19 Fatalism

We pointed out that a time traveler cannot change the past but can nonetheless affect it to the extent to which she plays a causal role in how it unfolds. We will return to this distinction. But first, we must distinguish two different threats to free will: fatalism and determinism. Fatalism is motivated by logical and temporal considerations. Future facts are now true or false, and this alone suggests that they are immutable and not subject to change. Determinism, on the other hand, will be motivated by the view that a historical description of the state of the world at some past time in combination with the laws of nature determines the future states of the world.

Fatalism threatens the propects of freedom even in a deterministic universe. If there is a fact of the matter as to what I will do tomorrow, that fact alone suffices to undermine the thought that I have control over my future acts. The core of the fatalist argument can be traced back to Aristotle’s discussion of future contingents.

19.1 The Sea Battle Argument

Aristotle is well-known for the Sea Battle argument. Consider the pair of propositions:

There will be a sea battle tomorrow.
There will not be a sea battle tomorrow.

One of these propositions is true and the other false. The Sea Battle argument attempts to show that whichever is true is necessarily true, which makes the outcome unavoidable.

The Sea Battle Argument

Either it is now true that there will be a sea battle tomorrow or it is now true that there will be a sea battle tomorrow.
If it is now true that there will be a sea battle tomorrow, then it is necessary that there will be a sea battle tomorrow.
If it is now true that there will not be a sea battle tomorrow, then it is necessary that there will not be a sea battle tomorrow.
So, it is either necessary that there will be a sea battle tomorrow or necessary that there will not be a sea battle tomorrow.

Notice that the argument makes no appeal to physics or causation or the laws of nature. It relies on the law of excluded middle, which is premise 1, and the inference from truth to necessity in premises 2 and 3.

As (Conee and Sider 2005) points out, the conclusion generalizes far beyond sea battles. Whatever specific future proposition we consider, the same argument applies. The general fatalist thesis is:

Fatalism

Whatever will happen will necessarily happen.

Sea battles involve strategic choice and deliberation, but the fatalist conclusion appears to undermine the thought that there are free choices over which we have control. If it is now true that we will choose to have a sea battle tomorrow, then it is necessary that we choose to have a sea battle tomorrow and our apparent freedom is just an illusion.

19.2 Two Responses to the Sea Battle Argument

There are at least two lines of response to the argument. We should distinguish them because they involve different philosophical commitments.

19.2.1 The Open Future

One objection to the Sea Battle argument is that we should not accept the first premise, which is an instance of the Law of Excluded Middle:

Excluded Middle

No matter what statement \(S\) may be, either it is true that \(S\) or is true that not-\(S\).

The justification for this principle is that there is no third option between \(S\) being the case and not-\(S\) being the case. But some have objected that while Excluded Middle is perfectly appropriate for settled statements of fact, it is not sound for open statements about the future.

Consider, for example, a proponent of the Growing Block theory according to which present and past facts are settled but future facts are genuinely open. If there is no fact of the matter as to whether there will be a sea battle tomorrow, then it is neither true now that there will be one nor true now that there will not be one. So, premise 1 is just false.

This route is not available to B-theorists for whom future facts are settled in the same way in which past and present facts are. Since Excluded Middle applies to settled facts, they apply to future facts and premise one is true.

19.3 The Idle Argument

We may now build on the Sea Battle-style conclusion to offer an argument for the claim that we have no control over the future. (Bobzien 1998) describes a version of the argument commonly known as the Idle Argument.

The Idle Argument

Either it is now true that you will recover from your illness or it is now true that you will not recover from your illness.
If it is now true that you will recover from this illness, then, regardless of whether you consult a doctor or you do not consult a doctor, you will recover.
If it is now true that you will not recover from this illness, then, regardless of whether you consult a doctor or you do not consult a doctor, you will not recover.
Therefore, it is futile to consult a doctor.

(Bobzien 1998) writes ‘it is fated that’ where we have ‘it is now true that’, but the conclusion is the same, namely, that it is futile to call a doctor.

The third premise follows the pattern of the conclusion of the Sea Battle argument, but the concern now is that the argument may well lead to idleness. The practical upshot is stark. When confronted with the argument, someone who is sick may choose to abstain from consulting a doctor because they think there is no use in doing so. Compare with the effects Predictor appears to have on its users in the scenario depicted by Ted Chiang in What’s Expected of Us.

In line with (Bobzien 1998), the argument is perfectly general:

The Idle Argument Schema

Either it is now true that \(A\) or it is now true that not-\(A\).
If it is now true that \(A\), then, whether or not you \(\varphi\), \(A\).
If it is now true that not-\(A\), then, whether or not you \(\varphi\), not-\(A\).
Therefore, with regard to \(A\), it is futile to \(\varphi\).

Is the idle argument valid? Strictly speaking, what follows from premises 1 through 3 is:

Either, whether or not you \(\varphi\), \(A\) or, whether or not you \(\varphi\), not-\(A\).

