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DETERMINISM (Lat. determinare, to pre...
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See also:DETERMINISM (See also:Lat. determinare, to prescribe or limit) , in See also:ethics, the name given to the theory that all moral choice, so called, is the determined or necessary result of psychological and other conditions. It is opposed to the various doctrines of See also:Free-Will, known as voluntarism, See also:libertarianism, indeterminism, and is from the ethical standpoint more or less akin to necessitarianism and See also:fatalism. There are various degrees of determinism. It may be held that every See also:action is causally connected not only externally with the sum of the See also:agent's environment, but also internally with his motives and impulses. In other words, if we could know exactly all these conditions, we should be able to forecast with mathematical certainty the course which the agent would pursue. In this theory the agent cannot be held responsible for his action in any sense. It is the extreme See also:antithesis of Indeterminism or Indifferentism, the See also:doctrine that a See also:man is absolutely free to choose between alternative courses (the liberum arbitrium indifferentiae). Since, however, the See also:evidence of See also:ordinary consciousness almost always goes to prove that the individual, especially in relation to future acts, regards himself as being free within certain limitations to make his own choice of alternatives, many determinists go so far as to admit that there may be in any action which is neither reflex nor determined by See also:external causes solely an See also:element of freedom. This view is corroborated by the phenomenon of remorse, in which the agent feels that he ought to, and could, have chosen a different course of action. These two kinds of determinism are sometimes distinguished as " hard " and " soft " determinism. The controversy between determinism and libertarianism hinges largely on the significance of the word " See also:motive "; indeed in no other philosophical controversy has so much difficulty been causedby purely verbal disputation and See also:ambiguity of expression. How far, and in what sense, can action which is determined by motives be said to be free? For a See also:long See also:time the See also:advocates of free-will, in their eagerness to preserve moral responsibility, went so far as to deny all motives as influencing moral action. Such a contention, however, clearly defeats its own See also:object by reducing all action to See also:chance. On the other See also:hand, the scientific doctrine of See also:evolution has gone far towards obliterating the distinction between external and See also:internal compulsion, e.g. motives, See also:character and the like. In so far as man can be shown to be the product of, and a See also:link in, a long See also:chain of causal development, so far does it become impossible to regard him as self-determined. Even in his motives and his impulses, in his See also:mental attitude towards outward surroundings, in his appetites and aversions, inherited tendency and environment have been found to See also:play a very large See also:part; indeed many thinkers hold that the whole of a man's development, mental as well as See also:physical, is determined by external conditions. In the See also:Bible the philosophical-religious problem is nowhere discussed, but See also:Christian ethics as set forth in the New Testament assumes throughout the freedom of the human will. It has been argued by theologians that the doctrine of divine fore-knowledge, coupled with that of the divine origin of all things, necessarily implies that all human action was fore-ordained from the beginning of the See also:world. Such an inference is, however, clearly at variance with the whole doctrine of ,-in, repentance and the See also:atonement, as also with that of eternal See also:reward and See also:punishment, which postulates a real measure of human responsibility. For the See also:history of the free-will controversy see the articles, WILL, See also:PREDESTINATION (for the theological problems), ETHICS. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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