Determinism Free will and Predestination

The Greek understanding of freedom has its roots in legal codes that distinguish between intentional and nonintentional action. Socrates' (469–399 B.C.E.) understanding of human action reflects the Greek emphasis on the importance of knowledge for intentional action. Moreover, he appears to think that every agent acts for what is good, and that this good is good both in itself and for the agent. According to Socrates, virtue is knowledge and vice is ignorance. No one acts against what he knows to be good. Plato (427?–347 B.C.E.) adopts this Socratic view, although in his later works he emphasizes that the passions have an influence on what the agent knows. The good person not only has reason, but his reason is directed toward the good.

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) thinks that the Socratic account cannot explain incontinence, which is the condition in which someone does what he knows to be bad. He departs from this account by distinguishing between theoretical knowledge, which is about what cannot be changed, and practical knowledge, which is about what can be changed. The practically wise individual (phronimos) has that knowledge that is relevant to the action and acts upon it. Every voluntary action requires that the agent know what he is doing. An agent does not deliberate about the end, which is human happiness. Every human desires happiness. The agent deliberates only about the means that are within his power. The incontinent agent suffers from a temporary ignorance of what is good for him but always acts for the sake of something that appears to be good. For example, an incontinent person might know that chocolate cake is unhealthy, and yet his attention is drawn not to its badness but to its tastiness. He eats it not because it is unhealthy but because it is tasty.

Although Aristotle is not overly concerned with determinism, he does stress that human action requires contingency. Practical knowledge is about those events that can be changed by human action. His discussion of how future contingents are known reflects this connection and becomes important in later discussions. For Aristotle, the statement that there will be a sea battle tomorrow is neither true nor false because the event is contingent and consequently not determined by and knowable from previous events. In contrast, the Stoics believed in a strict determinism in which everything is ordered to the best. Humans cannot change the outcome of events. Nevertheless, the Stoics allowed for freedom and responsibility in that they thought that humans should understand this order and adapt themselves to it.