Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will Read online

  Apply these considerations to Saunders’s argument. The heart of this rejoinder is this:My knocking upon a thin wooden door with my fist is a sufficient condition for the door’s shaking. Hence the door’s shaking is a necessary condition for my knocking upon the door. But the door’s shaking is not a necessary condition for my ability to knock upon the door. (If it were, then my mere ability to knock upon the door would suffice to make it shake.) I may decide not to knock and the door may not shake, but it does not follow that I did not have it in my power to knock.

  This is initially most persuasive, but to see how it fails, we need only to produce the same argument to show that I have it within my power to make something happen in the past which did not happen. Thus:My reading a certain kind of headline is a sufficient condition for there being a naval battle yesterday. Hence there being a naval battle yesterday is a necessary condition for my reading such a headline. But the occurrence of such a battle is not a necessary condition for my ability to read such a headline. (If it were, then my mere ability to read such a headline would suffice to make the naval battle occur yesterday.) I may decide not to read such a headline and the battle may not have occurred yesterday, but it does not follow that I do not have it in my power to read such a headline.

  Now if Saunders’s argument against my fatalism is a good one, this argument refutes fatalism with respect to the past, for it is the same argument, with only a difference of tenses. But this argument obviously does not refute fatalism with respect to the past, nor does Saunders’s argument refute it with respect to the future.

  NOTES

  1 The Philosophical Review, Vol. 71, No. 1, January 1962.

  2 Analysis, Vol. 22, No. 6, October 1962.

  4

  FATALISM AND ABILITY II

  PETER MAKEPEACE

  TAYLOR’S REPLY to Saunders is to make the following points.1. There is a sense of “cannot” which is both(i) consistent with “having the ability” in the sense of skill, strength, etc., and

  (ii) equivalent in meaning to “not having within one’s power”;

  2. If Saunders’s argument against Taylor’s fatalism is valid, it proves that we can alter the past, which is absurd.

  Taylor is wrong on both counts.

  (1) This is the sense of “cannot” which, according to Saunders, is merely a matter of logic. Taylor has not denied this, but has just repeated his claim that I cannot. Now it is vacuously true (a) that whatever is logically impossible is something that I cannot do. It is also vacuously true (b) that whatever I cannot do is something that is not within my power. These truisms lead to a harmlessly diluted “fatalism” which I consider under (2). But it is clear that Taylor is trading on a meatier sense both of “cannot” and of “within my power” which these phrases carry in their ordinary context of human action. And in this sense the crucial implications (a) and (b) do not hold except with the addition of special conditions obtaining in these contexts.

  ANALYSIS, VOL. 23, NO. 2, 1962.

  To show this we need only to vary Taylor’s example. Using the framework of his fourth paragraph, we get

  (A) If conditions are such that a snowfall yesterday is a necessary condition for my skiing today, then, given that no such snowfall occurred, we can conclude not only that I do not ski, but that I cannot, that it is not within my power. This is consistent with my knowing how to ski, having the requisite skill and physique, and so on, and thus being able, in that sense. But if it were in my power to ski today, then it logically follows that it would be within my power to make a snowfall occur yesterday, which, we are supposing, did not occur; and this is absurd.

  But now take the following case:(B) If conditions are such that a snowfall yesterday is a necessary condition for the lawn’s being snow-covered this morning, then, given that no such snowfall occurred, we can conclude not only that the lawn is not snow-covered, but that it cannot be.

  This is perfectly all right so far; but notice that we must not go on “.... that it is not within its power” and it would be absurd to add “This is consistent with its being able to carry snow, having the ability not to melt it, and so on, and thus being able, in that sense. But if it were within its power to be snow-covered today. ...”

  Now since (A) and (B) are exactly alike in the relevant respects, and since the “cannot” in (B) is merely a sign of logical consequence and not anything about what someone’s powers are, it follows that the “cannot” in (A) is of the same kind, and that Saunders is right.

  We need, of course, some explanation of why it is in order to speak of “powers” in (A) but not in (B). The answer must be in the difference made by the presence of a personal agent. Persons do things as well as have things happen to them, and the notion of something’s being “within one’s power” is clearly connected with the notion of doing things as opposed to having things happen.

  Complications arise because these concepts are seldom exemplified in isolation. Although it does not make sense to speak of “having it within my power” to (say) get my leg broken in an accident, most actions do involve a good deal of external contingency which does not prevent our speaking of them as within our power. My skiing example is in order, but Taylor’s example of reading a headline is already suspect; its oddness arises because we feel that the presence or absence of a newspaper headline is a major contingency as compared, say, with my opening the paper.

  We can look at the matter from the other side. Take the class of occurrences, and the sub-class of occurrences which are actions. Let the occurrence be such that, on certain premises (e.g. that a necessary condition for it is lacking) the occurrence in question is (logically) impossible. The impossibility will be variously characterised, for instance, if the necessary condition is one of bodily strength, the impossibility will be physical, etc. Now the occurrence being also an action, we can always say, instead of “His doing X is impossible,” both (a) “He cannot do X,” and (b) “Doing X is not within his power.” (Where we cannot say this, as in my example of breaking one’s leg, this is because the occurrence is not really an action but only a happening.)

