Ancient Theories of Freedom and

Determinism
 2

Ancient Theories of Freedom and

Determinism
First published Fri Oct 30, 2020

From at least Aristotle onwards, ancient philosophers engaged in systematic reflection on human
agency. They asked questions about when people are morally responsible for their actions and
what must be the case for people to deliberate and act effectively, and in doing so they
confronted arguments that tried to establish that humans are not responsible and effective agents.
But if we want to understand these philosophers correctly, we should be careful not to assimilate
ancient theories of freedom and determinism too quickly to the problem of free will and
determinism in contemporary philosophy, which asks whether causal determinism is compatible
with the sort of freedom—or alternatively, with the sort of control over our actions—that is
necessary for moral responsibility. (See the entries on free will and causal determinism.) While
ancient philosophers did argue about whether causal determinism is compatible with moral
responsibility, their concerns ranged more widely. We can divide their discussions into two
broad areas.

The first is effective agency—do humans have the ability to act as they wish to, in order to get
what they desire? Aristotle thinks that effective deliberation and action presupposes the openness
or contingency of the future—that what is going to happen is not necessary. Aristotle confronts
an argument that tries to establish that the future is necessary, and hence that deliberation and
action are futile. This argument, however, proceeds not from causal determinism, but from what
might be called “logical determinism”—the thesis that, from eternity, statements about the future
have had fixed truth values. The Epicureans, Stoics, and academic skeptic Carneades confront
the same argument, but they also consider the relationship between “logical determinism” and
causal determinism, and whether causal determinism is compatible with effective agency.

The second area is moral responsibility, our ability to be justifiably subject to praise and reward,
or blame and punishment for what we do. Aristotle gives an extended analysis of voluntary
actions, ones for which a person is responsible. He asserts that humans are the origin of their
voluntary actions, and that we have the ability to do otherwise than we do. But the problem of
free will and determinism does not obviously arise in Aristotle’s discussion, because he does not
consider whether moral responsibility is compatible with causal determinism, as a general thesis.
Instead, he considers another threat to our responsibility, which we may dub “psychological
determinism”: that our actions are automatically elicited by a combination of our psychological
states, such as our desires and character traits, in conjunction with perceptual input, such that we
are not really in control of what we do. In response, Aristotle argues that we are in control of our
character, because it is a result of our earlier voluntary actions. Epicurus agrees with Aristotle
that we are in charge of our character, which results in our actions, and he also contends that to
argue that people are not responsible for their actions is self-refuting. Finally, Epicurus believes
that causal determinism is incompatible with human freedom, and he introduces an
indeterministic atomic motion, the “swerve”, to combat this threat—although how it is supposed
 3

to do so is unclear. The Stoics, on the other hand, affirm that every single event is causally
determined by God in accordance with his providential plan, and they try to show how what we
do is under our control in such a world. The later Aristotelian Alexander of Aphrodisias reacts to
the Stoics by building an Aristotelian theory on which the ability to do otherwise is required for
moral responsibility, and such an ability is incompatible with causal determinism. Plotinus, who
takes himself to be following Plato, incorporates Stoic elements into his own theory of freedom,
but his deep disagreements with Stoic metaphysics lead him to reject much of what they say
about fate.

 1. Fatalism, Bivalence, and Determinism

o 1.1 Aristotle and tomorrow’s sea battle
o 1.2 Epicurus on the fatalist argument and determinism
o 1.3 Carneades on the fatalist argument and a voluntary motion of our minds
o 1.4 The Stoics on the fatalist argument and co-fated events
 2. Voluntary Action, Moral Responsibility, and What is “Up to Us”
o 2.1 Aristotle on voluntary action
o 2.2 Aristotle on character formation
o 2.3 Epicurus on reason, character formation, and what “depends on us”
o 2.4 The role of the swerve in protecting our freedom
 2.4.1 Free will and the ability to do otherwise
 2.4.2 Character development and internal necessity
 2.4.3 The self and emergence
 2.4.4 Bivalence and the swerve
o 2.5 The Stoics on what is “up to us”, the principle of alternate possibilities, and
punishment
o 2.6 Alexander of Aphrodisias’ incompatibilist Aristotelianism
o 2.7 Plotinus on freedom and the good
 Bibliography
o Primary texts in translation
o Primary texts cited
o Secondary sources
 Academic Tools
 Other Internet Resources
 Related Entries

