Determinism and moral responsibility: The ancient Platonic critique of Stoic compatibilism

Jan Opsomer (Leuven)

1. Compatibilism

“Compatibilism offers a solution to the free will problem, which concerns a disputed incompatibility between free will and determinism. Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. Because free will is typically taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed as a thesis about the compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism. (McKenna, Michael and Coates, D. Justin, "Compatibilism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming

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(in)compatibilism about

  • determinism and free will
  • determinism and moral responsibility
  • determinism and to eph’hemin(τὸἐφ’ ἡμῖν, ‘what is up to us’)

2. Stoic causal determinism and compatibilism

S. Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy, Oxford, 1998, 33-53:

  • General Causal Principle: Nothing happens without a cause.
  • Specified Causal Principle: For every movement e (i) there are causal factors c1…cn which are actively responsible for e, and (ii) for any possible alternative movement e* to e there is a factor f in the starting situation s of e, such that because of f e (and not e*) occurred; i.e. for e* (and not e) to occur there would have to have been some *f (≠ f) instead of f in s.
  • Fate Principle: “Everything happens in accordance with fate.” (τὰ πάντα καθ’εἱμαρμένηνγίνεται)

3. The Principle of Charity

4. Conditional Fate

Sources: Ps.-Plutarch, On Fate (Περὶ εἱμαρμένης); Calcidius, inTim.ch. 142-190; Apuleius, De Plat.1.12, 205-207; Alcinous, Didaskalikosch. 26; Nemesius, De naturahominischs. 35-38; (Tacitus, Annales 6.22); Alexander of Lycopolis, Contra Manichaeos

The doctrine of conditional Fate in ps.-Plutarch Περὶ εἱμαρμένης

4.1. What needs saving:

  • the divine character of fate, and hence its goodness and overwhelming power;
  • the unalterable quality of fate;
  • the ineluctable character of fate;
  • the belief that god is not the cause of evil, only of good things;
  • the harmony between fate and divine providence;
  • themeaningfulness and usefulness of praise and blame, reward and punishment, prayer and worship;
  • the possibility of divination and the effectiveness of mantic practice;
  • more fundamentally: the belief that there is something ‘up to us’, understood as the real possibility of alternative choices, which implies:
  • the reality of contingency.

4.2. Two meanings of Fate

AFate as substance (οὐσία, the world soul) and Fate as activity (ἐνέργεια, the law of fate).

A1Fate as activity is

A1a“a divine logosintransgressible because of inescapable causality”;

A1b“a law in accord with the nature of the Universe, according to which what comes to be takes place”;

A1c“a divine law connecting future to past and present events”.

Cf. the ordinance of Adrasteia (Phaedr. 248C), the laws of Fate (Tim. 41E) the decree (λόγος) of Lachesis, maiden daughter of Necessity (Rep. 617D).

A2Fate as substance is the world-soul in its threefold division, i.e. Clotho, Atropos and Lachesis, ruling over the fixed stars, the errant heavenly bodies and the sublunary realm respectively.

4.3. The quality of fate understood as activity.

BFate as activity is finite (πεπερασμένη), but covers an infinite number of events.

4.4. Fate extending to individual things:

CFate is like a political law.

C1Fate is universal.

C2Fate is conditional.

Phaedrus 248C

4.5. Other things related to Fate (What is up to us, rational choice, chance, the possible, the contingent, providence)

D1Everything is contained in Fate.D2Not everything is according to Fate.

EThe possible is the genus of the contingent, which is the matter of τὸἐφ' ἡμῖν.

FSubstance (ἡ οὐσία = δυνάμενον)is prior to potentiality (δύναμις) and potentiality is prior to the possible (τὸδυνατόν).

whole / part
τὸ αὐτόματον / τύχη
incidental to
τὸἐνδεχόμενον / incidental to
τὸἐφ’ ἡμῖν with προαίρεσις

G1All things that conform to Fate also conform to Providence.

G2Not all things that conform to Providence conform to Fate.

… exercises … / over …
demiurge / primary providence / divine things
secondary gods / secondary providence / the coming to be of mortal things,
the preservation of species
daemons / tertiary providence / human affairs