Determinism: Does the Environment Control Us?

You may wonder about certain decisions in the past that you wish you could have changed. If you only could have done this or that differently, your life would have been better off. You feel guilty at some of the bad decisions you might have made. If you only had the knowledge you would choose differently. But what if you didn't have the knowledge, but had a second change to make a different decision? Could you make it? Or would the circumstances lead you to the same behavior? And if they do, does the environment around us, that gives us our feelings and influences our rationality, control us?

You mean I can't take the other path later?

Some Freshly Baked Cookies

The whole free will debate hinges on following question: Given the same circumstances, are we, as individuals, capable of making alternative decisions? To illustrate this, imagine that there is a plate of freshly baked cookies in front of you and a cold glass of milk. You haven't eaten all day and are hungry for something to eat. You have a decision to make. To eat or not eat. You may rationalize one decision or another, or you may feel one way or another, but in the end you make a choice. Let's say that given the circumstances you choose to eat the plate of cookies.

Determinism vs Free Will

In the case of free will, given the same circumstances, you would have chosen to not eat the cookies. With determinism, you are eating the cookies and you are not able to change your mind. One's initial reaction may be to say that they easily could have avoided the cookies. But in this case, you were simply too tempted by the warm cookies in your empty stomach. But we have to recognize that the circumstances are exactly the same. Why would you act any differently? The whole set up is the same. The idea that you could make an alternative decision makes no sense, since you are in the exact same position when considering the example from the philosophical perspective.*

*This idea is hard to initially get, don't worry if it doesn't make that much sense to you.

Determinism vs Fatalism

But now we move to the big question. Does the environment control us? Even with free will, we can agree that the environment influences our decisions, but are we slaves to our environments? Fatalism is the idea that we are doomed or fated to behave in certain ways based on our environment. A poor person in the inner city may be fated to a life of crime. Someone who wins the lottery may be fated to spend that money on a new house. You have no responsibility for your actions, they just happen. But what is the difference between this and determinism? Determinism just says that given circumstances you will act in a certain way. Fatalism says that you are a slave to your circumstances. With determinism, there is still a legitimate choice where with fatalism you are predestined to make that decision. There is no choice.

Still Confused?

All of this may seem very confusing to you. After all, how can you have a choice when you can't take the alternative action. Well, you have a choice, and in the set of circumstances you choose one path because the circumstances lead to that path. You are still responsible for the choice you make. With fatalism, you are destined to follow a certain path. With determinism, if everything was the same, you would take the same path, but you are responsible for the path you take. With free will, even if everything was the same, you may have taken a different path. Hopefully that clears everything up. If it did not, I understand you misunderstanding. It's all very confusing.

TDLR: Honestly, the idea is too complex to summarize. You saved a few brain cells, I guess?

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