Part V
Freedom ofthe Will
and Determinism
IfI were capable O!C01'1'cct1'casoningJ and U; at the same timc, 1 had a
complete knowledge both ofhis disposition and ofall the C1Jcnts by which
he was surrounded, I should be able to foresee the tine ofconduct which, in
consequence ofthose cpents) [any pel'sonj would adopt.
H. T. IlUCKl.E
in his Histm)'o[Cil'ilizatif!11 ill Englau.d (1857)
Part Fivc: Freedom ofthe Will and Detcrminism
1. Every event (or state of affairs) must have a cause,
2, Human actions (as well as the agent who gives rise to those actions) are events
(or state of affairs).
T
3. Therefore, every human action (including the agent himself) is caused.
4. Hence determinism is true.
and determinism is one of the most intriguing and difficult in the whole of philosophy. It constitutes a paradox. If"ve look
at ourselves, at our ability to deliberate and make choices, it seems obviolls that ·we
are free. On the other hand, if we look at what we believe about causalit), (that is)
that every event and thing must have a cause» then it appears that we do not have
free wills but are determined. So we seem to have inconsistent beliefs.
Let us look closer at the two theses involved in order to see how they work and
what support there is for each of them.
HE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM OF THE WILL
1. Determinism: The theory that everything i.n the universe (or at least the
macroscopic universe) is entirely determined by causal1aws, so that whatever happens at any given moment is the effect of some antecedent canse.
2. Libertarianism: The theory that there are some actions which arc exempt
from the causal laws, in 'which the individual is the sole (or decisive) cause of
the act, the act originating ex nihilo, cut off from all other causes but the self's
origination.
There is a third position which tries -to combine the best of the two positions,
Called compatibilism or soft determinism) it admits that while everything is determined, we can still be free insofar as we can still act voluntarily.
Determinism (Sometimes Called
"HardVeterminism")
328
Determinism is dle theory that everything in the universe is governed by causal laws.
That is, everything in the universe is entirely determined so that whatever happens at
any given moment is the effect of some antecedent cause. Ifwe were oml~scient, we
could predict exactly everything that would happen for tile rest of this hour, for tile
rest of our life time, for tile rest of time itself, simply because we knmv how everytiling
hitherto is causally related. This theory) which, it is claimed) is the basic presupposition of science, implies that there is no such thing as an uncaused event (sometimes
this is modified to include only dle macrocosmic world) leaving the microcosmic
world in doubt). Hence, since all human actions are events, human actions are not
undetermined, are not free in a radical sense but are tile product of a causal process.
Hence) wllile we may self-importantly imagine that \ve are autonomous and possess
free will) in reality we arc totally conditioned by heredity and environment.
The outline of the argument for determinism goes something like this;
-.-,
Although tlle hypothesis oftuliversal causality cannot be proved) it is something we
all assume-either because of considerable inductive evidence or as an a prioti truth
which seems to make sense of tile world. We calUl0t easily imagine an unc;aused event
taking place in ordinary life. For example, imagine how you would feel if, on visiting
your dentist for relief of a toothache, he were to conclude his oral examination with
the remark, "I certainly can see tllat you are in great pain because of your toothache,
but Pm ati'aid that I can't help you, fm there is no cause of tllis toothache. ,) Perhaps
he calls his partner over to confirm llis judgment. ~~Sure enough," she says, "this is
one of those interesting noncausal cases, Sorry, there's nothing we can do for you.
Even medicine and pain-relievers won't help these noncausal types. ,)
Why do we believe that everything has a causer Most philosophers have echoed
John Stuart Mill's answer that the doctrine of universal causality is a conclusion ofinductive reasoning. We have had an enormous range of experience wherein we have
found causal explanations to individual events, which in turn seem to participate in a
further causal chain. The pl·obIem Witll tllis answer, however, is that we have onlyexperienced a very small part of tlle mliverse, not enough of it to warrant tlle conclusion tlmt every event must have a cause,
David Hume (see also Reading III.21) pointed out that the idea of causality was not
a logical truth (like the notion tllat all triangles have three sides). The hypodlesis that
every event has a cause arises fl:om the observation of regular conjunctions. "When
many uniform instances appear, and the same object is always followed by the same
event; we then begin to entertain tile notion of cause and cOllllexion" (Enqui1-y) p. 78).
So after a number of successful tries at putting water over a fire and seeing it disappear,
we conclude that heat (or fire) causes "Water to disappear (or vaporize). But we cannot
prove causality. We never see it. All we see are two events in constant spatio-temporal
order and infer fi'om tllis constant conjlU1ction a bindingrelation between them. For example, we see one billiard ball (a) Ilit another (b), and we see (b) move away fj'om (a),
and we conclude tllat (a's) hitting (b) at a certain velocity is the cause of (b)s) moving
away as it did. BOWeVCl', we cannot prove tllat it is tlle sufficient cause oftlle movement,
Immanuel Kant first suggested tllat the principle of universal causality is a synthetic a pri01"i-that is, an assumption tllat we cannot prove by experience but simply
cannot conceive not to be the case. Our mental construction demands that we read
all experience in tile light of universal causation. We have no knowledge of what the
world is in itself, or \~'hether there really is Ulliversal causation, but we cannot understand experience except by means of causal explanation. The necessary idea of causalit)' is part and parcel of our noetic structure. We are programmed to read our
experience in the causal script.
Kant saw that there was a pmvel'ful incentive to believe in deternlillism) but he
also thought that the notion of morality provided a powerful incentive to believe in
freedom of the will. Hence, Kant's dilemma,
329
330
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
The man who used the idea of determinism more effectively for practical purposes
than anyone before him was the great American criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow. In
the 19205, two teenage geniuses from the University ofCh.icago, Leopold and Loeb,
committed what they regarded as the perfect murder. They grotesquely dismembered a child and buried the parts in a prairie. Caught, they faced an outraged public
who demanded the death penalty. The defense attorney was Clarence Darrow, champion aflost causes. He conceded that the boys committed the deed, but argued that
they were, nevertheless, "innocent." His argument was based on the theory of determinism. It is worth reading part ofthe plea:
We are all helpless.... This weary world goes on, begetting, with birth and with -living
and with death; and all of it is blind fr9m the beginning to the end. I do not know what
it \vas that made these boys do this mad act, but I do know there is a reason for it. I
know they did not beget themselves. I know that anyone of an infinite number of causes
reaching back to the beginning might be working out in these boys' minds, whom you
are asked to hang in malice and in hatred and injustice.
Nature is strong and she is pitiless. She works in her own mysterious way, and we are
her victims. Vile have not much to do with it ourselves. Nature takes this job in hand,
and we play our part. In the words of old 0111ar Khayam, we are:
But, helpless pieces in the game He plaJ's
Upon the chess boat'd of1~ights Mtd days;
Hither and thither moveJ, and checks and slays,
And one by one back in the closet lays.
What had this boy to do with itr He WdS not his ownfather, he was not his own mother; he
was not his own grandparents. All of this \vas handed to him. He did notsml'Ound himself
with governesses and wealth. He did not make himself. And yet he is to be compelled to
pay. (Clarence Darrow, Attorn0'f01' the Damned. Ncw York; Simon and Schuster, 1957.)
,
This was sufficicnt to convince the jury to go against public opinion and recommend a life sentence in lieu of the death penalty. If Leopold and Loeb were determined by antecedcnt causes to do the deed, ,ve cannot blalTle them for ,vhat they
did, any more than we can blame a cow for not being able to fly.
Determinism has received new attention and respect because of modern neurological studies that suggest the hypothesis that there is a one-to-one correlation between mental states and brain states, so that every conscious action can be traced
back to a causally sufficient brain state. In other words) the laws of physics deterministically produce mental states.
Libertarianism
Libertarianism is the theory that we do have free wills. It contends that given the same
antecedent conditions at time tl, an agent S could do either act Al or ill. Thatis, it is
up to S what dle world ...v illlook like after tl, and that his act is causally llilderdetermined, dle self malcing the unexplained difference. Libertarians do not contend that
Part Pille: Freedom ofthe Will and Determ.inism
all our actions are £i'ee, only saine of dlell1. Neidler do they offer an explanatory theory of fi-ee will. Their arguments are indirect. They offer two main arguments for their
position: the argument fi-omdeliberation and the argument £i'om moral responsibility
The Argumellt from Dellberatloll
The position is nicely summed up in dle words of Corliss Lamont: "[There] is the Ullmistakable intuition of virtually every human being that he is frce to make the choices
he docs and that the deliberations leading to dlOse choices are also free 'flowing. The
normal man feels too, after he has made a decision, that he could have decided differently. That is why regret or remorse for a past choice can be so disturbing."
There is a difference benveen a IUlee jerk and purposefully kicking a footlnll. In
the first case, the behavior is involuntary, a reflex action. In the second case, we deliberate, notice that we have an alternative (namely, not kicking the ball), consciously
choose to kick the ball, and, if successful, we find our body moving in the requisite
manner, so that the ball is kicked.
Deliberation can take a short or long time, be foolish or wise, but the process is a
conscious one wherein we believe that \,ve really can do either of the actions (or any
of many possible actions). That is, in deliberating we assume we are free to choose
between alternatives and that we are not determined to do simply one action. Otherwisc) why deliberatd
Furthermore, there seems to be something psychologically lethal about accepting
determinism in human relations; it tends to curtail deliberation and paralyze actions.
Ifpeople really believe themselves totally determined, the tendency is for them to excuse their behavior. Human effort seems pointless. As Arthur Eddington put it,
"\i\rhat significance is there to my mental struggle torught whether I shall or shall not
give up ~moking, if the laws which govern the n1.atter of the physical universe already
preordalll for the morrow a configuration of matter consisting of pipe, tobacco, and
smoke connected to my lips?" The determinist has an objection to this argument,
which you will encounter in d'Holbach's and Hospers' essays. And the libertarian
has a counter-response in agent causation, a version of which will be found in
Richard Taylor's article.
The Argumellt from Moral RespollsibHity
Determinislll seems to conflict with the thesis dlat we have moral responsibilities) for
responsibility implies that we could have done od1.erwise than we did. We do not
hold a dog responsible for chewing up our philosophy book or a one-month-old
baby responsible for crying, because they could not help it, but we do hold a TIventyyear-old student responsible for her chcating because (we believe) she could have
done otherwise. Blackbacked sea gulls will tear apart a stray baby herring gull without the slightest suspicion that their act lllay be immoral, but if humans lack this
sense, we judge them as pathological, as substandard.
Moral responsibility is something that we take very seriously. We believe that ,,,'e
do have duties, oughts, over which we feel rational guilt at failll1'c to perform. But
331
332
Baron d)H()lbac!J,' We Al'C Completc{)' Determined
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
there can be no such things as duties, oughts, praise, blame or rational guilt, if we are
not essentially free. The argument form is the following.
1. If determinism is true, and our actions are merely the product of the laws of
nature and antecedent states of affairs, then it is not up to us to choose what
weda.
2. Butifit is not up to us to choose what we do, we cannot be said to be responsible for what we do.
3. So if determinism is true, we arc not responsible for what we do.
333
about the meanings of words. Freedom has to do with acts done voluntarily and detenninism with the causal processes that underlie all behavior and events. These need
,not be incompatible. Gandhi's fasting because he wanted to free India was a voluntary or free act: whereas a man starving in the desert is not doing so voluntarily Qr as
a free act. A thIef purposefully and voluntarily steals, whereas a kleptomaniac cannot
help stealing. In both cases each act 01' event has causal antecedents but the former
in each set are free, whereas the latter are unfree. According to St~ce, "Acts fi'eely
done are those whose immediate causes are psychological states in the agent, Acts
llot freely done are those whose immediate causes are states of affairs external to the
~t.»
