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Introduction
In philosophy, the concept of free will has long been an important topic of great thinkers trying to understand the degree of which we possess control over our lives, actions, and choices. In this post we are going explore 3 of the main perspectives which offers an explanation of free will, and provide a simple example to help wrap your head around this concept.
Fatalism
Fatalism is the belief that your future is fated, no matter the choices you make. It posits that everything is inevitable, bound by an unalterable cosmic fate. It is best represented by the myth of Oedipus.
In greek mythology, Oedipus is abandonned as a baby by his parents, the rulers of the city of Thebes, after an oracle warned the king that his son would one day kill him and marry his mother. Oedipus is then adopted by the royal family of Corinth, but someday upon learning of this vision, he decides to flee the city in order not to hurt his thought-to-be biological parents. Traveling toward Thebes, he gets caught in a quarrel in which he kills a man. After arriving in the city, he eventually becomes king and marries the queen in place.You probably guessed it… the man he killed was unbeknownst to him his own father, and the woman he married his own mother. In the end, Oedipus was unable to escape his fate.
Now consider a man choosing to walk a path between left and right. He chooses to go right, and a rock falls at that time, killing him. Fatalists would believe that even if he went left, he was fated to die at that moment, with perhaps a tree falling on him.
Determinism
Determinism is the view that if you knew everything about someone’s physical and mental state at a particular moment, together with the external stimuli he/she is exposed to at that moment, you could predict what that person will do next.
In other words, what you’re going to do is already predetermined because it is governed by cause and effect.
This begs the question of individual accountability, because how can you be responsible if it could not have happened any other way? Consider the same man choosing between left and right. Determinists would believe that he would have been just fine if he chose left, but it was predetermined that he was going to choose right.
Compatibilism
Compatibilism believes the same as determinism, but consider that we are still responsible for our actions. It proposes that free will and determinism can coexist, and that our choices can be considered free if they aren’t influenced by external factors. For that same man, compatibilits would believe the same as determinism, but that the man is still responsible for his choice to go right.
My view
Personnally, I believe in compatibilism.
Fatalism doesn’t make sense to me: if I’m fated to become a professional football player, but take no action to become one (such as practicing often), I don’t see how that future would unfold.
I believe determinism is true, as it presents a rational explanation for every choice we make. That would mean that we in fact, don’t have free will.However, that doesn’t mean we are all doomed and just machines in the cog!
It is not possible for a human to know everything that comes into play when we make a decision. That would require having an omnipotent knowledge, in other words being like a god. I would even argue that even if it was somehow possible, thanks to a supercomputer for example, it isn’t desirable.Knowing how your life is going to unfold for every decision would only lead to boredom.
So even if determinism is true, it doesn’t matter to us because we cannot comprehend it. Therefore, since we can’t predict the future, we would be responsible for our actions in the present, which is what compatibilists believe.
So live your life like you normally would! Even if everything is already predetermined, you can’t predict the future or have any reason to want to, so it doesn’t change anything! Enjoy seeing what life throws at you next 😄
