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Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?
Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635
| Posted 8/1/2003 4:09 PM (GMT -6) |   | I asked the chicken, "Why did the determinist cross the road?"
The chicken said, " It was necessarily, inevitable!"
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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 8/1/2003 4:33 PM (GMT -6) | | Very funny...
If you're sincerely interested in the difference between fatalism and determinism, I can certianly point you to some websites to help you out...Suffice to say, the "fatalism" theory can be held by either determinists or libertarians. It's not the exclusive territory of determinists. Fatalism basically means, "why try?" You can get that from a libertarian free will perspective- if you have read any existentialists such as Sartre or Camus (who DEFINITELY held to free will ) - you will see that you can believe in free will and still have a nihilistic viewpoint. | | Back to Top | | |
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Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?
Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635
| Posted 8/1/2003 4:46 PM (GMT -6) | | | So as a determinist, you do not see everything as necessarily, inevitable. | | Back to Top | | |
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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 8/1/2003 4:52 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Tim - well, I guess I'd say that yes, everything's inevitable, in that every cause has an effect. For example, if I stepped off the Sears Tower, the inevitable result is that I'm going to fall to the ground, and death will ( in all likelihood) result. This is because of the law of gravity.
The existentialists knew that death is inevitable for all of us (hard to argue with that) so their argument was that man is completely free to make what he wills of his limited time here on earth. Man is completely responsible for his lot in life - the atheistic existentialists said tht since there is no God, we can't either blame God for anything, nor can we thank him for anything. Man is on his own, man makes what he wills of his life. (Of course there were also Christian existentialists like Kierkegaard, but my point is, that "free will" is not the exclusive bastion of Christians. Many atheists hold to that position as well.) | | Back to Top | | |
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Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?
Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635
| Posted 8/2/2003 2:13 AM (GMT -6) | | Before you stated your example of the necessarily inevitable, you say that every cause has an effect.
Do you believe everything, including my choices is the ‘Necessary Result’ of a sequence of causes or effects?
That is to say,
1) Are choices the effect of causes, or
2) Are choices the cause of effects, or
Do both propositions work well in your doctrine of determinism?
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 8/2/2003 7:55 AM (GMT -6) | | I think the relation from Fatalism to Determinism is similar to the relation from Libertinism and Libertarianism(Did I mention I did rather well in the Verbal category on the GREs?).
Onto-theologically, they are similar in how they view the world. The difference is the latter holds to a form of moral realism inconsistently and the other consistently doesn't.
I.e., if I were a Libertarian, I could hold to the importance of morality, but because of my exposure to rampant abuse of power be reluctant to support any concentration of authority that is s'posed to enforce "morality". Alternatively, as a determinist, I could view the existing concentrations of authority as good, part of God's plan, since, although they entail the threat or use of force, they serve an ultimate good of providing for the order we observe and benefit from.
The former may emphasize the fact that power tends to corrupt and emphasize individual responsibility.
The latter would emphasize the inevitability of power and our inability to fully comprehend why things work the way they do, but stress that there likely is a reason why things are as they are.
The libertine denies there is anything that judges one's behavior.
The fatalist denies that they have any responsibility for what happens to them and others based on our "choices".
Of course, as an Open Theists, it doesn't surprise me that there is so much latitude for interpretation of the personal/moral consequences of how we view the world. I.e., independent of whether we are determinists or open in how we view reality, we make choices about what significance this has for our lives.
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 8/11/2003 4:26 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Tim , i've been gone awhile, sorry.
But, yes, both of your propositions fit in. Choices are the effect of causes, but also can become effects of other causes in themselves. I don't see how this is hard to comprehend. For example, let's say you're born into a Jewish family. Subsequently, you decide to have your bar mitzvah. Why did the bar mitzvah occur? Obviously, b/c you are Jewish! But now, the fact that you decided to have the bar mitzvah implicates other's choices. Your grandma was worried that you would renounce the Jewish faith, you didn't (by having the bar mitzvah) and subsequently, she is happy - her state of mind has been affected by your choice. Her choice now is to remember you in her will...this is just a silly example, but shows how this stuff works. | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 8/12/2003 6:36 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
Hey Tim , i've been gone awhile, sorry.
