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16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / a. Determinism

[natural causes have no room for free will]

30 ideas
Democritus said everything happens of necessity, by natural motion of atoms [Democritus, by Cicero]
Some say there is a determinate cause for every apparently spontaneous event [Democritus, by Aristotle]
Democritus said atoms only move by their natural motions, which are therefore necessary [Democritus, by Cicero]
No one wants to be bad, but bad men result from physical and educational failures, which they do not want or choose [Plato]
If everything is by necessity, then even denials of necessity are by necessity [Epicurus]
When a slave said 'It was fated that I should steal', Zeno replied 'Yes, and that you should be beaten' [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius]
A dog tied to a cart either chooses to follow and is pulled, or it is just pulled [Zeno of Citium, by Hippolytus]
Everything is fated, either by continuous causes or by a supreme rational principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
Chrysippus is wrong to believe in non-occurring future possibilities if he is a fatalist [Plutarch on Chrysippus]
Some actions are within our power; determinism needs prior causes for everything - so it is false [Carneades, by Cicero]
Whoever knows future causes knows everything that will be [Cicero]
If we could foresee the future, we should collaborate with disease and death [Epictetus]
If the future does not exist, how can prophets see it? [Augustine]
God's universal foreknowledge seems opposed to free will [Boethius]
Does foreknowledge cause necessity, or necessity cause foreknowledge? [Boethius]
We think we are free because we don't know the causes of our desires and choices [Spinoza]
The actual world is the only one God could have created [Spinoza]
People argue for God's free will, but it isn't needed if God acts in perfection following supreme reason [Leibniz]
We think we are free because the causes of the will are unknown; determinism is a false problem [Leibniz]
If a supreme intellect knew all atoms and movements, it could know all of the past and the future [Laplace]
We don't control our own thinking [Schopenhauer]
Man's actions are not free, because they follow strictly from impact of motive on character [Schopenhauer]
People used to think that outcomes were from God, rather than consequences of acts [Nietzsche]
That all events are necessary does not mean they are compelled [Nietzsche]
To believe in determinism, one must believe in a system which determines events [Anscombe]
Determinism threatens free will if actions can be causally traced to external factors [Foot]
Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis]
Every event having a cause, and every event being determined by its cause, are not the same [Scruton]
Two versions of quantum theory say that the world is deterministic [Ladyman/Ross]
There once was a man who said 'Damn!... [Sommers,W]