1. Fatalism, Bivalence, and Determinism

In the ancient world, a number of arguments were put forward that proceed from the Principle of
Bivalence, a basic principle in logic, in order to establish fatalism—where “fatalism” is the view
that the future is inevitable and we are powerless to do anything to shape it. Most prominently,
these arguments are presented in chapter 9 of On Interpretation, Aristotle’s treatise on semantics,
and in Cicero’s On Fate, which discusses the “Lazy Argument”. The “Master Argument”, a
similar argument for the necessity of the future that was taken to have fatalist implications, is
both put forward and endorsed by Diodorus Cronus (died c. 284 BCE). These arguments differ in
 4

their details, but in broad strokes here is how they all proceed. (Henceforward, “the fatalist
argument” refers to this general argument.)

The Principle of Bivalence (PB) states that every statement has exactly one truth value: either
true, or false. And because PB does apply to every statement, it applies also to statements about
what will occur in the future. (The example Aristotle gives is “there will be a sea battle
tomorrow”, while in On Fate Cicero talks about “you will recover from this illness”.) So for any
pair of contradictory statements about the future—such as “you will recover from this illness”
and “you will not recover from this illness”—exactly one of them is true, and has been true from
eternity (Fat. 29, LS 55S; see the Bibliography for abbreviations used). But if it is true from
eternity that an event will occur, then that event is necessary (Fat. 21, LS 38G). Since PB applies
to every statement about what might occur in the future, every future event is necessary. (This is
why, in the context of contemporary discussions of fatalist arguments that proceed from PB, PB
is sometimes referred to as “logical determinism”.) However, because there is no point in
deliberating about what is necessary (Int. 9 18b31–36), there is no point in deliberating about
anything in the future. As Aristotle puts it, if the fatalist argument goes through,

there would be no need to deliberate or to take trouble (thinking that if we do this, this will
happen, but if we do not it will not). For there is nothing to prevent someone’s having said ten
thousand years beforehand that this would be the case, and another’s having denied it; so that
whichever of the two was true to say then, will be the case of necessity. (Int. 9 18b31–36)

Aristotle makes it clear that it does not matter whether people actually made such predictions;
what matters is that one of the uttered statements would have been true. Or as Cicero says, if it
has been true from eternity that you will recover from an illness, then there would be no point in
trying to bring about the recovery, since it will happen no matter what you do (Fat. 28, LS 55S).

Why believe the argument’s premise that, if a statement has been true from eternity, then the
event that it predicts is necessary? One common reason is the immutability of the past, that we
cannot now do anything to change the past. This immutability is the reason the Stoic Chrysippus
gives (against Cleanthes, who preceded him as head of the Stoa) for why the past is necessary
(Fat. 14, LS 38E). And if the past is necessary, it might seem to follow that I cannot now do
anything to change the past truth of statements about the future. Aristotle thinks that the present
is also necessary, saying “What is, necessarily is, when it is; and what is not, necessarily is not,
when it is not” (Int. 19a23–5). After all, if I am presently bleeding from a wound, while it might
be possible for me either to bleed to death or not, and I might do something to make it the case
that I don’t bleed to death, I cannot do anything to change the fact that I am bleeding right now.
But then, the present truth of a statement about what will result from my wound may also seem
to make the outcome necessary, as much as the past truth would.

In connection with this argument, “necessary” does not mean metaphysically necessary, causally
necessary, or logically necessary. Instead, things that are necessary are inevitable or beyond our
power to affect. Aristotle gives mathematical truths, celestial motions and the past as examples
of things we do not bother deliberating about. Aristotle, Epicurus, the academic skeptic
Carneades, and the Stoic Chrysippus all wish to reject the conclusion of the fatalist argument, but
they have different responses to the argument based on their views about whether the Principle
 5

of Bivalence is compatible with effective deliberation. After Aristotle, they also consider
whether causal determinism is compatible with effective deliberation.

