A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain

Lore & Background

Benjamin Franklin published A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain in London in 1725 as a response to The Religion of Nature Delineated. The pamphlet argues that an omnipotent, benevolent God is incompatible with human free will and morality. It further formulates that all motivations are derived from pain, and that pain is met with an equal amount of pleasure, leading to the conclusion that man cannot be superior to animals because all are equal in God's eyes. Franklin acknowledged how offensive this idea would be to the reader and later refuted it.

Reader's Guide

The pamphlet is significant as an early philosophical work by Benjamin Franklin, written when he was a young man in London. It reflects his engagement with deist and Calvinist ideas, though Franklin was raised Calvinist and later became a Deist, arguing that Calvinism cannot logically be a moral way to live. The work's arguments about human motivation and the incompatibility of an omnipotent God with free will were controversial, and Franklin himself later came to disagree with the points he printed. In 1779, he burned all copies he possessed except one for historical purposes, but because he had already given several copies to friends, four original copies survive, held by the British Library, Library of Congress, John Carter Brown Library, and Yale University Library. The pamphlet's legacy lies in its rarity and its insight into Franklin's early intellectual development.

Did You Know?

• The pamphlet was published in London in 1725 in response to The Religion of Nature Delineated.
• Franklin burned all copies he possessed in 1779 except one for historical purposes.
• Franklin acknowledged the pamphlet's ideas would be offensive to readers and later refuted them.