  Next take the sub-class of occurrences which are not actions., i.e., either no human agent is involved or he is purely passive. We have, again, “X is impossible,” but now the question arises, who or what, if anything, can be the subject-term for “cannot.” Now if the conditions for successful reference are met, such a term can be found, e.g. “the lawn cannot be snow-covered” (but not “a headline of a certain type cannot be read,” because there is or may be no such headline to be referred to). But notice that this substitution is purely idiomatic; we mean exactly the same by “the lawn cannot be snow-covered” and “it is impossible that the lawn be snow-covered.” Moreover the idiomatic substitution of “cannot” is as far as we can go: we cannot also substitute, as in the previous case, a “within one’s power” formula. And the reason clearly is that, while “possible” applies to all occurrences, “within one’s power” only applies to human doings, and then precisely in respect of human beings’ abilities to do things. Saunders is right again.

  (2) As to Taylor’s claim that Saunders’s argument, if valid, would refute fatalism with respect to the past, the answer is that it does not. I do indeed have the ability to read the headline; but the major contingency of the headline’s not existing is what prevents my exercising this ability today. If such a headline does not exist, then it is a fact of logic that I do not read it. Fatalism with respect to the past is itself a fact of logic: if it is the case that X happened, then it is not the case that X did not happen, and the fact that we cannot change the past is the same as the fact we cannot construct round squares, make brothers not be akin, or bring about any other self-contradiction. There is this sort of unexceptional fatalism with respect to the future, of course; I cannot make something happen in the future if it is not going to happen.

  5

  FATALISM AND LINGUISTIC REFORM

  JOHN TURK SAUNDERS

  IN HIS
article, “Fatalism,” Richard Taylor took the position that (1) no agent has within his power an act for which a necessary condition is lacking. And he argued that if an event, e, is a necessary condition for an earlier act, a, so that a is a sufficient condition for e, then if e does not occur it was not in one’s power to do a—given the usual interpretation of the law of excluded middle. Thus he maintained, in effect, that (2) if an event does not occur then it was not within one’s power to bring it about. I have suggested that Taylor was led to this position through an unwitting involvement in the fallacy of equivocation. 1 But Taylor refuses to accept my suggestion. He continues to insist upon (2). I have no choice, then, but to suppose that Taylor holds the following statement to be analytic: (3) the only events which it is within one’s power to produce are those which occur.

  It is this which gives the fatalistic ring to his position. Caesar was stabbed and killed by Brutus and his colleagues, and a historian might think that it was in their power to bring about some situation alternative to Caesar’s death, to have argued with him, compromised with him, etc. But on Taylor’s view no such alternative was within their power. A frightening prospect indeed. Not only are we help- less creatures, but it is pointless to praise or blame us for not having brought about situations alternative to those which we do bring about: it is never in our power to do so. Though there is, perhaps, one redeeming feature to an otherwise sorry world: in order to enjoy whatever situations we might desire, we need not go to the trouble to bring them about; or, rather, to bring them about we have only to acquire the power to bring them about.

  ANALYSIS, VOL. 23, NO. 2, 1962.

  But before we begin to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the world which Taylor has unfolded before us, we had better stop to notice that he has told us nothing about the world at all. His position amounts to nothing more than the suggestion that we cease to use “in one’s power” in the ordinary ways and begin to use it in his way. It is a suggestion for linguistic reform, but a “reform” which would bring upon us all of the inconveniences suggested by the preceding paragraph. In saying that it is within one’s power to bring about a situation we ordinarily mean that he has the requisite skills and resources, that no one has bound him hand and foot to prevent his so doing, and so on. But Taylor has, in effect, recommended that we add a meaning rule to those which already govern “in one’s power,” viz. the rule: if it is within one’s power to bring about a situation then that situation occurs. And if we follow his recommendation we shall either become needlessly disturbed over the prospects mentioned in the preceding paragraph, or else we shall realize that Taylor has changed the meaning of “in one’s power” and we shall revise its conceptually related terms (“helpless,” “blameworthy,” etc.) accordingly. (E.g., we shall cease to use the terms “helpless” and “blameworthy” in such a way that if it was not in the power of Brutus and his friends to bring about some situation alternative to Caesar’s death, they were helpless to do so, and deserve no blame for not doing so). We may follow Taylor’s linguistic recommendation if we wish, though I see nothing but inconvenience as a consequence. The interesting, and perhaps frightening, fatalistic aura of Taylor’s thesis lingers only so long as one fails to see that he has done nothing more awesome than to redefine an expression while continuing to employ it in its usual contexts. Small wonder that he arrives at strange results.