I
4. But our belief in moral responsibility is self-evident, at least as strong as our
belief in universal causality.
5. So if we believe that we have moral responsibilities, determinism cannot b~
accepted.
We must reject the notion of determinism even ifwe cannot give a full explanatory account of how agents choose.
Here the determinist usually bites the bullet and admits that we do not have
moral responsibilities, and that it is just an illusion that we do. But we are determined to have such an illusion, so there is nothing we can do about it. We canHot
consciously live as determinists, but why should we think that we can? We are f:inite
and fallible creatures, driven by causal laws, but with self-consciousness that makes us
aware of part (but only a part) of the process that governs our behavior.
CompaHbLlism (How to Have Your Cake
and Eat It Too)
However, there is another response to the problem of free will and determinism, one
similar to Kant but perhaps more subtle. It can be called reconciling determinism or
soft-determinism or compatibilism. It argues that although we are determined, we
still have moral responsibilities, that the distinction is between voluntM"'Yand involuntary behavior.
The language of freedom and the language of determinism are but two different
ways of talk.ing about certain human or rational events, both necessary for mankind
(one is necessary for science and the other is necessary for morality and personal relationships). The compatibilist argues that the fact tllat we are determined does not affect our interpersonal relations. We will still have feelings tlmt we must deal Witll,
using internalist insights. We will still feel resentment when someone hurts us "011
purpose." We will still feel grateful for services rendered and hold people responsible
for their actions. Only we will still acknowledge that from the external perspective
the determinist's account ofall of this is valid.
Along these lines, Walter T. Stace (in our third reading in tlus section) argues tllat
the problem of freedom and determinism is really only a semantic one, a -dispute
We Are Completely Determined
BARON D'HOLBACH
~aron ~aul Henri d'Holbach (1723-1789), born in Edesheim, Germany, and grow111g up 111 France, was one of the leading philosophers of the French Enlightenment.
He was a materialist who believed that nature is one grand machine, and humans
are particular machines within tillS graQd machine~a machine which needs no machinist. He was a significant contributor to the Encyclopedie and a friend ofDiderot,
Hume, a~d Rousseau, His principal writings are Ch1'istianity Unveiled (1767), The
System of Natu1"C (1770), £1'0111 which the present selection is taken, and Common
Sense, 0" N atu,'alldeas Opposed to Sup,,'uMu,'al Ideas (1772),
d'Holbach is one of the first philosophers to provide a sustained systematic critique ofthe doctrine offree will. According to him, if we accept science, which he
equates ,vith a system of material particles operating according to fixed laws of motion, then we will see that free will is an illusion. There is no such entity as a soul,
but we are simply material objects in motion, having very complicated brains that
lead the unreflective to believe that they are free,
Study Questions
I.
2,
3.
4.
5,
,iVhat is the result of dualism, which separates soul from body?
What does d'Holbach believe has been proved abollt the relation of the soul to body?
How does he characterize human lifd
What is the role that the doctrine of fi'ee will plays in religion and our system ofpunishment?
Deliberation between alte1'11ative courses of action has often been used by libertarians as
evidence of free will. Whnt does d'Holbach say about this psychological activity?
6. What are the causes of am beliefin fi..ee will?
V.39
334
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF THE \OVILL AND DETERMINISM
that the sou! is
distinguished from the body, is immaterial,
draws its ideas from its own peculiar source, acts
by its own energies, without the aid of any exterior object, have, by a consequence of their own
system, enfranchised [liberated] it from those
physical laws according to which all beings of
which we have a Imowledgc are obliged to act.
They have believed that the soul is mistress of
its own conduct, is able to regulate its o\V11 peculiar operations, has the facllity to determine
its will by its own natuf<ll energy; in a, word,
they have pretended that man is a free agent.
It has been already sufficiently proved that the
soul is nothing more than the body considered
relatively to some of its functions morc concealed than others: it has been shown that this
soul, even when it shall be supposed immaterial,
is continually modified conjointly with the body,
is submitted to all its motioH, and tlmt without
tl1is it would remain inert and dead; that, consequently, it is subjected to the influence of those
material and physical causes which give impulse
to tl1e body; of which the mode of existence,
whether habitual or transitory, depends upon
the material elel11ent~ by which it is surrounded,
that form its texture, constitute its temperament, ~nter into it by means of the aliments, and
penetrate it by their subtility. The faculties which
arc called intellectual) and those qualities which
are styled moral) have been explained in a manner purdy physical and natural. In the last place
it has been demonstrated that all the ideas, all
the systems, all the affections, all the opinions,
,;vhctl1er true or false, which man forms to himself, are to be attributed to his physical and material senses. Thus man is a being purely
physical; in whatever manner he is considered,
he is connected to universal nature, and submitted to the necessary and immutable laws that she
imposes on all the beings she c0l1t8ins, according to their peculiar essences or to the respective
properties with which, witl10ut consulting them,
THOSE WHO HAVE AFFIR/\'lED
she endows each particular species. Man's life is
a line that nature commands him to describe
upon d1e surface of the earth, widlOut his ever
being able to Si;verve from it, even for an instant. Hc is born without his own consent; his
organiz8tion does in nowise depend upon himself; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his
habits are in the power of those who C8use him
to contract them; he is unceasingly modified by
causes, whether visible or concealed, over which
hc has 110 control, which necessarily regulate his
mode of existence, give the hue to his way of
thinking, 8nd determine his manner of acting.
He is good or bad, happy or miserable, wise or
foolish, reasonable or irrational, wid10ut his will
being for any thing in these various states. Nevertheless, in despite of the shackles by which he
is bound, it is pretended he is a free agent, or
that independent of thc causes by \vhich he is
moved, he determines his own i"/ill, and regulates his own condition.
However slender the foundation of this opiniOll) of which every thing ought to point out to
him d1e error) it is current at d1is day and p8sses
for an incontestable trutl1 with a great number
of people, otherwise extremely enlightened; it is
the basis of religion, "which, supposing relations
between man and the ul1known being she has
placed above naturc, has been incapable ofimagining how man could either merit rev,Jard or deserve punishment from this being, if he 'N8S not
a £l'ce agent. Society has been believed interested
in dus system; because an ide8 has gone abroad,
that if all d1e actions of man ..vere to be contemplated as necessary, the right of punishing those
who injure their 8ssociates would no longer
exist. At length human vanity 8CC01TI1110lhted itself to a hypod1esis which, unquestion8bly, appears to distinguish 1118n from all other physic.al
beings, by 8ssigning to him the special privilege
of a total independence of all other causes, but
of which a very little reflection would have
shown him the impossibility.
Fnmt ChajJttT XI, "Ofthc Systcm ofMml)s Free Agmcy,)J (I/The System of Nature (1770). The
tl·fl.ltslatif!ll is by H. D. Robimoll.
Baron d)Holbaeh: We An
The will ... is a modification of tl1e brain, by
which it is dispqsed to action, or prepared to give
play to the organs. This will is necess81uy determined by tile qualities, good or bad, agreeable or
painfLlI, of the object or the motive tl1at acts upon
his senses, or of which the-idea remains with him,
and is resuscitated by his memory. In consequence, he acts nece.'isarily, his 8ction is the result
of tl1e impulse he receives either .:6.-om the motive,
£i'om the object, or fi.-om the idea which has mocl..itied his brain, or disposed his will. When he does
not act according to tlus impulse, it is because
there con1CS some new cause, some new motive,
some new idea, which modifies his brain in a different manner, gives him a new impulse, determines Ius \;vill in another way, by which the action
of tl1e former impulse is suspended: tl1Us, the
sight of an agreeable object, or its idea, determines his will to set him in action to procure it;
but if a new object or a new idea more powerfldly
attracts him, it gives a new direction to his will,
annihilates the effect of the former, and prevents
d1e action by which it W8S to be procured. This is
the mode in wluch reflection, experience) reason,
necessarily 8rrests or suspends tl1e action of man's
will: WitllOUt dus he would of necessity have followed tl1e <U1terior impulse which carried lum towards a tl1en desirable object. In all tl1is he always
acts according to necess8rY laws, fi-om which he
has no me811S ofemancipating himself.
Ifwhen tormented with violent tl1irst, he figures to himself in idea, or really perceives a fountain, whose limpid streams Hlight cool Ius
feverish want,"is he sufficient master oflumselfto
desire or not to desire the object competent to
s8tisfy so lively 8 want? It will no doubt be conceded, that it is impossible he should not be desirous to satisf)r it; but it will be said-if at tlus
moment it is announced to him tl1at the water he
so ardently desires is poisoned, he will) nolwid1standing his vehement thirst, 8bstain fi'om drinking it: and it has, d1erefore, been falsely
conduded tl18t he is a free agent. The fact, however, is, that the motive in either case is eX8ctly
the same: his own conservation. The same necessity that determined him to drink before be knew
C()mplctc~1' Detcrmincd
335
tl1e water was deleterious, upon tills new discovery equally determines him not to drink; the desire of conserving himself either annilulates or
suspends the fonner impUlse; the second motive
becomes stronger than the preceding, tl1at is, the
fear of death, or the desire of preserving himself,
necessarily prevails over tl1e painfi.d sensation
caused by Ius eagerness to drink; but, it will be
said, if tl1e thirst is v9ry parching, an inconsiderate man without regarding the danger will risk
sW8Jlowing the water. Nod1ing is gained by tills
remark: in tl1is case tl1e anterior impulse only regains the ascendency; he is persuaded tlut life
may possibly be longer preserved, or d1at he shall
derive a greater good by drinking the poisoned
water tl1an by enduring d1e torment, which, to
his mind, threatens instant dissolution: thus tl1e
first becomes tl1e strongest and necessarily urges
him on to action. Nevertheless, in either case,
whetl1er he partakes of tl1e water, or \vhether he
does not) tl1C two actions will be equ811y necessary; they will be tl1e effect of that motive which
finds itself most puissant; which consequently
acts in the most coercive l11atmer upon his will.
This example ,"viii serve to explain the whole
phenomena of tl1e human will. This will, or
rather the brain) finds itself in the same situation
8S a ball, which, although it has received an impulse that drives it forward in a straight line, is
dera.nged in its c.ourse whenever a force superior
to the first obliges it to change its direction. The
man who drinks the poisoncd" water appears a
madman; but d1e actions of fools are as necessary as dlOse of the most prudent individuals.
The motives that determine tl1e voluptuary and
the debauchee to risk tl1eir health, are 8S powerful, and tlleir actions are as necessary, as ti10$e
wluch decide the wise man to manage his. But, it
will be insisted, tl1e debauchee may be prevailed
on to change his tonduct: tl1is does not imply
that he is a fi'ee agent; but tl1at motives may be
found sufficiently powerful to annihilate the effect of tllOse th8t previously acted upon him;
tl1en these new motives determine his will to ti1e
new mode of conduct he may adopt as necessarily as d1e former did to the old mode.
336
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF_THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
Man is said to deliberate, when the action of
the will is sllspended; this happens when two opposite motives act alternately upon him. To deliberate, is to hate and to love in succession; it is to
be alternately attracted and repelled; it is to be
moved, sometimes by one motive, sometimes by
anodlcr. Man only deliberates when he does not
distinctly understand the quality of the objects
from which he receives impulse, or when experience has not sufficiently apprised him of the effects, more-or less remote, which his actions will
produce. He would take the air, but the weather
is uncertain; he deliberates in consequence; he
weighs the various motives that urge his 'will to
go out or to stay at home; he is at length determined by that motive which is most probable;
tlus removes his indecision, which necessarily
settles his will, eithel" to remain witloo or to go
abroad: Ius motive is always either tlle immediate
or ultimate advantage he finds, or thinks he finds,
in the action to which he is persuaded.
