Bramhall is an incompatibilist, meaning he thinks that freedom of action and responsibility for actions are incompatible with the causal determination of the will. Since he believes that the will is free, he is a libertarian. That means he thinks that at least some things that happen are not causally determined, namely, the voluntary actions of rational agents, such as people and, presumably, God.
Hobbes cannot imagine anything happening without a cause. He also thinks that causes make their effects necessary. So he was a determinist. That means he believes that all events are caused and necessary.
Hobbes also denies that there is such a thing as free will. The will, like everything else, is caused, and, as we will see, the definition of “liberty” that applies to actions does not apply to the will. However he is a compatibilist about the freedom of action and responsibility for what we do. That means he thought freedom and responsibility are compatible with the causal determination of the will.
Of course, Hobbes and Bramahall did not use the terms “determinist” and “compatibilist.” Those are our invention. Here is a map to the vocabulary that is currently in vogue. To make the map, take the two possible answers to two questions.
| Yes (determinism is true) | No (determinism) is false) | |
|---|---|---|
| Yes (freedom is compatible) | Compatibilism (Hobbes) | – (no one) |
| No (freedom is not compatible) | Hard Determinism | Libertarianism (Bramhall) |
Compatibilism is the more difficult position to understand, so I’m going to spend a little time going over it.
Our actions are free, according to Hobbes, if we can do what we have a will to do. The “will,” for Hobbes, means the last appetite before action; it is the state of mind that leads you to act (§27). The idea is that freedom means there is nothing external blocking you from doing what you will to do (see §29). It does not matter whether your decision to do one thing rather than another was caused by factors outside of your control.
Hobbes writes that “I acknowledge this liberty, that I can do if I will; but to say, I can will if I will, I take to be an absurd speech” (§3). Here is what that means. Liberty of action means there is nothing preventing you from doing what you have a will to do. Given the definition of “will” as the last appetite before action, there cannot be a will to will; willing something is not an action. So the definition of liberty of action cannot apply to the will itself. So there is no such thing as free will. (Both the will and actions are causally determined, so neither is free in the sense that Bramhall has in mind, namely, being free from causal determination.)
Bramhall had two broad points.
The first was that many things that do, in fact, make sense would not make sense if determinism were true. For instance, it would not make any sense for me to ask for advice if my behavior was causally determined. The thought is that if it is already determined what I am going to do then it doesn’t make any sense to get advice about what I should do. The advice cannot alter what I do, so there is no point in seeking it.
Bramhall’s second broad point is that it would be unjust to punish people for what they could not help doing. Hobbes said in reply that we punish out of a kind of self-defense and in order to deter others. Do those points directly answer Bramhall?