There were two opinions of the older philosophers regarding the fate. One belonging to those men who believed that everything occured by fate in such a way that everything necessitated (The Fate Principle Argument). The others held that there were voluntary motions of the mind without fate.

Chrysippus, a Greek Stoic philosopher, rejected necessity but fixed it by introducing kinds of causes. Everything is fated but is not necessitated. So, some causes are perfect and principal, while others are auxiliary and proximate. When we say that all things occur by fate by antecedent causes, they do not happen by perfect and principal cause. Instead, they occur by auxiliary and proximate causes. The opponents treated all antecedent causes as if they were perfect and principal causes.

The following is the reconstruction of the argument against the Fate Principle (P):
(1) If everything happens by fate, everything happens by way of an antecedent cause.
(2) If everything happens by an antecedent cause, impulse happens by an antecedent cause.
(3) If impulse happens by an antecedent cause, assent and action happen by an antecedent cause.
(4) The antecedent cause does not depend on us.
(5) If the antecedent cause does not depend on us, then impulse itself does not depend on us.
(6) Assent and action do not depend on us.
(7) Then neither blame nor praise, nor honors, nor punishments are just.
(8) It is absurd and therefore (P) is false.
∴ The Fate Principle is false.

The supporters of the fate principle claimed that assent occurs by antecedent causes. Chrisippus argued that assent is in our own power. However, we are determined in our action by our own nature. For instance, when we push the cylinder we give the start of its motion, but we don’t give it its “rollability”. The cylinder moves by its own nature. Hence, Chrysippus defended the Fate Principle, but his defense is based on a distinction of causes. Our actions are determined by an antecedent cause without being necessitated by it:

(1) Every action has an antecedent cause, but the antecedent cause does not make the action necessary.
(2) Every action is fated insomuch as it is fully determined by a combination of the antecedent cause and the nature of the agent.
(3) The antecedent cause is the external and proximate cause, whereas the nature of the agent is the internal and principal cause.
(4) We are not externally determined in our action because we are ultimately determined by our own nature. This nature is the decisive causal factor.

What makes an agent responsible for an action, an action voluntary, is what we may call the autonomy of the agent. “Autonomy” is nothing but the fact that the agent is the main cause of the action. There are no causes prior to our actions which fully determine whether we act, or for which we may decide. The Stoics make a distinction between freedom from being externally determined and freedom of choice. From the cylinder, Chrysippus has a whole-person model of agency in mind. In this model, what action a person performs, ultimately depends on the overall disposition of the person’s mind at the time of action, including the person’s character, systems of beliefs, desires, and so on. In the whole-person model of agency, agents can influence their ways of action and behaving only indirectly, by changing the basis of their actions that is by changing their character, system of beliefs and desires.

Bibliography:

  • Aulus Gellius 7.2 [ = Inwood-Gerson Lloyd II-89]
  • Cicero, On Fate 39-44 [=Inwood-Lloyd Gerson II-90]