Hobbes and Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity

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.