1.1 Aristotle and tomorrow’s sea battle

Aristotle thinks that the conclusion of the fatalist argument is false, because it is obvious that
deliberation is not futile: we often deliberate about what to do, act upon that deliberation, and
thereby bring things about that otherwise would not have occurred. And more generally, there
are many things that are not necessary before they happen, but may either occur or not occur.
Aristotle gives the example of a cloak wearing out: before it wore out, it did not have to wear
out, as it was still possible that it be cut up instead. (Int. 9 19a8–a22)

Unfortunately, how Aristotle rejects the conclusion is less clear than that he rejects it, because
De Interpretatione 9 is an extremely compressed text (see Gaskin 1995 and chapter 6 of Van
Rijen 1989 for details). But on the most common and historically influential interpretation,
Aristotle responds to the argument by rejecting its premise, that the Principle of Bivalence
applies universally. Instead, it is true only for the most part and does not apply to statements
about the future that can possibly be true or false, such as “there will be a sea battle tomorrow”
or “this cloak will be cut up”. Let’s take the statement, “Over 100,000 people will die of Covid-
19 in the United States in 2020”. Before 100,001 people die, it is not inevitable that this will
occur; instead, it depends on what people do, and the statement is neither true nor false. Once
100,001 people die, then the statement changes truth value from Neutral or Indeterminate to
True, as well as becoming necessary for us now, because we can no longer do anything about it.

1.2 Epicurus on the fatalist argument and determinism

In his response to the fatalist argument, Epicurus largely follows Aristotle (at least as Aristotle is
commonly interpreted). He agrees with Aristotle that some things happen of necessity, and some
by chance, while others depend on us (Ep. Men. 133, NE 3.3 1112a30–32). And he also thinks
that, if the Principle of Bivalence applied to all statements, everything would be necessary, and
so he rejects it, saying that statements like “Philoctetes will be wounded” are neither true nor
false before Philoctetes is wounded or not (Fat. 37, LS 20H). Unlike Aristotle (Int. 9 19a30–33),
Epicurus rejects not only PB, but also the Law of Excluded Middle—the principle that every
statement of the form “p or not-p” is necessarily true. So Aristotle thinks that the statement
“either there will be a sea battle tomorrow, or there will not be” is true, while Epicurus does not.
Rejecting the Law of Excluded Middle might seem strange—after all, doesn’t p or not-p exhaust
all of logical space? But Epicurus apparently thinks that for the disjunction as a whole to be true,
one of its disjuncts would have to be true, and he does not want to admit this, because then (per
the fatalist argument) that disjunct would also be necessary (Cicero, Academica 2.97, LS 20I).

Causal determinism does not figure into the fatalist argument in Aristotle’s De Interpretatione,
or in Diodorus Cronus’ Master Argument for the necessity of the future. Instead, the arguments
rely entirely on semantic and logical considerations. Cicero’s On Fate, however, introduces the
topics of the relationship of causal determinism to the principle of bivalence, and of whether
causal determinism has fatalistic implications. In this treatise, Cicero presents the positions of
Epicurus, the Academic skeptic Carneades, and the Stoic Chrysippus.
 6

Epicurus and the Stoics believe that the principle of bivalence with regard to statements about
the future and causal determinism are interentailing: that is, a statement about the future is true if
and only if there exists at that time sufficient causal conditions to bring about the state of affairs
described in the statement. (Likewise, a statement will be false if and only if there exist sufficient
conditions to preclude the state of affairs described in the statement, and neither true nor false if
current conditions are sufficient neither to bring about nor to preclude the state of affairs
described in the statement.) As the Stoics put it,

There cannot be things which are going to be true if they do not have causes of their future being.
So things which are true must necessarily have causes. (Fat. 26, LS 70G)

Epicurus agrees (Fat. 19). On the other hand, if there is “motion without a cause”, i.e., events
that are not causally determined, then both Epicurus and the Stoics agree that not every statement
is either true or false (Fat. 20–1, LS 38G). The future has not occurred yet, so nothing exists at
present to make a statement about the future true unless there presently exist sufficient conditions
to bring about the state of affairs predicted by the statement.

Epicurus is a materialist in his metaphysics. For Epicurus, the two entities that exist per se are
bodies and the empty space (the void) that they move in. The bodies that we see are aggregates
of atoms, which are minute, uncuttable bodies. Anything else that exists—such as colors, time,
or justice—depends for its existence on the existence of bodies and void. And so, everything that
occurs depends ultimately on the motions of atoms through the void, with atomic motions caused
by things like the atoms’ past motions and their collisions and entanglements with other atoms.
Epicurus’ predecessor Democritus, one of the original inventors of atomism, thought that these
were the only causes of atomic motion. The Epicureans believe that Democritus’ position would
imply that the future is predetermined in a way that would make action and deliberation futile
(Diogenes of Oinoanda, (inscription) 32.1.14—3.14, LS 20G), and Epicurus wants to avoid
being

a slave to the ‘fate’ of the natural philosophers…which involves an inexorable necessity. (Ep.
Men.134, LS 20A)

