Why read Hobbes and Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity?

Book cover of Hobbes and Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity

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Do human beings ever act freely, and if so what does freedom mean? Is everything that happens antecedently caused, and if so how is freedom possible? Is it right, even for God, to punish people for things that they cannot help doing? This volume presents the famous seventeenth-century controversy in…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Hobbes and Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

John T. Maier

Author

This 17th-century debate remains both engaging and unresolved – testimony to the endurance of the free will problem.

Bramhall upholds a traditional view of free will, while Hobbes defends a more modern “materialist” view that is an ancestor to the views defended by List and Ismael above.

While many contemporary discussions of free will often focus on implications for moral responsibility, this debate is notable for the far broader range of considerations that the authors invoke, suggesting that the question of free will touches just about every aspect of our agency.

From John's list on The best books that defend the reality of free will.