But, yes, both of your propositions fit in. Choices are the effect of causes, but also can become effects of other causes in themselves. I don't see how this is hard to comprehend. For example, let's say you're born into a Jewish family. Subsequently, you decide to have your bar mitzvah. Why did the bar mitzvah occur? Obviously, b/c you are Jewish! But now, the fact that you decided to have the bar mitzvah implicates other's choices. Your grandma was worried that you would renounce the Jewish faith, you didn't (by having the bar mitzvah) and subsequently, she is happy - her state of mind has been affected by your choice. Her choice now is to remember you in her will...this is just a silly example, but shows how this stuff works.
Yes, but its not like one's decisions to be more Jewish end with the decision to have the bar mitzvah, despite the amount of work that entails.
There are pressures, but then there are choices. Those choices are real and not all predetermined. For example, fleetwood could choose to really interact more deeply with open theism as you have done. But if he did that and came to the conclusion it should not be beyond the bounds then that might upset the pastor of the church where he is a youth pastor.
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 8/12/2003 1:07 PM (GMT -6) | | DLW- I'm not sure what you're getting at here. It sounds like you use the word "predetermined" to mean that everything that one does in one's lifetime is already done, so to speak - that there could be a videotape of your life sitting in your VCR, etc. That may be somewhat true, from God's perspective. But from our human perspective- we do have choices, if by "to choose" you mean "to deliberate between options" (as I do).
Do ANY of the choices occur in a vacuum? I say no. You apparently say that some choices are caused, but others are not. Care to explain that?
For any choice to not be caused by anything, it would mean that a person's "will" exists independently of this world, of your body, of your genes, of your circumstances, and, I would argue, of God. I assert that's not possible. The will is exercised by each person reacting to a cause- whatever that cause may be is not really relevant, it's enough to say the choice is caused by something. I just can't even comprehend of an example of a choice that is uncaused. Can you? | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 8/12/2003 1:34 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
DLW- I'm not sure what you're getting at here. It sounds like you use the word "predetermined" to mean that everything that one does in one's lifetime is already done, so to speak - that there could be a videotape of your life sitting in your VCR, etc. That may be somewhat true, from God's perspective. But from our human perspective- we do have choices, if by "to choose" you mean "to deliberate between options" (as I do).
Yes, but to choose based on free-will is to render what is undetermined determined. As such all of our choices where the final choice is predetermined are not really choices. For example, when listening to the radio, I typically skip past the country stations quickly.
Although, to deliberate generally means to give different courses of actions serious consideration.
quote:
Do ANY of the choices occur in a vacuum? I say no. You apparently say that some choices are caused, but others are not. Care to explain that?
Well, if in your above example, the fellow decides to have his bar mitzvah so his Grandma will continue to give him cookies and include him in her will then that could be seen as a response to stimuli. He likes the attention and the cookies his grandma gives him and wants to eventually receive some inheritance when G-d willing she dies and so he has a bar-mitzvah.
Now, right after that bar-mitzvah, he could decide to become a secular jew or to become a libertine. While the first choice may be predetermined for him, the latter choice may not be. Studying scriptures does not make one a good person, irregardless of one's religion.
quote:
For any choice to not be caused by anything, it would mean that a person's "will" exists independently of this world, of your body, of your genes, of your circumstances, and, I would argue, of God.
Yes, you got that right.
quote:
I assert that's not possible. The will is exercised by each person reacting to a cause- whatever that cause may be is not really relevant, it's enough to say the choice is caused by something. I just can't even comprehend of an example of a choice that is uncaused. Can you?