Since he thinks that both the logical principle of bivalence and causal determinism have fatalistic
implications, he rejects both bivalence and causal determinism. In order to avoid fatalism, within
his materialism and atomism, Epicurus posits an indeterministic atomic motion, the “swerve”
(Fat. 22, LS 20E). As the Epicurean poet Lucretius puts it, if atomic motion were caused only by
the weight of atoms and their collisions and entanglements, human beings, as well as all other
animals, would be subject to necessity and unable to move themselves around as they please. But
we obviously can move ourselves around as we please, and so there is another cause of atomic
motion, an occasional minute swerve to the side that occurs “at no fixed region of space or fixed
time” and liberates us from fate (DRN 2.251–93, LS 20F). Because determinism is false, the
future is still open, and statements like “you will recover from an illness” are, at present, neither
true nor false.
 7

1.3 Carneades on the fatalist argument and a voluntary motion of our minds

Carneades also wishes to rebut the fatalist argument and deny that what will occur is inevitable. [1]
Unlike Aristotle and Epicurus, however, he does not reject the Principle of Bivalence, and he
says that whenever you have a pair of contradictory statements, such as “Tim O’Keefe will die
from cancer” and “Tim O’Keefe will not die from cancer”, one is true and the other false (Fat.
37, LS 20H). Instead of rejecting PB, he thinks the fatalist argument goes wrong when it assumes
that if it is true from eternity that an event will occur, then that event is necessary. That is
because both Epicurus and Stoics are wrong to believe that the principle of bivalence and causal
determinism are interentailing. The truth of a statement does not imply that there are “immutable
eternal causes” that make it true (Fat. 28, LS 70G). Instead, it is simply the fact that things will
turn out as the statement says they will that makes it true.

An example to illustrate Carneades’ position: let us imagine that Tim O’Keefe develops cancer,
but he seeks out treatment, recovers, and ends up dying peacefully in his sleep of other causes at
the age of 100, in 2068. If somebody were to say, in 2020, “Tim O’Keefe will not die of cancer”,
they said something true, because, just as they said, Tim O’Keefe in fact did not die of cancer.
Their statement was not “neutral” when they made it, and later became true; it was true all along.
In order to defend his position, Carneades appeals to the symmetry of the past and future:

For just as we call “true” those past things of which it was at an earlier time true that they were
being actualized, so we will call “true” those future things that of which it will later be true that
they are being actualized. (Fat. 27, LS 70G)

Just as something’s being true in the past does not depend on its having certain effects now,
something’s being true in the future does not depend on its having certain causes now. If the
statement “Tim O’Keefe was adopted in 1968” is now true, it is not true because he presently
remembers being told by his mother and father that they adopted him, or because of any of the
other present effects of his adoption. Instead, it is true simply because he was, as a matter of fact,
adopted in 1968.

To understand Carneades’ position, we should distinguish between the truthmaker for a

statement and the cause of an event. If I go to the doctor and recover from my cancer, the cause
of my recovering from the disease is the doctor’s treatment, and the cause of my going to the
doctor is my decision to do so. The truthmaker for the statement “Tim will recover from his
cancer” is my recovering from the cancer, but the statement’s eternal truth doesn’t cause my
future recovery. Once we make this distinction, then we should see that the principle of
bivalence does not threaten our freedom. According to Carneades, our own voluntary actions are
one of the causes of events. And these actions are under our control. The way Carneades puts it
is that the cause of our actions is a “voluntary motion of the mind”, a motion which has an
intrinsic nature of being in our power and of obeying us (Fat. 24–5, LS 20E). There is a truth
beforehand concerning how I will act, e.g., that I will seek out treatment for my cancer. But my
action of seeking out treatment is nonetheless under my control, and my seeking out the
treatment is not necessary, as I have the ability not to seek out the treatment. (Consider here
Carneades’ analogy with the past: just because there is a truth about how I did voluntarily act in
 8

the past, this does not imply that my past actions were not under my control, or that it was
necessary that I act in the ways that I did.)

Carneades thinks that, while the fatalist argument from bivalence fails, the fatalist argument can
be successfully restated in terms of causal determinism, since causal determinism is incompatible
with our actions truly being in our power (Fat. 31, LS 70G.) That is because, for our actions to
be in our power, we must have the ability to make things turn out otherwise than they actually do
turn out (Fat. 45), and this ability is incompatible with all things being predetermined by an
interconnected chain of natural causes (Fat. 31, LS 70G). According to Carneades, human
actions have a cause—the “voluntary motion of the mind”—but the way in which we exercise
this power and move ourselves is not itself causally necessitated.

