Fatalism

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Fatalism is commonly referred to as "the doctrine that all events are subject to fate or inevitable predetermination."

More precisely, it can refer to at least one of three interrelated ideas:-

1. That there is no free will, and everything including human actions, could only have happened as it did.^[1] This version of fatalism is very similar to determinism.
2. That although human actions are free, they are nonetheless ineffectual in determining events, because "whatever will be will be".^[2]This version of fatalism is very similar to predestination.
3. That an attitude of inaction and passive acceptance, rather than striving, is appropriate. This version of fatalism is very similar to defeatism.

Determinism, fatalism and predestination

The level of equivalence between these three ideas is open to dispute. The first and second claims (determinism and predestination) obviously differ over the status of free will.; some fatalists deny that fatalism as a fact implies defeatism as an attitude, or put a positive interpretation on the acceptance of one's fate (amor fati).

It can also be argued that only the second version of the claim is correct — Determinism should not be mistaken for fatalism.^[3][4] Although determinists would accept that the future is, in some sense, set, they accept human actions as factors that will cause the future to take the shape that it will - even though those human actions are themselves determined; if they had been different, the future would also be different.

In other words, determinists think the future is fixed because of causality, whereas (predestinarian) fatalists think it is fixed in spite of causality. Determinists think that if the past had been different, the future would be different (although for them the idea that anything could have been different is purely hypothetical and not a real possibility). Fatalists think that even if you could change the present or the past, the future would still be the same. Human actions are for determinists merely a special case of the dependence of the future on the present and past, and have no special properties beyond that.

The idle argument

One ancient argument for fatalism, called the idle argument,^[5] went like this:

• If it is fated for you to recover from your illness, then you will recover whether you call a doctor or not.
• Likewise, if you are fated not to recover, you will not do so even if you call a doctor.
• It is either fated that you will recover from your illness, or that you will not recover from your illness.
• So, calling a doctor makes no difference.

Arguments like the above are usually rejected even by causal determinists, who may say that it may be determined that only a doctor can cure you. There are other examples that show clearly that human deliberation makes a big difference - a chess player who deliberates should usually be able to defeat one of equal strength who is only allowed one second per move.

The logical argument

Arguments for fatalism, although rarely accepted, do have a bearing on discussions about the nature of truth. The logical argument for fatalism^[6] says that, if there will be a sea battle tomorrow, and someone says "there will be a sea battle tomorrow" then that sentence is true, even before the sea battle occurs. But given that the sentence is true, the sea battle could not fail to take place. This argument can be rejected by denying that predictions about the future have to be true or false when they are made - ie, rejecting bivalence for sentences about the future, though this is controversial.

Notes

1. ^ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
2. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia
3. ^ Society for Natural Science
4. ^ Alan White of the University of Manitoba
5. ^ The Idle Argument at the S.E.P
6. ^ Aristotle, De Interpretatione, 9

See also

• Accidental Necessity
• Amor fati
• Defeatism
• Determinism
• Insha'Allah
• Open theism

External link

• Fatalism, from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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