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The great importance of Marxist philosophy lies in its equipping the working people with a knowledge of the laws of the development and transformation of the objective world. It is a powerful weapon in the struggle for the liberation of the working people from all forms of oppression, for the building of a new, free life.
But is human freedom possible? Is man capable of shaping his own fate? These questions have troubled people since ancient times, but no one could give a convincing answer.
Discussing the question of freedom, philosophers arrived at different but always in- correct conclusions.
Some of them adopted the fatalist viewpoint, which denied freedom. Fatalism expounds the eternal predestination of all man’s actions. Religious fatalism (the Moslem faith and Calvinism) declares that man’s will is predetermined by God. The old metaphysical materialists (such as Holbach) spoke of the necessity of nature, which, they alleged, bound man hand and foot and left him no freedom of action.
Many idealist trends, on the other hand, deny natural necessity, inasmuch as they de- rive the entire world from consciousness, from man’s will. They consider man to be completely free and go so far as to assert absolute absence of law. Such philosophical theories of freedom are representative of indeterminism, of which the “philosophy of existentialism” discussed earlier may serve as an example.
Of the pre-Marxian philosophers, Hegel produced the deepest solution of the prob- lem of freedom and necessity, but he developed it, like all his doctrine, on an idealist foundation. He tried to link freedom and necessity by defining freedom as recognition of necessity. But by necessity he understood the necessary development of the absolute idea, while freedom, according to his doctrine, was realised solely in the realm of the spirit. The basic fault of the doctrines of Hegel and all other idealists is that they conceive freedom solely as freedom in spirit, in consciousness, totally evading the question of the real conditions of human life. What is more, they speak invariably about freedom of the individual and ignore the question of the emancipation of the masses.
Dialectical materialism provides a scientific solution to the question of the relation of freedom and necessity. While it takes necessity as the basis, materialist dialectics at the same time acknowledges the possibility of human freedom. Man’s true freedom is not an imaginary independence of natural and social laws (no such independence is in fact possible). It lies in knowing these laws and in actions based on that knowledge.
People are not supernatural beings. They cannot overstep the bounds of natural laws any more than they can avoid breathing. Furthermore, people live in society, and cannot be immune from the operation of the laws of social living. They can neither arbitrarily revoke the existing laws of social development, nor introduce new ones.
But people can cognise the laws of nature and society and, knowing the nature and direction of their operation, they can utilise them in their own interests, put them to their own service.
Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism
The whole "free will vs determinism" debate is the #4471468716499184th internet debate where neither side is qualified to speak.
I'd rather never speak a word in my life than try to talk about shit I don't understand.
Sorry for making such a weird/hostile post, I'm feeling a bit stressed out rn.
Your use of the term "metaphysics" makes me question whether you've actually engaged with any of the literature on free will.
This is exactly what I am talking about. There is surely a reason this debate exists and continues to exist among philosophers, and I don't think anybody here is really able to fully understand this debate.
Well, at least we can agree that vindictive justice isn't sound
it’s literally a scientific fact that without metaphysics there is no free will
This is incoherent. What does this even mean? It seems like you're just throwing out stuff after some cursory reading you did online
It's literally just the belief that the universe is a closed, predictable system without any actually chaotic elements. Therefore, everything is a result of the things that preceded it in one massive causal chain going back to the Big Bang and before.
There's some stuff at the most fundamental levels of physics that chaos is one hypothesis for but there's no current reason to privilege that hypothesis over others, and in any case once you get above the subatomic level things start behaving incredibly predictably again.
Is there much more to say?
There absolutely is. Neuroscience is still in its infant stages, and the hows and whys of the "neurological impulses" you're talking about is still being researched and debated.
Metaphysical frameworks ≠ automatic assumption of some spiritual element. Arguments for and against free will, or compatibilism, all rely on some metaphysical framework.
If you have a side in the argument, that's fine. I'm not going to debate with you if free will is right or wrong, because I doubt we'll get anywhere if we do disagree. But I think you would do well to understand what words like "metaphysics" entail.
It's a complex topic. I'd agree that at the lower level, it is very easy to justify something like rehabilitation and restorative justice. But once you start climbing the ladder in terms of atrocities, especially with contingent factors like ideologies etc, the whole discourse starts to become muddled. I don't think there's a one size fits all approach.
It's irrational to not believe in free will. If it doesn't exist and you believe it does, you didn't choose to have that belief. Your choice to believe it exists or not believe it exists, along with any other choice, is devoid of meaning and irrelevant. If it does exist and you believe it doesn't then you are limiting your ability to realize the full potential of freedom.
So what does that mean? what do you do differently if you believe that? Just not care when anyone takes any possible action?
You think we don't have free will, right? What would change if we did?
What would make retribution make more sense? The point of punishment, in my view, is to change behavior. It demonstrably does that; operant conditioning works by applying punishments and rewards. If we don't have free will now, why and how would adding free will change this? If changing behavior isn't the point, then what is?
I agree, revenge is pointless. I don't think the existence or nonexistence of free will changes that.
