The Delusion of Free Will by Robert Blatchford (Sam S.)
In The Delusion of Free Will, Robert Blatchford states that every decision or thought that anyone has ever made is the product of their environment, heredity, temperament, and training. He states that man does not wish anything, because there is a cause for every wish, and the cause comes from the heredity or from the environment the man is in. Blatchford goes on to state that in every action, the stronger motive of the two or more motivates, and the strength is a product of the four things listed above. Blatchford goes on to give several examples including one of a man refraining from drinking, and the girl choosing between a concert with her lover and volunteering for the sick. Towards the end of the reading, he discusses belief, and how a man cannot believe a thing he is told to believe, he can only believe something that his reason tells him he can believe. In discussion we discussed how Blatchford essentially states that the human mind is a computer that is a product of environment, heredity, temperament, and training, and whether we believed that or not. We also talked about if people should be held accountable for their actions and decisions, even they were, according to Blatchford, influenced by their environment or training. We also explored the idea of if a man was raised in a culture where slaves were okay to own, and if the man would ever come to a realization that slavery was morally wrong. An interesting point that was made in discussion about the soul. Although we failed to explain exactly what the soul was, the idea of it led to more interesting discussion about how we would not even know what the word soul was if it was not for our training in language, and how in fact we are bound by our language by certain constraints.
After finishing this reading, I firmly believe that Blatchford is correct, however depressing his ideas may be to many people. I have not yet thought of any hole in his arguments, and like he says, if one is to think about why he or she is thinking something, his argument makes complete sense. In terms of when we talked about how if a man should be held accountable for his actions, I believe that it is not necessarily a matter of accountability, and that the man just needs a change of environment and more training to get him back on track. Changes of environment are key to changing how one thinks, and I believe that there is a way for the man who grew up in a culture of owning slaves to realize that slavery is morally wrong: make him change his environment by making him be a slave for an extended period of time. I strongly believe that the man would change his mind about slavery. As a not very spiritual person, I do not believe in the soul, and I believe that the soul is merely a part of the mind, which is influenced by the four things listed at the beginning.
This reading and discussion made me think about Harry Potter. Harry Potter would not have killed Voldemort and saved the world if not for his heredity (child of wizards), environment (being the “chosen one”), training (Hogwarts trained him), and temperament (he was a feisty one).
Preview YouTube video Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - Clip: You're a Wizard, Harry
Would you say then, that Blatchford is trying to correct his readers (those who are not full supporters of hard determinism) by appealing to their environment? Yet, would you say he could also be reconditioned (by use of reason, and in a convincing manner , as he so indicates himself to be essential in his essay), to believe otherwise, and thus his theory is subject to change? Blatchford's theory appears to rely on the existence of a uniformity in nature, but can't such believed uniformity be subject to change, with the proper reconditioning, allowing for a non-uniformity in nature?
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