What is Determinism?

Determinism: Definition & Core Idea

• Determinism (a.k.a. “mechanism”)
  • Every event is completely fixed by prior physical conditions.
  • No genuine randomness or chanciness exists in the fabric of the universe; only apparent randomness from our limited perspective.
  • Visualised as an unbroken causal chain C0 \rightarrow C1 \rightarrow \dots \rightarrow C_n where each link exhaustively explains the next.

Illustrative Examples of Determinism

• Throwing an object across the room
  • Initial force, angle, mass, air resistance, etc. uniquely determine the landing spot.
  • Appears random to us because we lack perfect knowledge, yet is strictly fixed at the physical level.
• Baking a cake
  • Whether the cake rises or flops is traceable to precise chemical and thermal conditions.
  • We instinctively look for an explanation, mirroring the deterministic outlook.

Epistemic vs. Metaphysical Uncertainty

• Epistemic (knowledge-based) uncertainty
  • Our ignorance about initial conditions or laws.
  • “I can’t tell where the object will land, but the universe ‘knows.’”
• Metaphysical uncertainty
  • Built-in randomness in reality itself.
  • Determinists deny this; they claim only epistemic, never metaphysical, indeterminacy.

Determinism Applied to Human Action

• Human choices belong to the same causal web as physical events.
• Example: Raising an arm during the lecture
  • Immediate cause: the decision to illustrate a point.
  • Background causes: being mid-lecture, job responsibilities, personal history, personality traits.
  • Deeper causes: upbringing, genes, environment, parents’ choices, socio-historical factors.
• Net claim: Even our simplest acts trace back to causal chains “completely outside us.”
• If so, the agent appears unfree, merely a node where earlier causes flow into later effects.

Preliminary Clarifications & Potential Confusions

Determinism vs. Fate/Fatalism

• Scope of what is fixed
  • Fate: usually a single significant outcome (e.g., Macbeth “will be killed by someone not born of woman”) while leaving other choices open.
  • Determinism: every micro-detail of every event is set.
• Role of an intentional planner
  • Fate: involves a conscious agent or cosmic plan (e.g., witches, gods).
  • Determinism: purely “blind forces of nature”; no overseer, no purpose.
• Flexibility of fulfilment
  • Fate: one can alter the path but still arrive at the foretold end.
  • Determinism: there is literally one future; alternative paths are impossible.

Domino Analogy

• We are like dominoes in a line: each falls because the previous one struck it; likewise, each human action is pushed by antecedent conditions.

Why the Determinism Problem Matters

• If every action was always going to occur, notions such as:
  • Desert (what anyone “deserves”)
  • Praise & blame
  • Moral responsibility
    collapse or at least need radical re-interpretation.
• Worry: without genuine alternatives, how can we meaningfully reward, punish, or hold ourselves accountable?

Philosophical Responses Introduced

• The lecture previews three classic stances:
  1. Libertarianism – We do possess free will; determinism is false or at least does not govern our agency.
  2. Compatibilism – Determinism may be true and free will (redefined) is still meaningful; alternately phrased in the lecture as “we don’t have free will, but it doesn’t matter.”
  3. Hard Determinism – Determinism is true, we lack free will, and this fact is morally significant.
• Detailed arguments for each will follow in the next part of the course.

Interim Summary

• Causal determinism: every effect is wholly accounted for by its cause.
• Extending determinism to human beings threatens our intuitive sense of autonomy and moral responsibility.
• Distinctions: determinism ≠ fate; epistemic ≠ metaphysical uncertainty.
• The philosophical task ahead: reconcile, reject, or rethink freedom and responsibility in light of determinism.