Stoic Determinism 3

The collection of primary sources regarding 'moral responsibility' once again triggered anguish over determinism. Chrysippus favored complete determinism, encompassing even attitudes and impressions - this view became the party line after a few generations. The question that this early Stoic debate piques is about partial determinism. Is such a system possible? In a completely determined world, I would agree that there cannot be moral responsibility. To borrow from a recent Dinosaur Comic, a completely undetermined (random) world would also lack moral responsibility. Hence, only a partially determined world can have morality.

But is such a thing possible? The only way I can see this possibility arising is if consciousness is not deterministic. Does human consciousness violate the laws of the science, of the universe? Can there be results without antecedent causes? I have a hard time grasping the possibility of this, but I concede it could be. Only if this is true can morality have any meaning.

Chrysippus argued, "The result is that neither commendations nor reproofs, nor honors nor punishments are just." I do disagree with this, however, even if moral responsibility is nonexistent. I say this because incentives are a method by which fate can work. The existence of incentives change the calculus of decisions ex ante. Even in a fully determined world, then, punishment must exist. For even if the world proceeds according to preset laws, like a ticking watch, the structure of incentives is then like the cogs of the watch - affecting how it operates.

The necessity of incentives in any system does beg the question - is such an incentive just? Is it just to punish a criminal if he was 'fated' to have committed the crime? Overlooking the fact that punishment was necessary to dissuade untold numbers of other would-be criminals, is it right to punish the actual criminal? Does the appearance of freedom of action make positive or negative incentives right? These are not easy questions.

Diogenes Laertius writes, "The story goes that Zeno was flogging a slave for stealing. 'I was fated to steal', said the slave. 'And to be flogged', was Zeno's reply."

On Redundancy and Determinism

Sextus Empiricus claims that arguments are invalid if they are redundant. The example he uses, the premise 'if it is day, it is light' is such a redundancy, though I will overlook my disagreement with even that basic premise. Such a premise, in which the conditions follows directly and obviously from the antecedent, is 'invalid'. This backs Stoic logic into a corner, in my view. Empiricus admits this. If a premise is true, then the conditional can be directly deduced, and so it is invalid. If, on the other hand, the premise is false, than it will certainly be invalid as well. How then, can arguments proceed?

The prevailing attitude of the Stoics towards Sophist arguments was to ignore them. Arguments like the Sorites argument, or Little-by-Little argument. A good example is asking how many grains of corn make a heap of corn. By increasing the number of grains one by one, the addressee must eventually choose a number of grains which makes a heap of grain a heap - however, having picked a number, if that amount of grains is reduced by one then the heap should no longer exist. This is a thought-provoking argument, if rather useless, but the Stoics tend to minimize and ostracize the Sophists. It seems to me such an argument is good food for thought and a good mental exercise, and shouldn't be rejected out of hand.

Diodorus and Chrysippus were also engaged in a long argument, essentially about whether a thing can be possible if it never occurs. I think this is fascinating. If something doesn't occur, was it ever really possible? Likewise, if something occurs, was it not a necessity? For an example, I reach to my own history. Was it ever possible for me to attend Harvard? Conventionally, I would say yes. I have enough raw intelligence that I could have exerted myself sufficiently to be accepted there. In a sense, that future was possible. But in a more literal sense, it was never a possibility. As events in my life have borne out, I was not interested in academics until high school. Even then I came nowhere close to exerting myself. In that sense, then, attending Harvard was never a possibility. Sure, qualifying circumstances would change the truth of that statement - IF my past was different, THEN I could have attended. But that restructures the proposition. As Chrysippus noted, however, this outlook tends to remove moral responsibility from the actor. Let's say I cheated on a test in high school, which I did more than once. Sure, I accept responsibility for that. But on the other hand, the confluence of academic pressure, peer pressure, and the course of events to that point made my actions a necessity. To not cheat was possible, but never a possibility. 


Yet, the Stoics anguished over holding on to moral responsibility in the face of this argument. I cannot reject such responsibility, even though I agree with the conflicting theory of relative determinism. Obviously, I don't claim the two are compatible.

Chrysippus' argument: "If there is motion without cause, not every proposition will be either true or false, since anything lacking efficient causes will be neither true nor false. But every proposition is either true or false. Therefore there is no motion without a cause. If this is so, everything that happens happens through antecedent causes - in which case, everything happens through fate. The result is that everything that happens happens through fate."

Stoic Ontology 2

The Stoics divide subsistence into incorporeals, bodies, and 'neither', as I mentioned in the last post. Body is then split into four genera, the first two of which are 'substance' and 'qualified individuals'. It makes for a confusing division of matter, and it seems mighty problematic to me.

Substance is any and all matter. It might be better defined as 'substrate'. Matter without characteristics or definition. Qualified individuals are collections of substance that do have characteristics and definition. Here, the category must split into species - peculiarly qualified individuals and commonly qualified individuals. To be commonly qualified means a lump of matter has a 'common' identity - that of a chair, or table, or man. To be peculiarly qualified means, effectively, a proper noun - Socrates, for instance.

Well, first of all, this assumes the existence of ideals. Which reminds me to bone up on my Plato, but I digress. How can a given lump of matter be commonly qualified as a chair if there is no ideal chair? What is to prevent that lump from being merely a chair-shaped rock? Or an extremely uncomfortable and short bed? Immediately, the Stoic convention on body becomes subjective, which in my mind is unacceptable. Secondly, why can some things be commonly qualified, and others not? The extant Stoic texts seem to indicate that a 'lump of matter' wasn't good enough - it had no identity. But does a lump not have an identity? Of course it does - that of being a lump. It has a shape, and chemical composition, and size, etc. Where is the boundary between those collections of matter with common qualifications, and those without? I realize the Stoics partially defined 'quality' as coming from the pneuma or breath that flowed through everything, but that still seems like an awfully subjective system of definitions.

Lastly, Philo describes a dialectical argument made by Chrysippus in which two men are identical in every way - except one is missing a foot and the other is not. The two-footed man then loses his. Somehow, the ultimate conclusion of the argument is that the first man ceases to exist, as a man can't lose what he never had. I have to admit I don't understand the reasoning behind Chrysippus' reply to the Academics' Growing Argument. If the Stoics claim that two peculiarly qualified individuals may not occupy the same matter, then fine. But then, Dion and Theon cannot be identical. Even if they are 'congruent', to use an old geometry term, their substance still varies by virtue of its location, or even its time. I agree with Chrysippus that two peculiarly qualified bodies may not occupy one substrate, but I why that proves his argument. Perhaps a better question - can one peculiarly qualified body occupy two identical collections of substance?