Fate & Free Will
Ancient Greek Beliefs and
Oedipus Rex
Concept of Fate
 Fatalism
is the system of belief that holds
that the universe and everything in it is
governed by destiny or fate (moira). A
fatalist would hold that even the lives of
human beings are determined by fate.
 In the earliest strands of Greek thought,
fate is often portrayed as an impersonal
force to which even the gods are
subject.
The Concept of Fate cont.
 This
force became personified in Greek
religion in the form of the three
goddesses of fate (the Moirai):
 Clotho spins the thread of life.
 Lachesis determines the length of a
person's life and measures the thread of
his glory (or its opposite).
 Atropos determines when that life should
end.
The Fates
The Concept of Fate & Gods
 In
general, the gods are portrayed in
Greek literature as the agents of fate
(they don’t actually control it – they
just know it).
 The Greek gods had supernatural
powers (particularly over human
life), but their power was severely
limited by a concept of fate (Moira)
as the relentless force of destiny.
The Fates and the Gods
The gods were not thought to be omnipresent,
omniscient, or omnipotent. Shorn of the usual
godly attributes, the Olympians often took on
the property of being simply bigger than
humans, but not different or alien.
 The Olympians fought one another and often
meddled in human affairs (this intervention was
called the deus ex machina, or divine
intervention).
 The superhuman features of the Olympians
were their immortality and their ability to
reveal the future to humanity.

The Gods and Man
Action was crucial and exciting by the very
fact of life's brevity, and people were
expected to perform by their own
particular heroic arete, or virtue.
 The Greeks, however, did expect
information about their future life on earth
from the gods. Thus divination was a
central aspect of religious life.

The Gods and Man cont.
 The
Olympians were, perhaps, most
important in their role as civic
deities, and each of the Greek citystates came to consider one or more
of the gods as its particular guardian.
 There were public cults that were
devoted to insuring the city against
plague, conquest, or want.
Questioning of the Gods and Man’s
Power to Reason/Choose
The civil strife that followed the classical
period (from c.500 B.C.) placed the old
gods on trial. Often the gods did not
answer with the visible and immediate
rewards that were expected.
 Greek philosophers began to seek a more
rational and scientific approach in
humanity's relation to nature, espousing a
logical and important connection between
humanity and nature, not a mysterious
and secret one between humans and god.

The Rise of Man
Great human accomplishments during the
Athenian Golden Age (500-300BC/5th
Century BC) in politics, the
arts/architecture, literature, philosophy,
etc. presented a picture of man as highly
capable and able to use his intellect and
reason to achieve great things
 This created an obvious tension with the
traditional concept of fate.

Fate and Free Will




How can the idea of fate be reconciled with human
freedom? Not very well!
In ancient Greek thought it was often held that the life
of an individual is so rigorously predetermined by fate
that he or she has no power to affect the course of
events that will inevitably be played out.
We are passive pawns in life, completely subject to the
whims of fate, and nothing that we do, or try to do, can
change the course that has already been mapped out
for us.
At best all we can do is try to act “kata moiran" (in
accordance with fate), since any attempt to disrupt
the natural course of things will usually spell
disaster for ourselves and our loved ones.
Fate & Justice
For the Ancient Greeks, there is no relation
between fate and justice. Fate deals with those
things that cannot be controlled.
 Justice deals with the choices that you make.
The idea of justice is to punish when choices
are bad, regardless of intent.
 Unlike modern justice, the ancient Greek
concept of justice holds that actions and
outcomes matter, intent does not.

Fate & Responsibility
Problem with the fatalist position:
if a person's entire life and actions are
determined by fate, then how can that
person be considered responsible for any
actions, positive or negative, that he
performs?
 In Oedipus, it is important to remember
that there is a relationship between fate
and human choice (free will); man’s fate
may be predetermined, but man’s actions
make it happen!

Aristotle (384-322 BC)
One of the greatest philosophers of the ancient
world, Aristotle, believed that far from being a
passive tool of fate, a human being possesses
free will which makes him responsible for the
actions that he performs.
 This does not mean that he rejects fate
altogether, but emphasizes man’s choices in
dealing with what he encounters.
 Remember that Aristotle consider Oedipus Rex
to be the supreme example of Greek tragedy
due to the fact that Oedipus recognizes his
reversal of fortune at the moment that is
comes about.

Implications
Aristotle's point is a significant one: if we are
indeed responsible for our actions, then the
implication is that fate holds no real power over
us.
 We are completely free to become whatever
kind of person we choose to be---vicious or
virtuous. We should, therefore not blame fate,
genetics our environment or anything else for
the kind of people that we have become. Our
faults lie not in our stars, but in ourselves (to
steal a line from Hamlet).

What do you think?
What do you think about Aristotle's
argument? Do you think that his claim
(that humans are responsible for their
own destinies) is true, or is his view overly
simplistic?
 Do you believe that man ultimately
controls his own destiny?
 Is there a difference between fate and
chance when it comes to human
culpability?
 If fate is cruel, is it possible to be
virtuous/successful/heroic?