To infer the conclusion, we would need a further premise of the form:

If either, whether or not you \(\varphi\), \(A\) or, whether or not you \(\varphi\), not-\(A\), then it is futile to \(\varphi\).

As many philosophers note, this is precisely what is at issue. One concern is that it conflates the the thought that future propositions are fixed with the much more problematic claim that we have no causal influence or power over them

19.4 Affecting the Future

Earlier we distinguished the time traveler’s inability to change the past from his ability to affect the past or play a causal role in how the past unfolds. There is, on the face of it, a similar distinction available to us in connection to the future. Even if the future is fixed and unalterable, we should acknowledge the distinction between changing the future, which we cannot do, and affecting it, which is just to play a causal role in how it unfolds. That is, we should acknowledge a distinction between:

Changing the Future. This is to make it the case that something that will happen will not happen or to make it the case that something that will not happen will happen
Affecting the Future. This is just to play a causal role in how the future unfolds.

The Idle Argument trades on an implicit assumption: that if the future is fixed, our actions are causally inert. But this does not follow. Consider the first premise of the Idle Argument applied to the book-writing case:

If it has been true that I will write a book over the summer, then whether or not I set some time aside for writing, I will write a book over the summer.

This is a conditional, whose antecedent is:

It has been true that I will write a book over the summer,

and whose consequent may now be made more explicit:

If I do not set time aside for writing, and I will write a book over the summer, and if I set time aside for writing, then I will write a book over the summer.

Taken at face value, the latter conditional suggests that setting time aside for writing would be causally inert, since the writing will take place either way. But the first conjunct deserves special scrutiny:

If I do not set time aside for writing, then I will write a book over the summer.

19.4.1 Conditionals

We now outline a common possible worlds approach to the evaluation of indicative conditionals to suggest that the conjunct is false, and that our actions are not causally inert even in a fixed future:

Indicative Conditionals

An indicative conditional of the form

if \(\varphi\), then \(\psi\)

is true at a world of evaluation \(w\) relative to a context \(C\) if, and only if,

the closest \(\varphi\)-world is a \(\psi\)-world.

Consider the conditional

If I release this marker, it will fall.

On the present approach, the conditional is true because the closest world at which I drop the marker is a world at which it falls. This is of course the case even if there are less close, and even remote worlds in which the chalk draws a different trajectory upon release or something else happens.

Now consider the conditional again:

if I do not set aside time for writing, I will write a book over the summer.

On the face of it, it is not true that the closest world at which I fail to set aside time for writing are worlds at which I write a book. If anything, setting aside time for writing would seem to make a difference as to whether I write the book or not over the summer. So, by setting aside time for writing, I can causally influence the future. This, much like in the case of the time traveler, is not to say that I can change the future. It is rather that whatever actions I decide to undertake now will make a difference as to how the future unfolds, and to that extent, I do seem to enjoy at least some control over the future.

There is a wrinkle. The conditional rings true when embedded in the larger conditional, whose antecedent is the claims that it is now true that it is now true that I will write a book tomorrow. Why is that?

The answer has to do with how we restrict the space of worlds involved in the evaluation of a conditional at a given context. When we evaluate a conditional at a context \(C\), we consider only worlds that are compatible with the common ground. So, in a context in which we presuppose that I will write a book over the summer, we consider only worlds in which that outcome occurs, and indeed, when we do that it seems plausible to claim that the closest world in which i do not set time aside for writing and I write a book over the summer are worlds in which I write a book over the summer. But that is consistent with the claim that, at the broader level, my setting time aside is causally relevant for production of the outcome. The context‑sensitivity of conditionals thus helps explain why the embedded conditional may ring true without supporting the idle conclusion that our actions never matter.

19.4.2 The Core Diagnosis

We are now in a position to state the diagnosis clearly. The Idle Argument fails because it conflates two different claims:

The future is fixed. That is, there is a fact of the matter as to what will be the case.
Our actions are causally inert. That is, what we do makes no difference to what will be the case.

The fatalist slides from the first claim to the second, but they are not entitled to the difference. Even if the future is fixed, it is still fixed partly in virtue of the actions we take. The fact that the future is fixed is perfectly compatible with our ability to affect it and play a causal role in how it unfolds. The lesson we used to overcome the Grandfather Paradox is still relevant: fixity does not entail causal inertness.

Fatalism fails, but its failure is instructive. For the argument lacked an account of why our actions are causally inert, beyond the bare fact that the future is now true or false. This raises a pointed question to carry into our discussion: what would a successful argument against free will need to add?

A better argument against free will should explain not just that the future is fixed, but why we genuinely lack the power to do otherwise. This is precisely what van Inwagen’s Consequence Argument will attempt. When we turn to it later, we should ask: does it succeed where fatalism fails?