Fatalism, Determinism, and Indeterminism

Abstract

W H rHILE agreeing with the very reasonable central thesis of Mrs. Langer's recent article "On a Fallacy in Scientific Fatalism" (International Journal of Ethics, July, I936) I feel that her account of determinism hardly does justice to the schools of thought that oppose this doctrine. I admit straightaway that the determinism which Mrs. Langer and so many modern writers attribute to science as its indispensable presupposition is not to be confused with a fatalism whereby our individual effort is thought to be rendered futile because our future is already determined. It is obvious that in a determined universe such a conclusion itself influences our future and thus, so to speak, suspends its own maxim of the ineffectual nature of our decisions. Only in a fatalism free from the axioms of scientific determinism would such an attitude really be at home. Further, it is true that under determinism certain very important limitations surround the assertion that conscious decisions are predictable. For instance, if a prediction is known to me it may condition my action in an opposite direction. In general, and this even if we consider God as the foreseeing mind, we must admit that the act of foresight cannot itself be a part of the universe to which such foresight refers. Certainly it cannot be causally related to the universe without by its very assertion influencing events in a manner not included in the prediction. (I might comment, however, that in certain determinist theologies God's vision and prevision are considered as one identical supra-temporal act by which the world is maintained not moment by moment but totum simul. Here divine foresight changes nothing or causes no one thing as distinct from another but maintains all things in their total history.) However, I admit that the concept of ideal prevision is no more than a Vaihinger als ob. Nonetheless, I insist that reasonable dislike of determinism is not based upon the distasteful notion that some other mind knows more of our future than we do. Hence the argument that there can be no actually exhaustive prediction of our actions, even if valid, does not remove the real sting of determinism. What the reasonable indeterminist desires to safeguard, if possible, is the real efficacy of consciousness or the self in determining the individual's course of action. Today the really dangerous rival of this doctrine is not fatalism but the very determinism which Mrs. Langer describes as a tenable thesis, neither very radical nor even debatable. This may seem at