This is why Carneades denies that even the gods can foretell the future. Carneades assumes that
to know what is going to occur in the future, you must know the present causes which will bring
about that future event. For instance, in order to know that a major earthquake will occur in
California a year hence, I would need to have information about the present disposition of
California’s various faults and the pressure they are exerting on one another, along with the facts
about things like how faults operate, which all together will bring about the future quake. Not
even Apollo, however, can foretell events like Oedipus killing his father, even though it has
always been true that Oedipus would do so. That is because such actions, before they occur, have
no pre-existing causes that would bring them about, that Apollo could inspect in order to tell that
they are going to occur (Fat. 32–33, LS 70G).

1.4 The Stoics on the fatalist argument and co-fated events

Epicurus believes that both the Principle of Bivalence and causal determinism are false; the
Stoics believe that both are true, and that their truth does not render us powerless or make what
will happen inevitable. In fact, the Stoics think that every event is both causally determined and
fated. The Stoics believe that God is wise, good, perfectly happy, and creator of the world (DL
7.147, LS 54A). But God is not an immaterial entity separate from the world who created it ex
nihilo—instead, god is the world. and his mind pervades and organizes all things (Cicero, On the
Nature of the Gods 1.39, LS 54B; Alexander, On Mixture 225, 1–2, LS 54H). Because God is
good, he wishes to benefit everything (Clement, The teacher 1.8.63 1–2, LS 60I). So God’s
providential will is to make the world the best he can. God is extremely powerful but not
omnipotent, as he works within the limits of what is physically possible, like a craftsman
skillfully building something with the materials at hand. The way God realizes his providential
will is through setting up the causal order of the world to bring it about. Fate is an everlasting
“ordering and sequence of causes” which brings about every single thing that has happened, is
happening, and is going to happen. This is “not the ‘fate’ of superstition, but that of physics”
(Cicero, On Divination 1.125–6, LS 55L). So for example, if God has it as part of his
providential plan that I will recover from cancer, God will fate my recovery by building that
future event into the overall organization of the cosmos from its foundation, so that the fated
recovery will necessarily arise as the series of causes unspools itself over time.

The Stoics believe that having everything that occurs fated in this way is compatible with our
deliberating and acting effectively. To see this, consider the following example. Suppose that I
 9

am a Stoic, and I contract cancer. As a Stoic, I realize that it has been true from eternity and fated
either that I will recover from the cancer, or that I will not. But that does not render the outcome
of my cancer inevitable or make it pointless for me to seek treatment. The Stoic Chrysippus says
that certain outcomes are simple, while others are conjoined. Simple outcomes are ones that will
occur no matter what I do. For instance, as a mortal being, that I will die is inevitable; it will
happen no matter what I do.[2] In the case of such simple outcomes, deliberation and action would
be pointless. However, other things are conjoined, where an outcome is linked to its cause, which
is necessary for it to occur. For instance, if Oedipus is going to be born of Laius, that is
conjoined with Laius and Jocasta having intercourse. In the case of my fated recovery from
cancer, that fated recovery is conjoined to my action of seeking treatment, and Chrysippus says
that the two are “co-fated”: it is fated (and causally determined) both that I will recover from the
cancer and that I will seek treatment; it is through my fated action of seeking treatment that my
fated recovery will occur (Fat. 30, LS 55S). Since my action of seeking treatment is causally
efficacious in bringing about its purpose, it isn’t pointless. My action is itself both causally
determined and causally efficacious. Furthermore, even if it’s causally determined that I’ll
recover, counterfactuals like “if I don’t seek treatment, I will die” can still be true. As
Chrysippus puts it, even if it’s true (and causally determined) that somebody will wrestle, it
doesn’t follow that they’ll wrestle whether or not they have an opponent, and even if it’s true
(and causally determined) that somebody will recover from a disease, it doesn’t follow that
they’ll recover whether or not they call a doctor (Fat. 30, LS 55S).