Man's will frequently fluctuates benveen two
objects, of wluch either the presence or the
ideas move lum alternately: he waits until he has
contemplated the objects, or the ideas they have
left in Ius brain ,vhich solicit him to different actions; he then compares these objects or ideas;
but even in the time of deliberation, during the
comparison, pendiJig these alternatives of love
and hatred which succeed each other, sometimes with the utmost rapidity, he is not a free
agent for a single instant; the good or the evil
which he believes he finds successively in the
objects) are tlle necessary motives of these momentar}' wills; of the rapid motion of desire or
fear, tllat he experiences as long as his uncertainty continues. From tlus it will be obvious
that deliberation is necessary; that uncertainty is
necessary; that whatever part he takes, in consequence of this deliberation, it will ahvays necessarily be that which he has judged, whether well
or ill, is most probable to turn to his advantage.
When the soul is assailed by two motives that
act alternately upon it) or modi:f)' it successively, it
deliberates; the brain is in a sort of equilibrium,
accompanied with perpetual oscillations, sometimes to\vards one object, sometimes towards
the other, until the most forcible carries the
point, and thereby extricates it from this state of
suspense, in which consists the indecision of his
will. But when the brain is simultaneously assailed by causes equally strong that move it in
opposite directions, agreeable to the general law
of all bodies when they are su"uck equally by
contrary powers, it stops. " "it is neither capable
to will nor to act; it waits until one of the two
causes has obtained sufficient force to overpower the other; to determine its will; to attract
it in such a manner that it may prevail over the
efforts of the other cause.
TIllS mechanism, so simple, so natural, suffices to demonstrate why uncertainty is painful,
and why suspense is always a violent state for
man. The brain) an organ so delicate and so mobile, experiences such rapid modifications that it
is fatigued; or when it is urged in conn-ai"¥ directions, by causes equally powerful, it suffers a
kind of compression, that prevents the activity
which is suitable to the preservation of the
whole, and which is necessary to procur~ what
is advantageous to its existence. This medlaniSIn will also explain the irregularity, the indecisio!1, the inconstancy of man, aqd account for
that conduct which frequently appears an inexplicable mystery) and which is, indeed, the effect
of the received systems. In consulting experience, it will be found that the soul is submitted
to precisely the same physical laws as tlle material body. If the will of each individual, during a
given time) was only moved by a single cause or
passion, nothing would be more easy than to
foresee Ius acotions; but his heart is frequently assailed by contrary powers, by adverse motives,
which either act on him simultaneously 01' in
succession; then his brain) attracted in opposite
directions, is either fatigued, oi" else tormented
by a state of compression, wiuch deprives it of
activity. Sometimes it is in a state of incommodious inaction; sometimes it is the sport of the alternate shocks it undergoes. Such, no doubt, is
Baron d>Holbach: We Are Completely Detcn"nined
the state in which man finds himself when a
lively passion solicits him to the commission of
crime, whilst fear points out to him the danger
by which it is attended; such, also, is the condition of him whom remorse, by the continued
labour of his disn-acted soul, prevents from enjoying the objects he has criminq.lly obtained.
Choice by no means proves the fi"ee agency of
man: he only deliberates when he does not yet
IU10w which to choose of the many objects that
move 1001; he is then in an embarrassment, ,,,hich
does not terminate until his will is decided by the
greater advantage he believes he shall find in tl1e
object he chooses, or the action he undertakes.
From whence it may be seen, that choice is necessary, because he would not determine for an
object, or for an action, ifhe did not believe that
he should find in it some direct advant;ge. That
man should have fi"ee agency it were needful that
he should be able to will or choose without motive, or that he could prevent motives coercing his
will. Action ahvays being the effect of his
once
determined) and as his 'Will cmIDot be determined
but by a motive wIuch is not in Ius own power, it
follows that he is never the master of the detennination of his own peculiar will; that consequently
he never acts as a fi'ce agent. It has been believed
that man was a fi"ee agent because he had a will
witl1 tlle power of choosing; but attention has not
been paid to the fact that even Ius will is moved by
causes independent of himself; is owing to tllat
which is inherent in his own organization, or
which belongs to tlle nature of tlle beings acting
on him. Is he tlle master of willing not to withdraw Ius hand from tlle fire when he fears it ·will
be burnt? Or has he the power to take away fi"om
fire the property wluch makes him fear it? Is he
tlle master of not choosing a dish of meat, which
he knows to be agreeable or analogous to Ius
palate; of not preferring it to tllat which he knows
to be disagreeable or dangerous? It is always according to his sensations, to his own peculiar experience, or to his suppositions, tllat he judges of
tlungs, eitller ,;>;'ell or ill; but whatever may be his
judgment, it depends necessarily on Ius mode of
,,,ill
337
feeling, whether habitual or accidental, and the
qualities he finds in the causes that move him,
which exist in despite ofhimsel£ .. "
·When it is said, that man is not a free agent,
it is not pretended to compare him to a body
moved by a simple impulsive cause: he contains
witlun himself causes inherent to his existence;
he is moved by an interior organ, which has its
own peculiar laws, al)d is itself necessarily determined in consequel~ce of ideas formed from
perceptions resulting from sensations which it
receives from exterior objects. As the mechanism of tllese sensations, of these perceptions)
and the manner they engrave ideas on the brain
of man, are not known to 1ll11l; because he is unable to unravel all these motions; because he
cannot perceive tlle chain of operations in his
soul, or the motive principle tllat acts within
lum, he supposes himself a free agent; which,
literally transla.ted, signifies, that he moves himself by himself; tllat he determines himself without cause: when he rather Qught to say, that he
is ignorant how or for why he acts in the manner he docs. It is true the soul enjoys an activity
peculiar to itself; but it is equally certain that
tllis activity would never be displayed, if some
motive or some cause did not put it in a condition to exercise itself: at least it will not be pretended that the soul is able eitller to love or to
hate without being moved) without knowing
the objects) without having some idea of their
qualities. Gunpowder has unquestionably a particular activity, but tlus activity will never display
itself, unless fire be applied to it; this, however)
immediately sets it in motion.
It is the great complication of motion in
man, it is tlle variety of his action) it is the multi~
pHcity of causes that move him, whether simultaneously or in continual succession, that persuades him he is a free agent: if all his motions
were simple, if the causes that move him did not
confound tllemselves with each other, if they
were distinct, if his machine were less complicated, he would perceive that all his actions
were necessary, because he would be enabled to
338
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
recur instantly to the cause that made him act. A
man who should be always obliged to go towards the west, would always go on that side;
but he would feel dlat, in so going, he was not a
free agent: if he had another sense, as his actions
or his motion, augmented by a sixth, would be
still more varied and much more complicated,
he vmllid believe himself still more a free agent
than he does \-"lth his five senses.
It is, then, for want of recurring to the causes
that move him; for want of being able to analyze,
from not. being competent to decompose the
complicated motion ofllis machine, that man believes himself a free agent; it is only upon his own
ignorance that he founds the profound yet deceitful notion he has of his fi-ee agency; that he builds
those opinions which he brings forward as a striking proof of his pretended fi·eedom of action. If,
for a short time, each man was "villing to examine
his own peCl11iar actions, search out their true motives to discover their concatenation, he ,vould remain convinced that the sentiment he has of his
natural free agency, is a chimera that must speedily
be destroyed by experience.
Nevertheless it must be aclmmvledged that
the multiplicity and diversity of the causes which
continually act upon man, frequently without
even his knowledge, rendel' it impossible, or at
least extremely difficult for him to recur to the
true principles ofms own peculiar actions, much
less the actions of others: they frequently depend
upon causes so fugitive, so remote from their effects, and which, superficially examined, appear
to have so little analogy, so slender a relation
with them, tlmt it requires singular sagacity to
bring tllem into light. This is ,vhat renders the
study of the moral man a task of such difficult)lj
this is the reason \vhyhis heart is an abyss, of
,vhich it is fi.-eguently impossible for him to
fathom the depth. He is then obliged to content
himself with a lmowledge of the general and
necessary laws by which the human heart is regulated: for the incl..ividuals of his own species
these laws are pretty nearly the same; tiley vary
only in consequence of the organization that is
peculiar to each, and of the modification it undergoes: This, however, cannot be rigorously
the same in any two. It suffices to knmv, that by
his essence, man tends to conserve himself) and
to render his existence happy: this granted,
whatever may be his actions, if he recur back to
this first principle, to this general, tlus necessary
tendency of his will, he never can be deceived
with regard to his motives.
For Furthe1' Reflection
1. Has d'Holbach proved that we do not havc frec wiW Is bis argument that science
precludes such a notion convincing?
2. d'Holbach points out that without thc doctrine of free will, the notion of just punishment crumbles: that religion could not justif)' God's sending people to hell for thcir sins, and
the Law could not justif)1 its system of punishmcnts without tbe doctrine. Do yOll agree with
d'Holbach?
3. Could we go evcn farther and say that we would not have an)' place for moral praise or
blame without a notion of free will~ What would d'Holbacb make of moral responsibility?
4. J. B. S. Haldane has ",:riuell, "If m)' mental processes are determined wholly by the
motion of atoms in m)' brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and.
hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." Does this show
that determinism is self-refuting?
Corliss Lamont: Freedom ofthe Will and HumatJ. Responsibility
Freedom of the Will and Human Responsibility
339
V.40
CORLISS LAMONT
Corliss Lamont (1902-1995) was a leading humanist philosopher, tlle chairman of
the national emergency of Civil Liberties Comnuttee, and one of the most ardent
supporters of metaphysical and political liberty.
Lamont briefly sets forth several reasons why he thinks we have free will. He qualifies his arguments and shows hmv fi-ee will relates to moral responsibility.
I
Study Questions
1. What is Lamont's thesis?
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
'-Vhat does he say about classic determinism?
·What are Lamont's eight reasons for believing in free wim
How docs Lamont qualif)' his thesis that we have free will and are not determined?
How does the reality of chance show that determinism is only relative?
What does Jean Paul Sartre say about freedom?
IT IS MY THESIS tilat a man who is convinced he
possesses freedom of choice or free will has a
greater sense of responsibility than a person
who tlunks that total determinism rules the tllUverse and human life. Determinism in the classic
sense means that tlle flow of history, including
all human choices and actions, is completely
predetermined from the beginning of time. He
who believes tilat "whatever is, was to be" can
try to escape moral responsibility for ,vrongdoing by claiming that he was compelled to act as
he did because it was predestined by the iron
laws of cause and effect.
But if fi-ee choice truly exists at the moment
of choosing, men clearly have full moral responsibilit)1 in decicl..ing bet\¥een two or more genuine alternatives, and the deterministic alibi has
no \'"eight. The heart of our discussion, then,
lies in the question of whether free choice or
uluversal determinism represents the truth. I
RCj!l"itltcdfi·om Religious Humanism, SItJI11I1CI; 1969.
shall try to summarize briefly the main reasons
that point to the existence of free \'Ilill.
First, there is the immediate, powernll,
common-sense intuition shared by virtually all
human beings that freedom of choice is real.
This intuition seems as strong to me as the sensation of pleasure or pain; and tile attempt of
the determinists to explain tlle intuition away is
as artificial as the Christian Scientist claim that
pain is not real. The intuition of free choice
does not, of course, in itself prove that such
freedom exists, but that intuition is so strong
that the burden of proof is on the determinists
to show that it is based 011 an illusion.
