What is Fatalism? How Does it Differ from Determinism?

Robert Kane (A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will, Oxford 2005, p. 19) rightly bids us not confuse determinism with fatalism:

     This is one of the most common confusions in free will debates.
     Fatalism is the view that whatever is going to happen, is going to
     happen, no matter what we do. Determinism alone does not imply such
     a consequence. What we decide and what we do would make a
     difference in how things turn out -- often an enormous difference
     -- even if determinism should be true.

Although it is true that determinism ought not be confused with fatalism, Kane here presents an uncharitable definition of 'fatalism.' No sophisticated contemporary defender of fatalism would recognize his position in this definition. Indeed, as Richard Taylor points out in a well-known discussion (Metaphysics, Ch. 6), it is logically incoherent  to suppose that what will happen will happen no matter what. If I am fated to die in a car crash, then I am fated to die in that manner --  but it is absurd to append 'no matter what I do.' For I cannot die in a car crash if I flee to a Tibetan monastery and swear off automobiles.  There are certain things I must do if I am to die in a car crash.  As Taylor says,
 
     The expression 'no matter what,' by means of which some
     philosophers have sought an easy and even childish refutation of
     fatalism, is accordingly highly inappropriate in any description of
     the fatalist conviction. (Metaphysics, 3rd ed., p. 57)

Kane's contrast is therefore bogus: no sophisticated contemporary is a fatalist in Kane's sense. Should we conclude that fatalism and determinism are the same? No. I suggest we adopt Peter van Inwagen's definition: "Fatalism . . . is the thesis that that it is a logical or conceptual truth that no one is able to act otherwise than he in fact does; that the very idea of an agent to whom alternative courses of   action are open is self-contradictory." (An Essay on Free Will, p. 23.)

As I understand the matter, fatalism differs from determinism since the determinist does not say that it is a logical or conceptual truth that no one is able to act otherwise than he in fact does. What the determinist says is that the actual past together with the actual laws of nature render nomologically possible only one future. The determinist must therefore deny that the future is open. But his claim is not that it is logically self-contradictory that the future be open, but only that it is not open given the facts of the past, which are logically contingent, together with the laws of nature, which are also logically contingent.

Perhaps we can focus the difference as follows. Suppose A is a logically contingent action of mine, the action, say, of phoning Harry. Suppose I perform A. Both fatalist and determinist say that I  could not have done otherwise. They agree that my doing A is necessitated. But they disagree about the source of the necessitation.

The fatalist holds that the source is logical: the Law of Excluded Middle together with a certain view of truth and of propositions. The determinist holds that the source is the contingent laws of nature
together with the contingent actual past.

Comments

[Barry Hardee]

Theological determinists I have known, disliked being labeled fatalists. Their viewpoint was that fate was an impersonal force, whereas God was a personal force guiding history.

Do you think that your viewpoint on the source of necessitation of fatalism is completely unapplicable to such theological determinists? For example many argue that all that happens in history down to the falling of a dust particle is for the glory of God and has been chosen to happen to maximize God's glory. This seems to me to be a logical necessitation of history within their viewpoint.

[Matt Hart]

I'm not sure how Inwagen's account of fatalism can handle more particular cases. For instance: I go to the soothsayer and he tells me that I am fated to die by falling down the stairs. Since van Inwagen's account is general, I can't see how he can allow for the possibility (which we seem to want to grant) that one can be fated to do x, but free (whatever that amounts to in this context) with regard to the rest of one's acts.

[Bill Vallicella]

Barry,

I can undestand why some dislike the term 'theological fatalism.' But the term is fairly standard. It is worth noting that the adjective shifts the sense of th enoun it modifies. 'Fatalism' suggests an impersonal, implacable force. But 'theological' removes the connotation of impersonality.

But this is a merely terminological quibble.

I think it is important clearly to distinguish among three sources of necessitation: necessitation via Excluded Middle and the nature of truth and of popositions; necessitation via the divine foreknowledge; and necessitation via the laws of nature and prior causal conditions.

[Bill Vallicella]

Matt,

You bowed out of the earlier discussion of property dualism just when it was getting good. You came to see my point, namely, that there is something deeply problematic about saying that one and the same physical particular can instantiate irreducibly mental and physical intrinsic properties.

But if mental properties are functional properties, then they are relational, not intrinsic. And this solves our problem, does it not? Something that is wholly physical can easily possess a mental property if said property is relational. See my recent post on functionalism.

Unfortunately for materialists, functionalism is untenable, and so property dualism is as well -- assuming that the only way to solve our problem is via functionalism.

It would be interesting to see if you agree with me now.

[Matt Hart]

Bill,

Yes, I agree that if the property dualist holds that the brain is exhaustively physical then he is in trouble. As you point out, he can try to solve the problem by claiming that the exhaustiveness is restricted to intrinsic/non-relational properties, and become a functionalist. And I agree functionalism is untenable. (And if he is a functionalist then he isn't really a property dualist worth his salt: why would functional properties be thought to pose a problem for physicalism?)

My problem is that I failed to distinguish between neutral monism and property dualism. Neutral monism, presumably, will fare much better since it will drop the problematic exhaustiveness requirement. What arguments would you marshall against this position? (It's what I was trying to defend originally.)

[Bill Vallicella]

Matt,

Yes, we need to distinguish between property dualism and neutral monism. The latter is not open to the objection we made. I'll have to write a separate post on neutral monism.

Going the functionalist route is one way of rescuing property dualism. But what I am not completely sure about is whether it is the ONLY way to rescue property dualism.