“The philosophy that all events are predetermined, by the chain of events that came before them.” Determinism is the idea that every event or state of affairs, including every human decision and action, is the inevitable and necessary consequence of preceding events. Laplace's Demon Consider the extreme case of mental illness in which a person cannot be described as acting to any will- now consider that probably every human has some sort of deficiency or illness or subconcious impuls that drives them to decisions outside of their free choice- the line that determines a person to have free will is arbitrary and therefore if the most extreme case of mental illness is not free then noone can be truly free to choose. The philosophy that determinism makes it impossible to have free will and moral responsibility for one’s actions. Nagels Peach or Cake Every event a result of causality created outside ones own will. Decisions are Causa Sui and therefore come from non existence. As free will does not exist we cant asign moral responsibility for a persons actions- if they were always determined to make an action they cannot take moral responsibility- as the same theory of causality that a chain of events lead to a star imploding far away in space being the only possible outcome, the same principals might lead to a chain of events that result in the most horrific crimes a human might commit. Therefore a determinist might decide that a crime must be punished not on moral grounds, but to protect society, either by preventing further crime pr detereing future crime. The idea of applying moral and ethical systems (anti-real) to humans (that exist in reality) is reconcilable by the observation that regardless of the causality that leads to a circumstance, humans live together in societies, humans interact within these societies in ways that have better or worse outcomes, we evaluate these interactions and categorise them as to improve society. To most this is self evident, but to justify the use of morality further one could argue that society and morality are both constructs amd interpretations of human behaviour. Following this a hard determinist must question conventional and normative morality and reject the concept, but still abide by ethics and morality of a society or demonstrate against them but only in a way that the outcome of this demonstration is conciously anticipated to be without a doubt better than the current state of society created by those rejected ethics. A deterministic approach to life is useful scientifically and philosophically, but in day to day life not necessary to constantly be considered as no-one can know perfectly and completely causality and thus analyse the world deterministically. For a person philosophy is a lens to analyse every facet of reality, not an excuse to ignore the present. This is a good way to avoid nihilism and fatalism, that might otherwise seem inevitable if not true, as both probably lead to worse outcomes for society and should be rejected. Positvely, a determinist can show compassion to those otherwise morally judged but also condemnation of an action as to avoid future harms. Rejecting nihilism Although the core ideas of nihilism, the belief that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value are agreeable, it ignores the metaphysical drive of humans to seek purpose and meaning. Perhaps there is no intrinsic purpose humans are born with, but nonetheless positive outcomes are possible and therefore should be sought and in order for this to happen a person might create an arbitrary and not naturally real purpose to drive them to improve or maintain their circumstances. No individual can be obligated to reject nihilsm but larger societes should always seek values and ethics that improve their circumstances, as this improves the quality of life for individual persons and in return increases the probability individuals will be compelled and convinced to act in ways that lead to better outcomes. Therefore societies are obligated and individuals are compelled and encouraged to select philosophies that lead to better outcomes. Simply saying nothing matters is a self evident statement and in itself only useful as a starting point for philosophy- not its end. Use of morality comes from necessary defining, categorising and cataloguing of outcomes as better or worse. Perhaps no action that is not empirically measurable in its outcomes or proven to have taken place (such as thought) can even be described as moral and therefore either encouraged or punished. It follows that thought exists outside and independent of morality. A soft determinist would say that even though your choice was predetermined, since no one forced you to choose, you still acted with free will and can thus be considered responsible for your choice. This conflicts as the soft determinist acknowledges a causal chain of events that includes other determined choices made by other people that lead up to a decision but see a persons decision as free in itself. If the nature of past human decisions is deterministic and causal then is every decision only truly free in the exact moment it is made and then retro actively made not free as it influences causality of future determined events?