Second, we can defuse the determinist argument by admitting, and indeed insisting, tllat a
great deal ofdeterminism exists in the vl'Orld. Determinism in the form of if-tllen cal1sallaws governs much of tile human body's fi.lllctioning and
much of the uluverse as a whole. We call be glad
340
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
that the automatic system of breathing) digestiOll, circulation of the blood) and beating of the
heart operate deterministically-until they get
out of order. Determinism versus free choice is a
fulse issue; what we always have is relative determinism and relative free choice. Free will is ever
limited by the past and by the vast range of ifthen laws. At the same time) human beings utilize free choice to take advantage of those
deterministic laws embodied in science and manmade machines. Most of us drive cars, but it is we
and not d1C autos that decide when and where
they are to go, Determinism wisely used and'
controlled-which is by no means always the
case-can make us freer and happier.
Third, determinism is a relative thing, not
only because human free choice exists, but also
because contingency or chance is an ultimate
trait of the cosmos, Contingency is best seen in
the intersection of mutually independent eventstreams between which there was no previous
causal connection. My favorite example here is
the collision of the steamship Titanic with an
iceberg off Newfoundland, in the midcUe of the
nigh.t on April 14, 1912. It ,vas a terrible accident, with more than 1,500 persons lost. The
drifting of the iceberg down from the north and
the" steaming of the Titanic west from England
dearly represented two causal streams independent of each other.
Even if a team of scientific experts had been
able, per impossible, to trace back the two causal
streams and ascertain that the catastrophe had
been predestined £i'om the m.oment the
steamship left Southampton, that would not
upset my thesis, For the space-time relation of
the iceberg and the Titanic, as the ship started
on its voyage, would have been itself a matter of
contingency, since there was no· relevant cause
to account for that precise relation.
The pervasive presence of contingency in the
world is also proved by the fact that all natural
laws, as I have observed, take the form of ifthen sequences or relations. The ij'factor is bbviollsly conditional and demonstrates the
continual coexistence of contingency ,\lith de-
terminislTl. The actuality ofcontingency negates
the idea of total and all-inclusive necessity operating throughout the universe, As regards
human choice, contingency ensures that at the
outset the alternatives one faces are indeterminate in relation to the act of choosing, which
proceeds to make one of them determinate.
My fourth point is that the accepted meaning of potentiality, namely, that every object and
event in the cosmos possesses plural possibilities
of behavior, interaction, and development,
knocks out the determinist thesis. From the de. tenninist viewpoint, multiple potentialities are
an illusion. If you want to talee a vacation trip
next SUlllmer, you will no doubt think over a
number of possibilities before you make a final
decision. Determinism logically implies that
such deliberation is mere playacting, because
you were destined all the time to choose the trip
you did choose. \iVhen ,,,'e relate the causal pattern to potentiality, we find that causation as
mediated du:ough free choice can have its appropriate effect in the actualization of anyone
of various possibilities.
Fifdl, the normal processes of human
thought are tied in with potentiality as I have
just described it, and likewise tend to show that
freedom of choice is real. Thinking constantly
involves general conceptions, universals, or abstractions under which are classified many varying particulars. In the case that I discussed
under my fourth point, "vacation travel" was
the general conception and the different places
that might be visited were the particulars, dle
alternatives, the potentialities, among which
one could fredy choose, Unless there is free
choice, the nll1ction of human thought in solving problems becomes superfluous and a mask
of make- believe.
Sixth, it is clarifying for the problem of free
choice to realize that only the present exists, and
that it is always some present activity that builds
up dle past, as a sleier leaves a trail behind him in
the snow as he weaves down the hill. Everything
that exists-the whole vast aggregate of inanimate matter, the swarming pronlsion of earthly
Cm'/iss Lantont: Ft'ecdom ofthc Will a1~d Human Responsibility
life, man in his every aspect-exists only as an
event or events talc.ing place at tlus instant moment, which is now. The past is dead and gone;
it is efficacious only as it is embodied in present
structures and activities.
The activity of former presents establishes
the foundations upon which the immediate
present operates. What happened in the past
creates both limitations and potentialities, always conditioning the present. But conditioning in this sense is not the same as determining;
and each day sweeps onward under its own
momentum, actualizing fresh patterns of existence, maintaining other patterns and destroying still others, Thus a man choosing and
acting in the present is not wholly controlled
by the past, but is part of the unending forward
surge of cosmic power. He is an active, initiating agent, riding the wave of the present, as it
were, and deliberating among open alternatives
to reach decisions regarding the many different
phases of his life.
My seventh point is that the doctrine of un iversal and etel'nal determinism is seen to be
self-refuting when we work out its full implications in the cases of ndttctio ad absu1·du1n implied, If our choices and actions today were all
predestined yesterday, then they were equally
predestined yesteryear, at the day of our birth,
and at the birth of our solar system and earth
some five billion years ago. To take another instance: for determinism, the so-called i1Tesistible impulse that the law recognizes in
assessing crimes by the insane must hold with
equal force for the actions of the sane and virtuous. In the determinist philosophy, the good
341
man has an irresistible impulse to tell the truth,
to be kind to animals, and to expose the graft
in City Hall.
Eighth, in the novel dialect of determinism
many words lose their normal meaning: I refer
to such words as 1'efraining) f01'bearance) selfrestraint, and regret. If determinism turns out
to be true, we shall have to scrap a great deal in
existing dictionaries and do a vast amount of redefining. What meaning, for example, is to be
assigned to forbearance when it is detennined in
advance that you are going to refuse that second Martini cocktail? You can truly forbear only
when you refrain fWIn doing something that it
is possible for you to do, But under the determinist dispensation it is not possible for you to
accept the second cocktail because fate has already dictated your "No." I am not saying that
nature necessarily conforms to our linguistic usages, but human language habits that have
evolved over aeons of time cannot be neglected
in the analysis offree choice and determinism.
Finally, I do not think that the term moral responsibility can retain its traditional meaning unless freedom of choice exists. From the
viewpoint of ethics, law, and criminal law, itis
difficult to understand how a consistent det~r­
minist would have a sufficient sense of personal
responsibility for the development of decent
ethical standards. But the question remains
whether there have ever been or can be any consistent determinists or whether free choice runs
so deep in human nature as an innate characteristic that, as Jean Paul Sartre suggests, "We are
not fi'ee to cease being fi·ee. "
For Furtl'er Reflection
1. Describe and evaluate Lamont's argument for fi..ee wilL How convincing is it?
2. Explain the relationship between free will and moral responsibility. Is Lamont correct
about the re1ationship~
3. Discuss the eight reasons for supporting the thesis of free will. Which ones are the most
cogent? Which are the least cogent~
4. Examine and evaluate Sartre's dictum, "We are not fi..ee to cease being fi..ce." What does
that mean? Is it true?
342
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
VAl
Compatibilism
W.T. STACE
W. T. Staec (1886-1967) was born in Britain, educated at Trinity College, Dublin,
and served in the British Civil Service in Ceylon. In 1932 he came to the United
States to teach at Princeton University. One of his chief goals was to r~concile empiricism with mysticism. Among his works are The Concept ofMOl'aIs (1952)) Time
and EtC1'nit), (1952), and Mysticism and Philosophy (1960).
Stace attempts to reconcile free will with causal determinism. He takes the position that William James labeled "soft determinism," what is sometimes called C0111patibilism. Vic must have free will to be held morally responsible, and yet it seems
plausible that all our actions a.re caused. Hmov can these two apparently inconsistent
ideas be brought together? Stace argues that the problem is merely a verbal dispute,
and that, rightly understood, there is no inconsistency in holding to both doctrines.
Free actions are those we do \Joluntarily, whereas unfi'ee actions are those that we do
involuntarily.
Study Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
Why is it important to discover whether we have free wim Explain Stace's argument.
In practice, by what doctrine do even determinists live?
How does Stace characterize the dispute between fi..ee will and determinism?
What is Stace's strategy in consulting common language usage to show that fi'ee will is
compatible with determinism?
5. What is the difference between a free and an unfree act~
6. '¥hat is Stace's general conclusion 1
7. How does moral responsibility actually require determinism, according to Stace?
I SHALL FIRST DISCUSS the problem of free
will, for it is certain that if there is no free will
there can be no morality. Morality is concerned
with what men ought and ought not to do. But
if a man has no freedom to choose what he \vill
do, if whatever he does is done under compulsion, then it does not make sense to tell him
that he ought not to have done \vhat be did and
that be ought to do something different. All
moral precepts would in such case be meaningless. Al.so if he acts always under compulsion,
how can he be held morally responsible for his
actions? Hmov can he, for example, be punished
for what he could not help doing?
It is to be observed that those learned professors of philosophy or psychology who deny the
Specified c.~ceI1!ts (pp. 248-258) from W T. Staee, Religion am! the Modern Mind (J. B.
Lippincott Co1ltprrny). Copyright 1952 by W T Strue. Rep1'tllted by Per1}/issilJII (IfHmperCullim
Publishcn
W T. Stace: Compatibilism
existence of fi:ee will do so only -in their professional moments and in their studies and lecture
rooms. For when it comes to doing anything
practical, even of the most trivial kind) they invariably behave as if they and others were fi·ee.
They inquire from you at dinner whetller you
will choose this dish or that dish. The)' will ask a
child why he told a lie, and will punish him for
not having chosen the way of truthfulness. All of
which is inconsistent Witll a disbelief in free will.
This should cause us to suspect that tlle problem
is not a real one; and tlus, I believe, is the case.
The dispute is merely verbal, and is due to nothin_g but a confusion about the meanings of
words. It is what is now fashionably called a semantic problem.
How does a verbal dispute arise? Let us consider a case which) although it is absurd in tlle
sense that nq one "muld ever make the mistake
which is involved in it, yet illustrates the principle which we shall have to use in tlle solution of
the problem. Suppose that someone believed
that the word "man" means a certain sort of
five-legged animal; in short that "five-legged animal" is the correct definition of man. He might
then look around the world, and rightly observing that tllere are no five-legged animals in it, he
might proceed to deny tlle existence of men.
This preposterous conclusion would have been
reached because he was using an incorrect definition of "man." All you would have to do to
show him Ius mistake would be to give him the
correct definition; or at least show rum tIlat his
definition was wrong. Botll tile problem and its
solution would, of course, be entirely verbal.
The problem of free will , and its solution, I shall
maintain, is verbal in exactIy tlle same way. The
problem has been created by the fact that
learned men, especially philosophers, have assumed an incorrect defuution of frec will, and
then finding that there is nothing in tile world
which answers to their defu-ution, have denied its
existence. A<; tar as logic is concerned, tlleir conclusion is just as absurd as that of the man who
denies the existence of men. The only difference
is tIlat tlle mistake in the latter case is obvious
343
and crude, while the mistal,-c which tile del-uers
of free will have made is rather subtle and difficult to detect.
Throughollt the modern period, until quite
recently, it was assumed, both by the philosophers who denied free will and by those who
defended it, tIlat dete1'minism is inconsistent
with free will. If a man)s actions were wholly
determined by chains of causes stretching
back into tile remot~ past, so that they could
be predicted beforehand by a mind which
lmew all the causes, it was assumed that they
could not in that case be free. This implies
that a certain definition of actions done from
free will was assumed, namdy that tIley are actions not wholly determined by causes or predictable beforehand. Let us shorten tills by
saying that free will was defined as meaning
indeterminism. This is the incorrect definition
which has led to the denial of free will. As
soon as we see what the true definition is we
shall find tIlat the question whether the world
is deterministic, as Newtonian science implied, or in a measure indeterministic, as current physics teaches, is wholly irrelevant to the
problem.