Sometimes the impact of events is indeterminant. If one is adopted one can get depressed over the fact that your "real" parents didn't want you or you can be affirmed by the fact that "your" parents chose you, unlike most parents who didn't have a choice.
A friend dies in a car-accident after a party, you can decide to straighten up your wasy so the same doesn't happen to you or you can conclude that life is b--- and then you die and resolve to enjoy life even more for tomorrow you may die.
We are conditioned but ultimately we choose what we become. We accept where we get sweeped along to or we forge a different path than what we conceivably could have gone along.
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 8/12/2003 6:42 PM (GMT -6) | | DLW- nothing you said contradicts compatibilism, or for that matter, determinism. In fact you explicitly agreed that the will cannot exist independently of the body, genes, environment, the universe, and God.
Are you aware that those philosophers who argue for free will do indeed believe that the will exists independently of those things? That the will is its own separate entity - that the will operates independently of other causes- that it CAN be influenced, but it ultimately is a self-contained entity that decides independent of anything else?
Here's an example I thought of to demonstrate the difference between fatalism and determinism. Let's say I've been diagnosed with cancer. If I am a fatalist, I resign myself, I throw up my hands and say, well I have cancer, my fate is that I will die of cancer, and there's nothing I can do about that. So why even try to fight it? So I will go home and wait to die.
If I am a determinist, I say, well, OK, I"ve been diagnosed with cancer. What has been shown to be a cause of containing that cancer, or putting it into remission? Chemo, radiation? I will then undergo those treatments, b/c I know that every cause has an effect, and I sincerely desire that the cause of treating the cancer has the effect of stopping the cancer, or at least putting it into remission. Determinism is so far from fatalism it's not even funny! Precisely BECAUSE there are cause and effects, the determinist believes that he or she can DO something about the situation he or she finds herself in. If there indeed is no cause and effect, it seems to be more likely that one would become a fatalist, since I can do nothing to stop my fate.
The libertarian , when faced with the cancer situation, if he is to be true to his belief of radical free will, has no reason to do one thing over another. Since everything is random and not predictable, it seems he must hold to the belief that the cancer struck him randomly. If that is the case, he can't get to the root cause of the cancer (there is no cause) and so what is the point of attempting to treat it? See what I mean? Fatalism is for sure not the exclusive realm of determinists! | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 8/13/2003 4:44 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt
DLW- nothing you said contradicts compatibilism, or for that matter, determinism. In fact you explicitly agreed that the will cannot exist independently of the body, genes, environment, the universe, and God.
But it is not just the sum of those parts.
quote:
Are you aware that those philosophers who argue for free will do indeed believe that the will exists independently of those things? That the will is its own separate entity - that the will operates independently of other causes- that it CAN be influenced, but it ultimately is a self-contained entity that decides independent of anything else?
Yup
quote:
Here's an example I thought of to demonstrate the difference between fatalism and determinism. Let's say I've been diagnosed with cancer. If I am a fatalist, I resign myself, I throw up my hands and say, well I have cancer, my fate is that I will die of cancer, and there's nothing I can do about that. So why even try to fight it? So I will go home and wait to die.
If I am a determinist, I say, well, OK, I"ve been diagnosed with cancer. What has been shown to be a cause of containing that cancer, or putting it into remission? Chemo, radiation? I will then undergo those treatments, b/c I know that every cause has an effect, and I sincerely desire that the cause of treating the cancer has the effect of stopping the cancer, or at least putting it into remission. Determinism is so far from fatalism it's not even funny! Precisely BECAUSE there are cause and effects, the determinist believes that he or she can DO something about the situation he or she finds herself in. If there indeed is no cause and effect, it seems to be more likely that one would become a fatalist, since I can do nothing to stop my fate.
But is to see the cancer into remission or to try at least part of God's will for your life?
Most fatalism is ex-post. So when faced with a potentially bad situation, you don't automatically assume the worse. That isn't fatalism that is pessimism.
