philosophy paper
Valerielee
FatalismDeterminismandFreeWill.pdf
1/18/2018
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Phil 2: Puzzles and Paradoxes
Prof. Sven Bernecker
University of California, Irvine
Fatalism, Determinism
and Free Will
What‘s the Issue?
• We take ourselves to have free will. Any argument for the conclusion that
we don’t have free will – that we never really choose between actions we
are able to do, that nothing is really up to us – would undermine a view of
the world. Hence such an argument will count as a paradox.
• One challenge to free will comes from fate.
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“The fatalist, then, is someone who believes that whatever happens is and
always was unavoidable. He thinks that it is not up to him what will happen
a thousand years hence, next year, tomorrow, or the very next moment.”
(Taylor, p. 55).
Voluntary vs. Intentional Action
• Intentional action is goal-oriented action. But an intentional action need not reach its goal, i.e., be successful.
• The motive behind an intentional action need not be rational.
• Whether someone acts intentionally may depend on how the action is described. E.g., Oedipus intentionally killed the old man. But Oedipus did not intentionally kill his father. Nevertheless, the old man was his father.
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• Being a fee agent is being an agent capable of influencing the world; being the source of ones own actions.
• Usually voluntary actions are intentional. But some voluntary actions are unintentional – those one does not do on purpose, and which can be inhibited with an effort.
• Freedom of will vs. freedom of action: An agent can possess free will without also having freedom of action. (Whether one can have freedom of action without free will is controversial.)
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Free Will
• The will is free if it is not predetermined/ caused by antecedent factors.
• Free will means that we are self-determined, not (ultimately) subject to
forces outside of our control - it means, we could have chosen
otherwise.
• Subject S‘s will is free with respect to performing action A, if and only if
S could have chosen to do other than A.
• Free will is the ability to choose to do otherwise in the same
circumstances.
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• “To say that one has free will is to say that when one decides among forks in the road of time (or, more prosaically, when one decides what to do), one is at least sometimes able to take more than one of the forks…One has free will if sometimes more than one of the forks in the road of time is ‘open’ to one.” (Peter van Inwagen)
• “One lacks free will if on every occasion on which one must make a decision only one of the forks before one -- of course it will be the fork one in fact takes -- is open to one.” (Peter van Inwagen)
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Relevance of Free Will
• We feel that we are free, that we are originators of our own
actions.
• Free will is a condition on the moral responsibility for our actions.
• Free will is a condition on desert for one's accomplishments (why
sustained effort and creative work are praiseworthy).
• Free will is a condition on the autonomy and dignity of persons
• Free will is a condition on the value we accord to love and
friendship.
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Causal Determinism
• Causal determinism is the view that the state of the world at a given time determines the state of the world at the next moment.
• Every event that occurs, including human action, is entirely the result of earlier causes.
• The state of the universe plus the laws of nature determine a single unique future.
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• What is the state of the universe? It is a complete description of everything occurring at this exact moment:
- The way my shirt is wrinkled right now.
- The position of your fingers on your desk
- The position of all the atoms and molecules in the room
- The mental states each of you have right now
- Everything happening on this planet
- Everything occurring in the universe at this exact moment
• Examples of laws of nature: law of gravitation, law of conservation of energy, etc.
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Causal Determinism vs. Fatalism
• Causal determinism is the view that every event that occurs,
including human action, is entirely the result of earlier causes. Note
that some of these earlier causes may be free choices.
• Fatalism is the view that whatever happens now and will happen in
the future happens necessarily. Because the present and future is
fixed, pre-ordained, our choices about what to do in a situation are
inconsequential. E.g., it was true 100 years ago that you would sit in
this lecture hall today.
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• Note: Fatalism leaves it open
whether there is any purpose
guiding our fates. Fatalism also
leaves it open whether anyone
knows our fates.
