Within the framework of this paper, two philosophical statements about determinism and personal freedom should be analyzed and compared. Vaughn’s (2011) assertion that all actions are predetermined by the forces above people does not seem quite justified if one takes into account the criterion of freedom of choice. It implies that a person is a mechanistic being even in his psychology and therefore actions can be predicted and explained in the beginning with sufficiently accurate analysis. The quotation from Cormac McCarthy seems to be more balanced in tone and says that people are not able to know to what extent they themselves influence their lives (Vaughn, 2011). This moment of not knowing seems to me to be more accurate for determining the real life situation, since the freedom of choice of people still manifests itself within the given conditions of reality. The first principle thus insists that all our actions are predictable and are inviolable logical sequence, while the second only suggests reflecting to what extent this is so.
It seems that both statements are in fact deterministic, that is, they say that life is a series of predestinations. Opposing opinion to the criterion of determinism would be the principle of free will, according to the logic of which only the individual controls his own destiny. The most logical thing to realize that there are two conflicting principles in the philosophical interpretation of life would be to try to find a balance between them. Here the reasoning gets into the problem of compatibilism as an opportunity to combine these two principles as to some extent interconnected.
It would be reasonable to assume that human life exists in time and space according to the principle of the butterfly effect. This metaphor refers to the idea that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can cause a tsunami on the opposite hemisphere of the Earth through an infinitely connected chain of events. It makes sense, starting from the idea of predestination, to assume that life is an inextricable chain of events inexplicably or de directly connected with each other. Even then it would make sense to allow an element of chance into this strict equation, since people do not always act rationally or in real contact with their desires or demands of the outside world. It would be unfair to say that each person acts only this way and not otherwise, since it is the action that defines a person.
There is a popular notion that the psychological characteristics of a person determine how an individual makes decisions. However, along with this, one cannot reject the fact that it is precisely when a certain act is performed that a human character can be formed. Thus, the series of events taking place in the world cannot be brought to a certain mechanistic law. At the moment, the human psyche is becoming more and more complex and unpredictable in particular because people themselves are becoming more aware of their own complexity. This makes people’s actions more unpredictable, and even close friends of a person cannot always tell what choice will be made depending on the context. People are more likely to interpret other people’s behavior in terms of their own tendencies, so predicting behavior can be largely based on coincidence. Thus, predestination may actually be true, but there is no practical way to look into the future and verify on a scientific level the reliability of how knowledge about a person actually determines a reaction or act. It is the choice that determines the further formation of a person, and not chance or fate, and people themselves are able to change their future despite the predestination.
Reference
Vaughn, L. (2011). Great philosophical arguments: An introduction to philosophy. Oxford University Press.