Of course tIlere is a sense in \vhich one can
define a word arbitrarily in any way one pleases.
But a defulition may nevertheless be called correct or incorrect. It is correct if it accords with
a common usage of the word defined. It is incorrect if it does not. And if you give an incorrect definition, absurd and untrue results are
likely to follow. For instance, there is nothing
to prevent you from arbitrarily defining a man
as a five-legged animal , but this is incorrect in
the sense that it does not accord witIl the ordinary meaning of the word. Also it has the absurd result of leading to a denial of the
existence of meli. This shows tIlat common
usage is the criterion f01' deciding whether a definition is correct 01' not. And this is the principle
which I shall apply to free will. I shall show that
indeterminism is not what is meant by the
phrase "free will" as it is common!)1 used. And I
shall attempt to discover the correct defulition
344
W T. Stace: C(lmpatiMlimt
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
by inquiring how the phrase is used in ordinary
conversation.
Here arc a fe,v samples of how the phrase
might be used in ordinary conversation. It will
be noticed that they include cases in which the
question whether a man actcd with free will is
asked in order to determine whether he was
morally and legally responsible for hisacrs.
judge: Did you sign the confession of your
own free will?
p,'isonc,': No. I signed it because the police
beat me up.
Joncs: I once went without food for a week.
Smith: Did you do that ofyonr own free will?
jones: No. I did it because I was lost in a desert
and could find no food.
Foreman of the Jury: The prisoner says he
signed the confession because he was beaten, and
not of his own free will.
PhilosolJhc1': This is quite irrelevant to dIe case.
There is no such thing as fi'ee will.
Foreman: Do you mean to say that it makes no
difference whed~er he signed because his conscience made him want to tell the truth or because he was beaten?
Philosopher: None at all. Whether he was
caused to sign by a beating or by some desire of
his own-the desire to tell the truth, for example-in either case his signing was causally determined, and therefore in neither case did he
act of his own fl-ee will. Since there is no such
thing as free will, the question whether he
signed of his own free will ought not to be cUscussed by us,
But suppose that the man who had fasted
was Mahatma Gandhi. The conversation might
then have gone:
Gandhi: I once fasted for a week.
Smith: Did you do that of your own free will?
Gandhi: Yes. I did it because I wanted to
compel the British Government to give India its
independence. .
Take another case. Suppose dut I had stolen
some bread, but that I was as truthful as George
Washington. Then, if I were charged with the
crime in court, some exchange of the following
sort might tal{e place:
judge: Did you steal the bread of your own
free will?
Stace: Yes. I stole it because I was hungry.
Or in different circumstances the conversation might run:
Judge: Did you steal of your own free will?
Stace: No.1 stole because my employer threatened to beat me if I did not.
At a recent murder trial in Trenton some of
dIe accused had signed confessions, but afterwards asserted that d~ey had done so under police duress, The following exchange might have
occurred:
Now suppose that a philosopher had been a
member of dle jury. We could imagine this conversation taking place in the jury room:
The foreman and the rest of d~e jury would
rightly conelude that the philosopher must be
making some mistake. What sort of a mistake
could it be? There is only one possible answer.
The philosopher must be using the phrase "free
,:vill 1' in some peculiar way of his own \",hiel~ is
not the way in which men usually use it when
they ,,,,ish to determine a question of moral responsibility. That is, he must be using an incorrect definition of it as implying action not
detcrmined by causes.
Suppose a man left his office at noon, and were
questioned about it. Then we might hear tlus:
jon,es: Did you go out of your own free will?
Smith: Yes. I went out to get my lunch.
But we might hear:
jones: Did you leave your office of your own
free will?
Smith: No. I was forcibly removed by the police.
We have now coUected a number of cases of
actions which, in the ordinary usage of the
English language, would be called.. cases in
which people have acted of their own free wilL
We should also say in all these cases that they
chose to act as they did. We should also say that
they could have acted otherwise, if they had
choscn. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi was not
compelled to fast; he chose to do so. He could
have eaten if he had wanted to. When Smith
went out to get his lunch, he chose to do so.
He could have stayed and done some work, if
he had wanted to. We have also collected a
number of cases of the opposite kind. They are
cases in which men ,:vere not able to exercise
their free wilL They had no choice. They ·were
compelled to do as they did. The man in the
desert did not fast of his own free wilL He had
no choice in the matter. He was compelled to
fast because there was nothi.ng for him to eat.
And so with the other cases. It ought to be
quite easy, by an inspection of these cases, to
tell what we ordinarily mean when we say that a
man did or cUd not exercise fi~ee will. W<;: ought
therefore to be able to extract £i.-om them the
proper definition of the tenn. Let us put the
cases in a table:
Free Acts
Gandhi fasting because he wanted
to free India.
Stealing bread
because one is
hungry.
Signing a confession
because one
wanted to tell
the truth.
Unfree Acts
The man fasting in
the desert because there was
no food.
Stealing because
one's employer
threatened to
beat one.
Signing because the
police beat one.
Leaving the office because one ,vanted
one's lunch.
345
Leaving because
forcibly removed.
It i.s obvious that to find the correct defuution
offi'ee acts Vi'e must discover what characteristic is
common· to all the acts in the left-hand collUlUl,
and is, at the same time, absent fi"Om all the acts in
the right-hand column, This dlaracteristic which
all free acts havc, and' which no unfree acts have 1
will be the defining characteristic offi'ee will.
Is being uncaused, or not being determined by
causes, the characteristic ofwluch we are· in search?
It camlot be, because although it is true dillt all dle
acts in the right-hand column have causes, such as
tlle beating by the police or the absence offood in
the desert) so also do the acts in tl~e left-hand coluam..M1". Gandhi's fasting was causcd by his desire
to fi-ee India, the man leaving Ius office by Ius
htUlger, and so on. Moreover there is no reason to
doubt tl~at these causes of the fi:ee acts were in
tnl'll caused by plior conditions, and that these
were again tlle results ofcauses, and so on bael{ indefuutcly into the past. Any physiologist can tell us
the c.auses of hunger. What caused Mr. Gandhi's
tremendously powerfi.tl desire to fi..ee India is no
doubt more difficult to discover. But it must have
had causes. Some of them may have lain i.n peculiarities. of his glands or brain, od~ers in his past expcdences, odlers in his heredity, others in Ius
education. Defenders of fi..ee wm have usually
tended to deny snell facts. But to do so is plainly a
case of special pleading, which is unsupported by
any scrap of evidence. The only reasonable view is
that all hmnan actions) both dlOse whiell are freely
done and those wluch are not 1 are either wholly
determined by causes 1 or at least as much determined as other events in nature. It may be true, as
the physicists tell us, that nature is not as detenninistic as was once thought. But whatever degree of
determinism prevails in the world, human actions
appear to be as much deterniined as anydllng else.
And if tlus is so, it carulOt be the case that what distinguishes actions fi'eely chosen fi'om those which
are not fi..ee is that tl~e latter are determined by
causes while the fonner a.re not. Therefore, being
346
H~
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
uncaused or being lU1determined by causes, must
be an incorrect definition of l1'ee will.
\'\7hat, then, is the difference between acts
wluch are freely done and those which are not?
'What is the characteristic wluch is present to all
d1e acts in the left-hand column and absent
from aU those in the right-hand column~ Is it
not obvious that, ald1011gh both sets of actions
have causes, the causes of those in the left-hand
column arc of a different Ilind from the causes
of those in the right-hand column? The free acts
are all caused by desires, or motives, or by some
sort of internal psychological states of the
agent's mind. The unfree acts, on the other
hand, are all caused by physical forces or physical conditions) outside the agent. Police arrest
means physical force exerted from the outside;
the absence of food in the desert is a physical
condition of the outside world. We may therefore frame the following rough definitions. Acts
freely done are those whose immediate causes are
psychological states in the agent. Acts not freely
done are those whose immediate causes are states
ofaffai1's external to the agent.
It is plain that if we define free \vill in tlus way,
the11 free will certainly exists, and tl1e philosopher's denial of its existence is seen to be \vhat it
is-nonsense. For it is obviolls tl1at all tl10se actions of 111en which we should ordinmily attribute to tl1e exercise of their free will, or of which
\'ve should say that tlley £i'eely chose to do them,
al'e in f.'lCt actions which have been caused by
their own desires, wishes, tl10ughts, emotions,
impulses) or other psychological states.
In applying our defilution we shall find that it
usually works welt, but tl1at there are some 'Puzzling cases which it does not seem exactly to fit.
These puzzles can always be solved by paying
cal'eful attention to tile ways in wluch words are
used, and remembering tllat they are not always
used consistently. I have space for only one example. Suppose that a tllUg threatens to shoot you
unless you give him your wallet, and suppose that
you do so. Do you, in giving him your wallet, do
so of your own free will or not? If we apply our
definition, we find tl1at you acted freely, since the
immediate cause of the action was not an actual
olltside force but the fear of death, which is a psy-
chological cause. Most people, however, would
say that you did not act of your own fi'ee will but
under compulsion. Does this show that our definition is wrong? I do not think so. Aristotle, who
gave a solution of the problem of fi-ee will Sll bstantially the same as ours (though he did not llSC
the term "fi"ce will") admitted that there arc 'what
he called "mixed" or borderline cases in \vh.ich it
is cliffinut to lmmv whether we ought to call the
acts fi-ee or compelled.
Jl1
the case under discus-
sion, though no actual force was used, the gun at
your forehead so nearly approximated to actual
force that we tend to say the case was one of
compulsion. It is a borderline case.
Here is what may seem like another kind of
puzzle. According to our vie\v an action may be
free though it could have been predicted beforehand with certainty. Bllt suppose you told a lie,
and it was certain beforehand that you would
tell it. How could one then say, "You could have
told tbe truth"? The answer is that it is perfectly
true that you could have told the truth ifyolJ
had \',1anted to. In fact you would have done so,
for in that case the causes producing your action,
namely your desires, would have been different,
and would therefore have produced different effects. It is a delusion that predictability and free
\vill are incompatible. Tlus agrees with common
sense. For if, IG10wing your character, I predict
that you will act honorably, no one would say
\',1hen you do act honorably, that this shows you
did not do so of your own free wilL
Since free will is a condition of moral responsibility, ""ve must be sure that our theory offiee will
gives a sufficient basis for it. To be held morally
responsible for one's actions means tl1at one
may be justly plllushed or rewarded, blamed or
praised, for them. But it is not just to punish a
man for what he Calmot help doing. How can it
be just to pl1lush him for an action which it was
certain beforehand that he \vould do? \'Ve have
not attemrted to decide whether, as a matter of
[net, aU events) including human actions, are completely deternuned. For that question is in'elevant
to the problem of fi'ee will. But if we assume for
the purposes of argument that complete determinism is true, but that we are nevertl1eless free, it
may then be asked whed1er such a determi.nistic
fi'ee will is compatible witl1 moral responsibility.
For it may seem unjust to punish a man for an action wluch it could have been predicted witl1 certaint)1 beforehand tl1at he \vould do.
But that determinism is incompatible with
moral responsibility is as much a delusion as
tI~at it is incompatible with free wilL You do not
excuse a man for doing a wrong act because,
lmowillg his character, you felt certain beforehand that he "muld do it. Nor do you deprive a
man of a rev,'ard or prize because, knowing his
goodness or his capabilities, you felt certain beforehal1d that he would win it.