I'm sure a fatalist like a determinist, like a free-willist, like most anybody but a Jehovah Witness would take advantage of the full extent of medical technology avaiable to them, unless they believe that it is there time and want to die gracefully.
quote:
The libertarian , when faced with the cancer situation, if he is to be true to his belief of radical free will, has no reason to do one thing over another. Since everything is random and not predictable, it seems he must hold to the belief that the cancer struck him randomly. If that is the case, he can't get to the root cause of the cancer (there is no cause) and so what is the point of attempting to treat it? See what I mean? Fatalism is for sure not the exclusive realm of determinists!
Libertarians tend to believe in the uniformities of nature, as such, they would want to pay doctors to make the best use of available knowledge to put the cancer in remission.
So I'm not sure I dig ya. Yes, there have to be regularities for much of science to be valid and we can make use of our knowledge of these regularities to change our given situation.
But since when does accepting the importance of regularities make one a determinists.
You're still arguing from the part to the whole.
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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RanceDurfee
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 1
| Posted 9/24/2004 10:49 AM (GMT -6) | | | Actually, most Christians tend to be fatalists. If you are a Christian that is not fatalist then you believe that God is falible and therefore, it could be argued, it is likely that you are not truely Christian. Let me explain. Most Christians are quick to acknowledge that God is omniscent, or all-knowing...God knows everything there is to know about everything...past...present...future. But if this is true then the future must be fixed or set just as the past & present are set. If God knows what will occur in the future, either by superior forsight or design, then this implies that the future can and will occur in only one way. Otherwise it is possible that God could be wrong...something most Christians are unwilling to conceed. Thus we see the Christian fatalist trap! Either the Christian must conceed that either God is not omniscient or is not infalible. Since a "true" Christian will not conceed either of these they must then concede they are fatalists. | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 9/24/2004 2:30 PM (GMT -6) | | With regard to the relation between determinism and fatalism it is important to realize, first, that fatalism can be understood in a limited or in an unrestricted sense.
Local or limited fatalism says that in some particular respect(s) the future is fixed and unavoidable. We see this kind of fatalism displayed in Greek mythology. Thus, some prophet tells a king that his son is fated to overthrow him so he does everything in his power to prevent this from happening but things invariably turn out just as predicted--unknown to the king the son is rescued by shepherds and, through a sequence of events, accidentally kills the king and wins the crown. Or look at human mortality. Barring a miracle or the Second Coming, it is "fated" that all men die. No matter how safe you live and no matter how well you eat and take care of your body, you're going to kick the bucket one day. You can try to avoid it, but you will ultimately fail.
Local fatalism is, of course, perfectly compatible with LFW because it doesn't imply that everything is settled, only that some things are. Global fatalism, on the other hand, says that the future is completely fixed and that, therefore, whatever will happen must happen.
Now, where determinism is taken to mean that everything that happens is causally necessited by its precursors, it is clear that determinism entails global fatalism. For if determinism is true that at any time T0 there is exactly one causally possible successor event at T1, and exactly one causally possible successor to that event at T2, and so on. Thus, the future is now completely fixed and whatever will happen causally must happen. It is unavoidable and therefore fated.
Determinism also implies local fatalism (b/c it implies global fatalism and global fatalism implies local fatalism), but local fatalism, as already pointed out, doesn't entail determinism and is, in fact, perfectly consistent with LFW.
Now, global fatalism is thought by some to be based on a logical fallacy. It is argued by Craig and others that the fact that something will happen does not entail that it must happen. The future, they say, is completely fixed but not completely unavoidable b/c IF one were to exercise LFW and choose differently than they in fact will choose, then the future would have been different than it in fact is. If this view is correct, then the future can BE completely fixed without that implying global fatalism. I don't think this move works, however, for it is committed to the idea that the future can now BE fixed without there now being anything that causally fixes it. To my mind, that's an incoherent suggestion.
Regards,
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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