Determinism: The Distant Causation Argument

Determinism is the theory that the state of the universe at a time, along with the laws of causation, completely determine all later events. This means that every single event that we experience is caused by a combination of the laws of the universe and the past state of the universe; everything that we do, every action we take, is predetermined based on these factors. Determinism assumes that we do not have free will, since we are not personally responsible for our own actions. An individual can only have free will if they performed an action they were completely responsible for, but had the option of performing a different action under the same conditions. However, since all of our actions are predetermined, there is no way we could make our own decisions and cause our own actions, therefore illustrating that we do not have free will under the theory of determinism. There are two main arguments that support determinism. One of them is called the “distant causation argument.” The argument is structured as follows:

If an action is free, then the agent is responsible for it.
Agents are not responsible for actions caused by factors outside of their control.
Assuming determinism is true, every action …show more content…
The distant causation argument claims that a person is not responsible for their actions since everything is predetermined, while the no alternative possibilities argument declares that a person couldn’t have chosen a different action and thus a different outcome in a situation since everything is predetermined; both of which demonstrate that no one has free will. A person’s actions cannot be free if the actions were not determined by the actual person (but rather by the universe), nor can they be free if the person had no other option but to perform that specific action (which, again, would be determined by the universe). Thus, determinism does not allow for there to be free