Volumes have been \"'ritten on tl1e justification
of plUushment. But so far as it affects the question of free will, tl1e essential principles involved
are quite simple. The plUlishment of a man for
doing a wrong act is justified,either on the
ground that it will correct his own character, or
that it wi11 deter otl1er pearle £l'om doing similar
acts. The instrument of punishment has been in
tile past, and no doubt still is, often unwisely
used; so that it may often have done morc harm
than good. But that is not relevant to our present
problem. PUlushment, if and when it is justified,
is justified only on one or bOtl1 of the grounds
just mentioned. The question then is how, if \'ve
assume detennuusm) punishment can correct
character or deter people from evil actions.
Suppose tllat your child develops a habit of
telling lies. You give him a mild beating. ·Why?
Because you believe tlmt his personality is such
that the usual motives for telling the trutll do
not cause him to do so. You therefore supply
the missing cause, or· motive, in the shape of
pain and the fcar of f-tlture pain if he repeats his
un trustful behavior. And you hope that a fe\'"
treatments of tius kind will condition him to
the habit of truth-telling, so that he will come
to tell the truth \'vitllOut the infliction of pain.
You assume tl1at his actions are determined by
causes, but that ti1e usual causes oftruth-tclling
T. Stacc: Compatibilism
347
do not in him produce their usual effects. You
tl1erefore supply him with an artificially injected motive, pain and fear, which you think
will in the future cause him to speal, truthfully.
The principle is exactly tile same where you
hope, by punishing one man, to deter others
from wrong actions. You believe that tile fear of
pUIushment will cause tllOse who might otllerwise do evil to do well.
We act on the samd principle with non-human,
and even with U1alUmate, things, if tlley do not
behave U1 the way we dunk tl1ey ought to behave.
The rose bushes U1 tile garden produce only small
and poor blooms, whereas V,ie want large alld rich
ones. We supply a cause which 'will produce large
blooms, namely fertilizer. Our automobile does
not go properly. We supply a cause which will
malce it go better, namely oil Ul the works. The
plllushment for the man) the fertilizer for the
plant) alld the oil for tl1e car, are all justified by the
same prulCiplc al1d in u1e same way. The only difference is tllat different kinds of things require different kinds of causes to make them do what they
should. Pain may be the appropriate remedy to
apply, in certain cases, to human beings, and oil to
the machine. It is, of course) of no use to inject
motor oil into the boy or to beat the machine.
Thus \ve see that moral resronsibility is not
only consistent \,,'ith determinism, but requires
it. The assumption on \vhich punishment is
based is tl1at human behavior is causally determined. If pain could not be a cause of truthtelling tllere would be no justification at all for
punishing lies. If human actions and volitions
were uncaused, it would be useless eitller to
punish or reward, or indeed to do al1ything else
to correct people's bad behavior. For notlung
tl1at you could do would in any way ·influence
tl1em. Thus moral responsibility would entirely
disappear. If there were no determinism of
human beings at all, tl1eir actions would be
completely unpredictable and capricious, and
therefore irresponsible. And this is in itself a
strong argument against. tile common view of
philosophers that fi:ee will means being undetermined by causes.
348
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
For Further Reflection
1. Has Stace successfully reconciled free will with determillism~ Does his analysis of ordinary language settle the matter?
2. Do you think one can accept determinism aod'still hold people responsible for their
voluntary actions? Can we really help holding people responsible for their purposive actions!
V,42
Fate
RICHARD TAYLOR
Richard Taylor (1919) was for many yeafs a professor of philosophy at Brmvn
University, Rochester University, and Union College. He is the author of several
booles, including Metaph)'sics) fi'om which this selection is taken.
Taylor defines fatalism as the thesis that the fitture is unavoidable, that the course
of our lives is fixed regardless ofwhat we do, He illustrates his thesis with the story
ofOsmo who discovers a book, The Life ofOsmoJ as Gillen 0' God, detailing his entire life, including his death, which Osmo cannot falsify, try as he might.
Study Q;testiuns
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
What is fatalism?
How is determinism related to fatalism?
What are thesol1l'ces offutalism?
What is the story ofOsmo?
What are the foUl" questions Taylor considers at the end of the story of OSl11o?
What does Taylor say about the law of excluded middle?
What objections to his thesis does Taylor discuss at the end of the article?
WE ARE ALL,
at certain nioments of pain, threat,
or bereavement, apt to entertain the idea of fatalism, the thought that what is happening at a
particular moment is unavoidable, that we are
powerless to prevent it. Sometimes we find ourselves in circumstances not of our own malting,
in which our very being and destinies are so
thoroughly anchored that the thought of fatalism can be quite overwhelming, and sometimes
Repl'ill,tcdfrom MetaphysicsJ 31'd cd.
(Pre1'j.tice~HflUJ
consoling. One feels that whatever then happens, however good or ill, will be what those
circumstances yield, and we are helpless. Soldiers, it is said, are sometimes possessed by such
thoughts. Perhaps everyone would feel more
inclined to them if they paused once in a while
to think of how little they ever had to do Witll
bringing themselves to wherever they have arrived in life, how much of their fortunes and
1983) b)' permissiotl.
349
destinies were decided for them by sheer circumstance, and how the entire course of their
lives is often set, once and for all, by the most
trivial incidents, which they did not produce
and could not even have foreseen. Ifwe a.re free
to work on our destinies at all) which is doubtful, we have freedom that is 'It best ·exercised
within exceedingly narrm\F paths. All the impor-,
tant things-"when we are born, of what parents, into what culture, whether \\Fe are loved or
rejected, whetller we are male 01' female, our
temperament, our intelligence or stupidity, indeed everything that makes for the bulle of oUr
happiness and misery-all these are decided for
us by the most casual and indifferent circumstances, by sheer coincidences, chance encounters, and seemingly insignificant fortuities. One
can see this in retrospect if he searches, but few
search. The fate that has given us our very being
has given us also our pride and conceit, and has
thereby formed us so that, being human, we
congratulate ourselves on our blessings, which
,,"e call our achievements; blame the world for
our blunders, which we call our misfortunes;
and scarcely give a thought to that impersonal
fate that arbitrarily dispenses both.
FATALISM AND DETERMINISM
Determinism, it wlll be recalled, is the theory
that all events are rendered unavoidable by their
causes. The attempt is sometimes made to distinguish this from fatalism by saying that, according to the fatalist, certain events are going
to happen no matter what) or in other words,
regardless of causes. But this is enonnously
contrived. It would be hard to find in the whole
history of thought a single fatalist, on that conception of it.
Fatalism is the belief that whatever happens is
unavoidable. That is the clearest expression of
the doctrine, and it provides the basis of the attitude of calm acceptance that the fatalist is
thought, quite correctly, to embody. One who
endorses the claim of universal causation, then,
and the theory of the causal determination ofan
hUll1an behavior, is a kind of fatalist-or at least
he should be, if he is consistent. For that theOl")',
as we have seen, once it is clearly spelled out and
not hedged about with unresolved "ifs," does
entail that whatever happens is rendered inevitable by the causal conditions preceding it,
and is therefore unavoidable. One can indeed
thinlc of verbal fonl1ulas for distinguishing the
two dleorjes, but if'we think of a fatalist as one
who has a certain attitude, \ve fnd it to be the
attitude that a thoroughgoing determinist
should, in consistency, assume. That some
philosophical determinists are not fatalists does
not so much illustrate a great difference between fatalism and detenninism but rather dle
humiliation to one's pride that a fatalist position
can deliver, and the comfort that can sometimes
be found in evasion.
FATALISM WITH RESPECT TO
THE FUTURE AND THE PAST
A £'ltalist, then, is someone who believes that
whatever happens is and always was unavoidable. He thinks it is not up to him what will
happen a thousand years hence, next year, tomorrow, or tlle very next moment. Of course he
does not pretend always to Imow what is going
to happen. Hence, he might try sometimes to
read signs and portents, as meteorologists and
astrologers do, or to contemplate tlleeffects
upon him of the various things that might, for
all he knows, be fated to occur. But he does not
suppose that whatever happens could ever have
really been avoidable.
A fatalist thus tllinks of the filture in dle way
we all think of dle past, for everyone is a f.:'ltalist
as he looks bacl2 bn tllings. To a large extent we
know what has happened-some of it we can
even remember--whereas dle future is still obscure to us, and we are therefore tempted to"
imbue it, in our imagination, with all SOl'ts of
Ilpossibilities." The fatalist resists dus temptation, IGlowing that mere ignorance can hardly
350
PART FIVE: FREEDOl\'l OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
Richard Tayltn-: Fate
give rise to any genuine possibility in things. He
thinks of both past and futUl'e "under the aspect
of eternity," the way God is supposed to view
them. Vve all think of the past tllis way, as something settled and fixed, to be taken for ""hat it
is. We are never in the least tempted to try to
modify it. It is not in the least up to us what
happened last year, yesterday, or even a moment
ago, any more than are the motions of the heavens or the political developments in Tibet. Ifwe
are not fatalists, then we might think that past
things once were up to us, to bring about or
prevent, as long as they were still future, but
this expresses our attitude toward the future,
not the past.
Such is surely our conception of the vI'1101e
past, whether near or remote. But the consistent fatalist thinks of the future in the same way.
We say of past things that they are no longer
within our power. The fatalist says they never
were.
THE SOURCES OF FATALISM
A fatalistic way of thinking most often arises
from theological ideas, or from what are generally thought to be certain presuppositions of
science and logic. Thus) if God is really allknowing and all-powerful, it is not hard to suppose that He has arranged for everything to
happen just as it is going to happen, that He already knows every detail of the whole future
course of the 'i\Jorld, and there is nothing left
for you and me to do except watch things unfold in the here or the hereafter. But without
brin~jng God into the picture, it is not hard to
suppose, as we have seen, that everything that
happens is wholly determined by ,vhat went before it, and hence that whatever happens at any
nlture time is the only tiling that can then happen, given what precedes it. Or even disregarding that, jr seems natural to suppose that there
is a body of truth concerni.ng 'what the future
holds, just as there is such u'uth concerning
,vhat is contained in the past, whether or not it
is 1010wn to any person or even to God, and
hence, that everything asserted in that body of
truth 'will assuredly happen, in the fullness of
time) precisely as it is described therein.
No one needs to be convinced that fatalism is
the only proper way to view the past. That it is
also the proper way to view the future is less obvious, due in part, perhaps) to our vastly greater
'ignorance of what tl1c [untre holds. The consequences of holding such fatalism are obviously
momentous. To say nothing of tl1C consolation
of fatalism, which enables a person to view all
things as they arise 'with the same undisturbed
mind with which he contemplates even the most
revolting of llistory's horrors, the fatalist teaching also relieves one of aU tendency to"\vards
bOtll blame and approbation of others and of
bOtll guilt and conceit in llimsdf. It promises
tl1at a perfect understanding is possible and removes the temptation to view things in terms of
human wickedness and moral responsibility. This
tll0ught alone, once firmly grasped, yields a sublime acceptance of all that life and nature offer)
whether to oneself or one's fellov,"s; and although it tllcreby reduces one's pride, it simultaneously enhances the feelings, opens the heart,
and expands the understanding.
DIVINE OMNISCIENCE
Suppose for tlle moment, just for the purpose
of this discussion, that God exists and is omlliscient. To say that God is omniscient means tllat
He lmows everything that is true. He cannot,
of course) Immv that \vllich is false. COllcenling
any falsehood, an omniscient being can know
that it is false; but then it is a truth that is
known, namely, the truth that the tlling in
question is a falsehood. So if it is false tl1at tl1C
moon is a cube, then God can, like you or me,
know that this is false; but He cannot Imow tlle
falsehood itself, that the moon is a cube.