  Lastly, I must address myself to Taylor’s charge that, if my argument of the previous article refutes Taylor’s fatalism, then it also refutes fatalism with respect to the past. First, Taylor wrongly takes me to argue that, even though a door does not shake, I did have it in my power to make it shake (by knocking upon it). This leads him to say that the same sort of argument will show that I have it in my power to make something happen in the past even though it did not happen. But I argued, not that I did have it in my power to make the door shake, but only that it does not follow from the door’s not shaking that I did not have the power to make it shake. Thus I am not thereby committed to arguing that I have the power to make an event happen in the past. Let me, then, rephrase Taylor’s charge so that it will apply to my position: if the non-occurrence of an event in the future does not entail my lack of power to bring about that event, then neither does the non-occurrence of an event in the past entail my lack of power to bring about that event. So phrased, I must say that I agree, at any rate to this extent: it is not due to the nonoccurrence of an event in the past that I lack the power to bring about that event. I have no such power because we so use our language that it is false or nonsense to say that one has the power to bring about any event whatever in the past.

  NOTE

  1 Analysis, vol. 22, no. 6, October, 1962.

  6

  FATALISM AND PROFESSOR TAYLOR

  BRUCE AUNE

  IN A recent paper appearing in this journal Professor Richard Taylor sought to derive fatalistic conclusions from ostensibly innocent premises.1 Not all of his premises were as innocent as he took them to be, however; and if, in what follows, I can show that some of them ought clearly to be rejected, new light can be cast, I think, on a surprisingly vigorous ancient problem.

  The assumptions on which Taylor based his conclusions were these. First, the law of excluded middle, “(p)(p v -p),” is indeed a law, a necessary truth. Second, “if any state of affairs is sufficient for, though logically unrelated to, the occurrence of some further condition at the same or any other time, then the former cannot occur without the latter.” Third, “if the occurrence of any condition is necessary for, but logically unrelated to, the occurrence of some other condition at the same or any other time, then the latter cannot occur without the former occurring also.” Fourth, if the occurrence of A is sufficient for the occurrence of B, then the occurrence of B is necessary for the occurrence of A, and vice versa. Fifth, “no agent can perform any given act if there is lacking, at the same or any other time, some condition necessary for the occurrence of that act.” Sixth, “the mere passage of time does not augment or diminish the capacities of anything and, in particular, ... it does not enhance or decrease an agent’s powers or abilities.”

  THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW, VOL. 71, NO. 4, 1962.

  When these assumptions are granted, one can prove, Taylor argued, that certain actions are occasionally not within one’s power, not just because of what has happened in the past, but also because of what will happen in the future. To establish his point he offered the following situation for our consideration. A naval officer is about to issue an order to his fleet. If he gives the order O, a battle will ensue (Q); but if he gives a different order, O′, no such battle will occur (Q′). One might think that it is within the officer’s power to do O and also within his power to do O′, though he cannot, of course, do both at once. But Taylor argues against this antifatalistic view (call it B) as follows:1′. If Q is true, then it is not within his power to do O′ (for in case Q is true, then there is, or will be, lacking a condition essential for his doing O′, the condition, namely, of there being no naval battle tomorrow).

  2′. But if Q′ is true, then it is not within his power to do O (for a similar reason).

  3′. But either Q is true or Q′ is true.

  ∴4′. Either it is not within his power to do O, or it is not within his power to do O′;

  and (B) is accordingly false. Another way of expressing this is to say that what sort of order he issues depends, among other things, on whether a naval battle takes place tomorrow.2

  Since Taylor’s argument here is valid, we must thus either reject (B) and hence accept fatalism, or else reject at least one of the six assumptions outlined above.

  Although toward the end of his paper Taylor suggests that the most reasonable way of escaping fatalism is by doubting the law of excluded middle, it seems clear to me that the fault really lies in Taylor’s conception of a power, an ability, or a capacity. Since the difficulty in his conception of a power or ability is related to weaknesses in several of his six
assumptions, a critique of these assumptions, and hence a critique of his brand of fatalism, will emerge from what I shall say about abilities, powers, and the like.

  “Within one’s power.” In rebutting the thesis (B), that it is within the officer’s power to do O and also to do O′ (though not at the same time), Taylor relied mainly on assumption (5), according to which a man can perform an action A only if no necessary condition of his doing A fails to obtain. The “can” in (5) is thus the “can” of power or ability—I say “power or ability” because this disjunction occurs in numerous passages in his paper, for example in his statement of assumption (6). Now, I think that his use of “can” in (5), and his use of “power” or “ability” elsewhere, is extremely misleading—so misleading, in fact, that it makes the thesis (B) trivially absurd. Since (B), as one would normally understand it, is at least close enough to the truth to be tempting, Taylor’s interpretation, which makes it patently false, thus becomes highly suspect.

  To see the absurdity of (5), consider an action A such that a person succeeds in performing this action only if he makes some sort of effort, only if he exerts himself in a characteristic way. Exertion of this kind is thus a necessary condition of the performance of that action. But this means, in view of assumption (5), that whenever a person is not exerting himself in the appropriate way, the action A is not within his power. Thus, if I am not exerting myself at a given time, it is not then within my power to do a push-up. Or, if the action in point is that of keeping my head above water, I have the power to do this only when I am actually struggling to swim.