [Hobbes]
17253 Change is nothing but movement [Hobbes]
16734 The complete power of an event is just the aggregate of the qualities that produced it [Hobbes]
17254 An effect needs a sufficient and necessary cause [Hobbes]
17255 Two bodies differ when (at some time) you can say something of one you can't say of the other [Hobbes]
16790 A body is always the same, whether the parts are together or dispersed [Hobbes]
17257 It is the same river if it has the same source, no matter what flows in it [Hobbes]
12853 Some individuate the ship by unity of matter, and others by unity of form [Hobbes]
17256 If a new ship were made of the discarded planks, would two ships be numerically the same? [Hobbes]
16794 As an infant, Socrates was not the same body, but he was the same human being [Hobbes]
17258 If we just say one, one, one, one, we don't know where we have got to [Hobbes]
2948 Sensation is merely internal motion of the sentient being [Hobbes]
17259 'Force' is the quantity of movement imposed on something [Hobbes]
17260 Imagination is just weakened sensation [Hobbes]
17261 Apart from pleasure and pain, the only emotions are appetite and aversion [Hobbes]
19373 A 'conatus' is an initial motion, experienced by us as desire or aversion [Hobbes, by Arthur,R]
16789 Only supernatural means could annihilate anything once it had being [Hobbes]
7396 Hobbes created English-language philosophy [Hobbes, by Tuck]
7408 It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own [Hobbes, by Tuck]
7410 Self-preservation is basic, and people judge differently about that, implying ethical relativism [Hobbes, by Tuck]
7409 Hobbes shifted from talk of 'the good' to talk of 'rights' [Hobbes, by Tuck]
7411 The attributes of God just show our inability to conceive his nature [Hobbes]
16688 Evidence is conception, which is imagination, which proceeds from the senses [Hobbes]
16638 The qualities of the world are mere appearances; reality is the motions which cause them [Hobbes]
7405 Experience can't prove universal truths [Hobbes]
7407 Good and evil are what please us; goodness and badness the powers causing them [Hobbes]
6212 Lust involves pleasure, and also the sense of power in pleasing others [Hobbes]
6211 Laughter is a sudden glory in realising the infirmity of others, or our own formerly [Hobbes]
6208 Conceptions and apparitions are just motion in some internal substance of the head [Hobbes]
6209 There is no absolute good, for even the goodness of God is goodness to us [Hobbes]
6210 Life has no end (not even happiness), because we have desires, which presuppose a further end [Hobbes]
6213 A man cannot will to will, or will to will to will, so the idea of a voluntary will is absurd [Hobbes]
5337 For Hobbes the Golden Rule concerns not doing things, whereas Jesus encourages active love [Hobbes, by Flanagan]
8014 Resolve a complex into simple elements, then reconstruct the complex by using them [Hobbes, by MacIntyre]
20484 We should obey the laws of nature, provided other people are also obeying them [Hobbes, by Wolff,J]
7573 The legal positivism of Hobbes said law is just formal or procedural [Hobbes, by Jolley]
19764 Hobbes attributed to savages the passions which arise in a law-bound society [Hobbes, by Rousseau]
20566 Hobbes says the people voluntarily give up their sovereignty, in a contract with a ruler [Hobbes, by Oksala]
20485 Hobbes says people are roughly equal; Locke says there is no right to impose inequality [Hobbes, by Wolff,J]
2356 Appearance and reality can be separated by mirrors and echoes [Hobbes]
2357 Dreams must be false because they seem absurd, but dreams don't see waking as absurd [Hobbes]
2358 Freedom is absence of opposition to action; the idea of 'free will' is absurd [Hobbes]
2359 Desire and love are the same, but in the desire the object is absent, and in love it is present [Hobbes]
2360 'Good' is just what we desire, and 'Evil' what we hate [Hobbes]
2363 Reason is usually general, but deliberation is of particulars [Hobbes]
2362 The will is just the last appetite before action [Hobbes]
2361 If fear of unknown powers is legal it is religion, if it is illegal it is superstition [Hobbes]
2365 Religion is built on ignorance and misinterpretation of what is unknown or frightening [Hobbes]
2364 Causation is only observation of similar events following each other, with nothing visible in between [Hobbes]
2366 There is not enough difference between people for one to claim more benefit than another [Hobbes]
2367 In time of war the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short [Hobbes]
2368 Men's natural desires are no sin, and neither are their actions, until law makes it so [Hobbes]
2374 In the violent state of nature, the merest suspicion is enough to justify breaking a contract [Hobbes]
2370 All voluntary acts aim at some good for the doer [Hobbes]
2371 A contract is a mutual transfer of rights [Hobbes]
2372 The person who performs first in a contract is said to 'merit' the return, and is owed it [Hobbes]
2375 Suspicion will not destroy a contract, if there is a common power to enforce it [Hobbes]
2373 The first performer in a contract is handing himself over to an enemy [Hobbes]
2369 If we seek peace and defend ourselves, we must compromise on our rights [Hobbes]
2383 Virtues are a means to peaceful, sociable and comfortable living [Hobbes]
2376 Injustice is the failure to keep a contract, and justice is the constant will to give what is owed [Hobbes]
2380 Punishment should only be for reform or deterrence [Hobbes]
2378 Belief in an afterlife is based on poorly founded gossip [Hobbes]
2382 Someone who keeps all his contracts when others are breaking them is making himself a prey to others [Hobbes]
2377 No one who admitted to not keeping contracts could ever be accepted as a citizen [Hobbes]
2379 If there is a good reason for breaking a contract, the same reason should have stopped the making of it [Hobbes]
23987 The 'simple passions' are appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief [Hobbes, by Goldie]
6214 Liberty and necessity are consistent, as when water freely flows, by necessity [Hobbes]
7559 Every part of the universe is body, and non-body is not part of it [Hobbes]
8016 Fear of sanctions is the only motive for acceptance of authority that Hobbes can think of [MacIntyre on Hobbes]
8015 Hobbes wants a contract to found morality, but shared values are needed to make a contract [MacIntyre on Hobbes]
6215 'Contingent' means that the cause is unperceived, not that there is no cause [Hobbes]
16620 A chair is wood, and its shape is the form; it isn't 'compounded' of the matter and form [Hobbes]
16622 Essence is just an artificial word from logic, giving a way of thinking about substances [Hobbes]
2385 If a man suddenly develops an intention of doing something, the cause is out of his control, not in his will [Hobbes]
2384 Those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntary [Hobbes]