Thus, if God is omniscient He Imows, as you
probably do, the date of your birth. He also
knows, as you may not, the hour of yom birth.
351
Furthermore, God knows, as you assuredly do
turned out to be all the 1110re or less significant
not, the date of your conception-for there is
episodes in the life of some perfectly ordinary
such a truth, and we are supposing that God
man named 01'1110. OS1110 was entirely unIU10WS every truth. Moreover, He Imows, as }'OU
known to the scribe, and in fact to just about
surely do not, the date of your death) and the
everyone, but there was no doubt concerning
circumstances thereot::-whethcr at that mowhom all these facts were abollt) for the very
ment, lO1own already to Him, yot! die as the refirst thing received by the scribe from God) was;
sult of accident, a fatal malady, suicide, murder,
"He of whom I speak is called Osmo." "Y'7hen
whatever. And, still assuming God exists and
the revelations reached a fairly voluminous bulk
lmows everything, He knows whether any ant
and appeared to be completed) the scribe
\-valked across my desk Jast night, and if so, what
arranged them in chronological order and asant it was, where it came fi-om, how long it was
sembled them into a book. He at first gave it
on the desk) how it came to be there) and so on,
the title The Lift of Osmo) as Given b)' God) but
to every truth about tllis insect that there is.
thinking that people would take this to be some
Similarly, of course, He knows when some ant
sort ofjoke) he dropped the reference to God.
will again appear on my desk, if eve\,; He knows
The book was published but attracted no atthe number of hairs on my head, notes the fall
tention whatsoever) because it appeared to be
of every sparrow, blOWS why it fell, and why it
nothing more tllan a record of the dull life of a
was going to fulL These are simply a few of the
very plain man named Osmo. The scribe wonconsequences of the omniscience that we arc for
dered, in fact) why God had chosen to convey
the moment assuming. A more precise way of
such a mass of seemingly pointless trivia.
expressing all tIlis is to say that God knmvs,
The book eventually found its way into variconcerning any statement whatever that anyone
ous libraries, where it gathered dust until one
could formulate, that it is true, in case it is) and
day a h.igh school teacher in Indiana, who reotllerwise) that it is false. And let us suppose
joiced under the name of Osmo, saw a copy on
that God) at some time or other, or perhaps
the shelf. The title caught llis eye. Curiously
from time to time, vouchsafes some of his
picking it up and blowing the dust off, he was
blowJcdge to people, or perhaps to certain chothunderstruck by the opening sentence; "Osmo
sen persons. Thus prophets arise, proclaiming
is born in Mercy Hospital in Auburn, Indiana,
the coming of certain events, and things do
on June 6, 1942, ofFinnish parentage, and after
then happen as tlley have foretold. Of course it
nearly losing llis life £i'om an attack of pneumois not surprising that they should, on the suppoIlia at the age of five, he is enrolled in the St.
sition we are making; namely, that the fore!ames school there." OS1110 turned pale. The
knowledge of these things comes from God,
book nearly fell £i'om his hands. He thumbed
who is omniscient.
back in excitement to discover who had written
it. Nothing was given of its authorsllip nor, for
that matter, o( its publisher. His questions of
THE STORY OF OSMO
the librarian produced no further information,
he being as ignorant as Osmo of ho-w the book
Now, then) Jet us make one further supposition,
came to be there.
which will get us squarely into the philosophical
So Osmo, with the book pressed tightly
issue these ideas arc intended to introduce. Let
under his arm, dashed across the street for some
Wi suppose that God has revealed a particular
coffee, thinking to compose himself and then
set of facts to a chosen scrjbe who, believing
examine tIllS book . .vith care. Meanwhile he
(correctl}') tllat they came fi'om God~ wrote
glanced at a few more of its opening remarks, at
them all down. The facts in question then
the things said there about his difficulties with
352
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
his younger sister) how he was slow in learning
to read, of the summer on Mackinac Island, and
so on. His emotions now somewhat quieted)
OSI110 began a close reading. He no~ed that
everything was expressed in the present tense,
the way nc\vspaper headlines are written. For
example, the text read, "Osmo is born in Mercy
Hospital," instead of saying he was born there,
and is recorded that be quarrels with his sister, is
a slow student, is fitted with dental braces at age
eight, and so on, ali in the journalistic present
tense. But the text itself made quite clear approximately when all these various things happened, for everything was in chronologicaJ
order, and in any case each year of its subjecCs
life constituted a separate chapter and was so titled-"Osmds Seventh Year," "OSInO'S Eighth
Year/' and so 011 through the book.
Osmo became absolutely engrossed, to the
extent that he forgot his original astonishment,
bordering on panic, and for a while even lost his
curiosity concerning authorship. He sat drinking coffee and reliving his childhood,. much of
which he had all but forgotten until the memories were revived by the book now before him.
He had almost forgotten about the kitten, for
example, and had entirely forgotten its name,
until he read, in the chapter called «Osmo's
Seventh Year," this observation: "Sobbing,
Osmo takes Fluffy, now quite dead, to the garden, and buries her next to the rose bush." Ah
yes! And then there was Louise, who sat next to
him in the eighth grade-it was all right there.
And how he got caught smoking one day. And
how he felt when his father died. On and on.
Osmo became so absorbed that he quite forgot
the business of the day, until it occurred to him
to turn to Chapter 26, to see what might be
said there, he having just recently turned
twenty-six. He had no sooner done so than his
panic returned, for lo! what the book said was
t1"Ue! That it rains on his birthday for example,
that his wife fails to give him the binoculars he
had hinted he would like, that he receives a raise
in salary shortly thereafter, and so on. Now how
in God's name, Osmo pondered, could anyone
Richard Ta.ytor: Fate
know that apparently before it had happened~
For these ·were quite recent events, and the
book had dust on it. Quicldy moving on, 05mo
came to this: "Sitting and reading in the coffee
shop across from the library, Osmo, perspiring
copiously, entirely forgets, until it is too late,
that he is supposed to collect his wife at the
hairdresser's at four." Oh my god! He had
forgotten all about that. Yanking out his
watch, OS1110 discovered that it was nearly five
o'clock-too late. She ,vould be on her way
home by now, and in a very sour mood.
Osmo's anguish at this discovery was nothing, though, compared with what the rest of the
day held for him. He poured more coffee, and it
now occurred to him to check the number of
chapters in this amazing book: only twentynine! But surely, he thought, that doesn't mean
anything. How anyone could have gotten all
tllis stuff down S0 far "vas puzzling enough, to
be sure, but no one on God's earth could possibly know in advance hmv long this or that person is going to live. (Only God could know tllat
sort of dling, OS1110 reflected.) So he read
along; tllOugh not without considerable uneasiness and even depression) for tlle remaining
three chapters were on the whole discouraging.
He thought he had gotten tlmt ulcer under
control, for example. And he didn't see any reason to suppose his job was going to turn out
tlmt badly, or that he was really going to break a
leg skiing; after all, he .could just give up skiing.
But then the book took on a terribly dismal
note. It said: "And Osmo, having taken Northwest flight 569 from O'Hare, perishes when the
aircraft crashes on tlle runway at Fort V\Tayne ,
with considerable loss ofHfe, a tragedy rendered
the far more calamitous by the fact that OSl110
had neglected to renew his life insurance before
the expiration of the grace p~riod." And that
was all. That was the end of the book.
So that)s ,vhy it had only twenty-nine chapters. Some idiot tllought he was going to get
killed in a plane crash. But, OS1110 thought, he
just wouldn't get on that plane. And tIus \vould
also remind him to keep his insurance in force.
(About tllree years later our hero, having
boarded a flight for St. Paul, went berserk when
tlle pilot announced they 'were going to land at
Fort Wayne instead. Accordi.ng to one of the
flight attendants, he tried to hijack the aircraft
and divert it to another airfield. The Civil Aeronautics Board cited tlle resulting disruptions as
contributing to the crash that followed as the
plane tried to land.)
FOUR QUESTIONS
OS1110'S extraordinary circumstances led him to
embrace the doctrine of fatalism. Not quite
completely, perhaps, for there he was, right up
to the end, trying vainly to buck his fatetrying, in effect, to make a fool of God, though
he did not know tius, because he had no idea of
the book's source. Still, he had dle overwhelming evidence of Ius whole past life to make him
think tllat everything was going to work out exactly as described in dle book. It always had. It
was, in fact, precisely dus conviction tl1at terrified him so.
Bnt now let us ask dlese questions, in. order
to make Osmo's experiences more relevant to
our own. First, why did he become, or nearly
become, a fatalist~ Second, just what did his fatalism amount to~ Third, was his belief justified
in terms of dle evidence he had? And finaIlYi is
that belief justified in terms of the evidence we
have-or in odler words, should we be fatalists
too?
This last, of course, is dIe important metaphysical question, but we have to approach it
through the odlers.
Why did Osmo become a fatalist? Osmo became a fatalist because there existed a set of true
statements about the details oflus life, both past
and future, and he came to lUlow what some of
these statements were and to believe them, inducUng many concerning his future. That is the
whole ofit.
No tlleological ideas entered into Ius conviction, nor any presuppositions about causal de-
353
tenl1inisffi, the coercion of Ius actions by causes,
or anything of this sort, The foundations of
Osmo's £'ltalism were entirely in logic and epistemology, having to do only Witll truth and
knowledge. Ideas about God cUd not enter in
for he never suspected dlat God was the ulti ~
mate source of dlOse statements. And at no
point did he think God was making him do
what he did.,All he was concerned about was
tllat someone seemed somehow to know what
he had done and was going to do.
What, then) did Osmo belielJe? He did not it
should be noted, believe that certain thll~gS
were going to happen to him no matter what.
That does not express a logically coherent belief. He did not tlunk he was in danger of perishing in an airplane crash even in case he did
not get into any airplane, for example, or tlmt
he was going to break Ius leg skiing, whetller he
went skiing or not. No one believes what he
considers to be plainly impossible. If anyone believes that a given event is going to happen, he
does not doubt that those things necessary for
its occurrence are going to happen too. The expression "no matter what,» by means of which
some philosophers have sought an easy and
even childish refiltation of fatalism, is accordingly highly inappropriate in any description of
the fatalist conviction.
Osmo's fatalism was simply the realization
that the tIungs described in the book were
unavoidable.
Of course we are all £1talists in tllis sense
about some things, and the metaphysical question is whetller tius £:ll1liliar attitude should not
be extended to everytlung. We lcnow the sun
will rise tomorl'O'w, for example, and there is.
nothing we can do about it. Each of us knows
he is sooner or later gOlllg to die, too, and there
is notlling to be done about that either. We normally do not know just when, ofcourse, but it is
mercifully so! For otherwise we would sit Sitllply chec.king off the days as tlley passed, with
growing despair, like a man condemned to the
gallows and lmowing tlle hour set for his execution, 111e tides ebb and flow, and heavens l'e-
354
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
Richal'd TCI.yI01',' Fate
valve, the seasons follow in order, generations
arise and pass, and no one speaks of taking preventive measures. With respect to those things
each of us recognizes as beyond his control, we
afC of necessity fatalists.
The question of fatalism is simply: Of all the
things that happen in the vmdd, which, if any,
afC avoidable? And the philosophical fatalist
replies: None of them. They never were. Some
of them only seemed so.
l¥as Osmo)s fatalism Justified? Of course it
was. \7Vhcn he could sit right d1cre and read a
true description of those parts of his life that had
not yet been Jived, it would be idle to suggest to
him that his future might, nonetheless, contain
alternative possibilities. The only doubts Osmo
had were whether those statements could really
be true. Rut here he had tlle proof of his own
experience, as one by one they were tested.
VVhenever he tried to prevent what \vas set forth,
he of course failed. Such failure, over and over,
of even the most Herculean efforts, with never a
single success, must surely suggest, sooner or
later, that he "vas destined to fail. Even to the
end, when Osmo tried so desperately to save
himself fi'om the destruction described in the
book, his effort was totally in vain-as he should
have realized it \vas going to be had he really
lmown that what \vas said there was true. No
pmver in heaven or earth can render false a statement that is true. It has never been done, and
never will be.
Is the doct1'i11e of fatalisln) then) tru-e? This
amounts to asking \Vhetller our circumstances are
significantly different from-Osl110's. Of course we
cannot read our own biographies the way he
could. Only people who become famous ever
have their lives recorded, and even so, it is ahvays
in retrospect. This is unfortunate. It is too bad
that someone with sufficient knowledge-God,
for example-cannot set dmvn the lives of great
men in advance, so that their achievements can
be appreciated better by their contemporaries,
and indeed, by their predecessors-their parents,
for instance. But mortals do not have the requisite knowledgc, and if tllere are any gods who do,
they seem to keep it to themselves.
None of this matters,· as far as our own fatalism is concerned. For the important thing to
note is that, of thc !Iva considerations that explain Osmo's fatalism, only one of them was
philosophically relevant, and that one applies to
us no less than to him. The two considerations
,vere: (1) there existed a set of true statements
about his life, bodl past and future, and (2) he
came to know what those statements were and
to believe them. Now the second of these two
considerations explains why, as a matter of psychological fact, Osmo became fatalistic, but it
has nodling to do ,\lith the validity of dlat point
of view. Its validity is assured by (1) alone. It ViraS
not dle fact that the statements happened to be
written down that rendered the things they describcd unavoidable; dlat had nothing to do
widl-it at all. Nor was it the fact that, because
they had been written, OS1110 could read them.
I-lis reading dlem and coming to believe them
likewise had nothing to do Witll the inevitability
of what dley described. This was ensured simply
by there being such a set of statements, whether
written or not, whedler read by anyone or not,
and whedler or not known to be true. All that is
required is dlat tlley should be true.
Each of us has but one possible past, described by that totality of statements about us in
the past tense, each of which happens to be true.
No one ever thinks of rearranging things thcre;
it is simply accepted as given. But so also, each of
us has but one possible fnture, described by that
totality of statements about oneself in the futurc
tense, each of \",hich happens to be true. The
sum of these constitutes one's biography Part of
it has been lived. The main outlines of it can still
be seen, in retrospect, though most of its details
are obscure. The other part has not been lived,
though it most assuredly is going to be, in exact
accordance with that set of statements just refelTed to. Some of its outlines can already be
seen, in prospect, but it is on the whole more
obscure than the part belonging to the past. v'iTe
have at best only premonitory glimpses of it. It is
no doubt for this reason that not all of this part,
the part that awaits us, is perceived as given, and
people do sometimes speak absurdly of altcring
it-as though what the nlture holds, as identified by any true statement in the future tense,
might after all not hold.
Osmo's biography \"'as all expressed in the
present tense because all that mattered v,las that
the things referred to were real 'events, it did
not matter to what part of time they belonged.
His past consisted of those things that preceded
his reading of the book, and he simply accepted
it as given. lIe was not tempted to revise what
\-vas said there, for he was sure it was true. But it
took the book to make him realize that his future was also something given. It was equally
pointless for him to try to revise what was said
there, for it, too, was true. As the past contains
what has happened, the future contains what
will happen, and neither contains, in addition to
these things, various other dlings that did not
and will not happen.
Of course we know relatively little of what
the future contains. Some things we blOW. We
know the sun will go on rising and setting, for
example, that taxes ,vill be levied and wars will
rage, that people will continue to be callous and
greedy, and that people will be murdered and
robbed. It is only dle details that remain to be
discovered. But the same is true of the past; it is
only a matter of degree. When I meet a total
stranger, I do not blOW) and will probably never
IG1ow, what his past has been, beyond certain
obvious things-that he had a mother, and
things of tllis sort. I know nothing of the particulars of that vast realm of fact that is unique to
his past. And dle same for his nlture, with only
tlus difference-that all people are strangers to
me as far as their nltures are concerned, and
here I am even a stranger to myself.
Yet there is one tiling I lmow concenling
any stranger's past and the past of evcrytlling
under the sun; namely, that whatever it might
hold, there is nothing anyone can do about it
now. vVhat has happened cannot be undone. The
mere fact that it has happened guarantees tllis.
And so it is, by the same token, of the nlture of evcrytlling under the sun. Whatever the
future might hold, there is nothing anyone can
do about it now. V\That will happen cannot be
355
altered. The mere £1.ct that it is going to happen
guarantees this.
THE LAW OF EXCLUDED MIDDLE
The presupposition of fatalism is therefore
nothing but the commonest presupposition of
all logic and inquir)'; namely, that there is such a
thing as truth, and that this has norlling at all to
do with the passage of time. Notlling becomes
true or ceases to be true; whatever is truth at all
simply irtme.
It comes to the same thing,and is perhaps
more precise, to say that every meaningful state~
ment, whetller about oneself or anything else, is
either true or else it is false; that is, its denial is
true. There is no middle ground. The principle
is thus appropriately called the law of excluded
middle. It has nothing to do with what tense a
statement happens to express, nor with the
question for whether anyone) man or god, happens to know whether it is true or false.
Thus no one kll~WS whether there was an ant
on my desk last night, and no one ever will. But
we do lOl0W that either this statement is true or
else its denial is true-there is no tllird altenlative. If we say it might be true, 've mean only
tllat "ire do not happen to lmow. Similarly, no
one blOWS whed~er or not there is going to be
an ant there tonight, but I've knmv that eitller it
will or else it will not be d~ere.
In a similar way we can distinguish nvo mutually exclusive but exhaustive classes of statements
about any person; namely, the class of all those
tllat are true, and the class of all that are false.
There arc no others in addition to these. Included in each are statements never asserted or
even considered by anyone, but such that, if anyone \'vere to formulate one of them, it would eitber be a true statement or else a false one.
Consider) then, that class of statements
about some particular person-yoll, let us suppose-each of which happens to be true. Their
totality constitutes your biography. One combination of such statements describes the time,
place, and circumstances of your birth. Another
356
combination describes the time, place, and circumstall.ces of yom death. Others describe in
detail the rises and falls of your forumcs, your
achievements and failures, your joys and sorrows-absolutely everything that is true ofyou.
Some of these things you have already experienced, others await you. But the entire biography
is there. It is not written, and probably never will
be; but it is nevertheless there, all of it. If, like
Osmo, you had some way of discovering those
statements in. advance, then like him you could
hardly help becoming a £'ltalist. But foreknowledge of the truth would not create any truth, nor
invest your philosophy with truth, nor add anything to the philosophical fOlUldations of the fatalism that would then be so apparent to you. It
would only serve to make it apparent.
OBJECTIONS
TIns thought, and the sense of its force, have
tormented and frightened people £l."Om the beginning, and thinkers whose pride sometimes
exceeds their acumen and their reverencc for
truth have attempted every means imaginable
to demolish it, Thel'c are few articles of faith
upon which virtually everyone can agree, but
one of them is certainly the belief in their cherished fi'ee will. Any argument in opposition to
the doctrine offate, however feeble, is immediately and uncritically embraced, as though the
refutation of fatalism required only the deliial of
it, supported by reasons that would hardly do
credit to a child. It will be worthwhile, therefore, to look briefly at some of the arguments
most commonly heard,
1.
Suggestions for Further Reading
PART FIVE: FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM
One can neither foresee the hltme nor prove
that there is any god, or even if there is, that
he could know in advance the free actions of
men.
The reply to this is that it is irrelevant. The
thesis of £'ltalism rests on no theory of
divination and on no theology. These ideas
were introduced only illustratively.
2.
True st:'1tements are not the causes of anything. Statements only ent:wi they do not
cause, and hence threaten no man's fi·eedom.
But this, too, is irrelevant1 for the claim
here denied is not one that has been made,
3. The whole argument just conflates fact and
necessity into one and the same thing,
treating as unavoidable that which is
merely true. The fact that a given tlung is
going to happen implies only that it is
going to happen, not that it has to. Someone might still be able to prevent itthough of course no one will, For cxample,
President Kennedy was 111m"dered. Tllis
means it was true that he was going tQ be
murdered. But it does not 111ean his death
at that time and place was unavoidable.
Someone could have rendered that statement false; though of course no one·did.
That is probably the conunonest "refiltation"
offatalism ever offered. But how strong is the
claim that something can be done, when in fact
it never has been done in the whole history of
th.c lUliverse, in spite, sometimes, ofthe most
strenuous efforts? No one has ever rendered
false a statement that was trlle 1 however hard
some have hi.ed. When an attempt, perhaps a
heroic attempt, is made to avoid a given
calamity) and the tbing in. question happens
anyway, at just the moment and in just the way
it was going to happen, we have reason to
doubt that it could have been avoided. And in
met great effort was made to save President
Kelmedy, for example, fl:om the desh'uction
toward which he was heading 011 that fatal day,
a ,vhole legion ofbodyguards having no other
mission. And it fulled. True, we can say that if
niare strenuous precautions had been taken,
dle event wOlJ-ld not have happened. But to this
we must add true) dley were not taken, and
hence true) dley were not going to be takenand we have on our hands again a true statement of dle kind dlat no man has ever had the
slightest degree ofsuccess in rendedng false.
For Further Reflection
1.
2.
3.
4.
Describe and evaluate Taylor's argument for fatalism. How convincing is it?
How does the story of Osmo illustrate Taylor1s thesis?
Discuss the four questions that Taylor raises at the end of the story of Osmo,
Examine the objections raised against fatalism at the end of the article.
Suggestions for Further Readi1tg
Dennett, Daniel. Elbow Room: Varieties ofFree Will Worth Wanti1tg. Cambridge, 1v1A: MIT
Press, 1985, The best defense of compatibilism.
Feinberg, Joel, ed, Reason and Responsibitity. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1985. Part 4
contains a very good selection of readings, including four readings on the implications
for justifying punishment,
Honderich, Ted, ed, Essays on F1'cedom ofAction. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973.
A good collection of essays.
Lehrer, Keith, and Cornman, James. Philosophical Pl'OblemsandAl:!Jumcnts, 3rd ed. New
York: Macmillan, 1982, LelU'er's essay (Chapter 3) is excellent.
MacKay, Donald M. Freedom ofAction in a Mechanistic UniJ'el'se. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 1 1967,
Morgenbesser, Sidney, and Walsh, James, eds. Free Will. Englewood Cliffs) NJ: Prentice HaJI,
1962. This contains many of the classic readings.
Stace, Walter, Reli;gion and the Modern Mind. New York: Lippincott, 1952.
Trusted, Jennifer. Free Will and Responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. One
of the clearest introductions to the subject. Accessible to beginners and reliabJe.
van Inwagen, Peter. An Essay on Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. This is
the best critique ofcompatibilism available.
Watson, Gary, Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. This volume contains
the best collections of recent articles on the subject) especially those ofFrankfi.lrt, van
Inwagen, and Watson, It also contains two clear discussions. of the problem of mechanism
and fi·eedom of the will: Norman Malcolm's "The Conceivability ofMechanism" and
Daniel Dennett's "Mechanism and Responsibility,"
357