The Stoics say that actions like my seeking treatment for cancer, which are brought about by fate
through the animal, are “in the power” of the animal, but they deny that we are free to choose
between opposite actions—seeking treatment or not seeking treatment (Alexander, On Fate ch
13, 181,13–182,20, LS 62G). The Stoics believe Carneades is wrong to think that we need such a
power to choose between opposite actions in order to stave off the fatalist argument and avoid its
conclusion that the future is inevitable and we are powerless to do anything to shape it. Even if
my action of seeking treatment is causally determined, and I do not have the ability not to seek
treatment, seeking treatment can still lead to the cure of my cancer, a cure that would not have
happened if I had not sought treatment. Like Aristotle, who was not willing to give up the idea
that we effectively deliberate about our actions, the Stoics posit that I can effectively and
rationally deliberate about what to do, even if the outcome of my deliberation and the actions
that result from it are both causally determined. If I am in an unclear situation, considering the
pros and cons of various actions is rational and will likely lead to a better decision than acting
impulsively. Consider an example where I am offered a job, and I think things through before
deciding to accept it. I had to go through the process of deliberation to reach that fated outcome;
it’s no more true that I would have accepted the job whether or not I deliberated about the offer
than it is that I would have recovered from cancer whether or not I sought treatment. So in the
original fatalist argument, the Stoics would reject the premise that if it is true from eternity that
an event will occur, then that event is necessary, in the sense of inevitable or beyond our power
to effect, and they also reject Carneades’ assertion that events that have been causally determined
from eternity are necessary in that sense.

Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, and Chrysippus were each said to compare the relationship of
humans and fate to that of a dog tied to a cart:
 10

When a dog is tied to a cart, if it wants to follow it is pulled and follows, making its spontaneous
act coincide with necessity, but if it does not want to follow it will be compelled in any case. So
it is with men too: even if they do not want to, they will be compelled in any case to follow what
is destined. (Hippolytus, Refutation of all heresies 1.21, LS 62A)

This analogy suggests that god has preordained certain outcomes that will happen no matter what
decisions people make, with our decisions affecting only the manner in which this fated outcome
occurs. God will bypass and override any efforts to defy him. (Perhaps if I irrationally decide not
to seek treatment for my cancer, god implements a contingency plan that ensures my fated
recovery, albeit in a way that involves far more trouble and pain for me.)

But at least as deployed by Chrysippus, the above interpretation of the dog and cart analogy is
probably incorrect. If certain outcomes were fated to occur no matter what we were to decide or
to do, that would seem to make deliberation and action futile, whereas Chrysippus wishes to
assert that our actions do have an impact on what occurs, with god bringing about the fated
outcome through our fated action. Instead, Chrysippus is probably making the more general
point that it is impossible to resist god’s providential plan and the edicts of fate, and that trying to
do so is a bad idea. That is because god’s providential plan encompasses everything whatsoever
that occurs in the cosmos, which would include even vicious actions and attempts to defy god
(Plutarch, On Stoic Self-Contradiction 1050c-d, LS 54T). The Stoics also share the Greek ethical
commonplace that vice is a kind is psychic disharmony and disorder that causes agitation and
distress (Cicero, Tusculan disputations 4.29, 34–5, LS 61O). Furthermore, the wise person
willingly submits themself to god’s will—they wish for things to happen as they do happen,
which is the same as wishing for them to happen as god wills them to happen. Such submission
brings happiness (Epictetus, Handbook 8; Seneca, On Benefits 4.34.4). And so, a vicious person
who tries to defy the will of god fails in their plan, as even their attempted defiance has been
fated by god, but through their foolish actions they do “succeed” in bringing about their own
misery, just like the dog being dragged along the path.

2. Voluntary Action, Moral Responsibility, and What is “Up

to Us”
Ancient Greek philosophers considered when we are rightly held accountable for our actions,
and these discussions overlap considerably with contemporary debates about free will and
determinism. But we should be cautious about framing these debates in terms of their views on
free will and determinism. First of all, there is no phrase in the ancient texts that should
obviously be translated as “free will”. (The later Epicurean Lucretius uses the Latin phrase libera
voluntas, which is often translated as “free will”, but whether libera voluntas is the same as “free
will” is far from obvious—see section 2.4.1 below.) Instead of talking about whether humans
possess a faculty of will, and what the conditions are for that will to be free, they talk about when
actions are voluntary, and what must obtain in order for our actions or states of character to be
“up to us” (eph’ hemin) or to “depend on us” (par’ hemas). Secondly, the ancient discussions do
not have at their center the question of whether causal determinism is compatible with our
having control over our actions—in particular, whether it is compatible with the ability to do
otherwise—although they do raise this issue.
 11

2.1 Aristotle on voluntary action

The first extended treatment of moral responsibility is Aristotle’s in NE 3.1–5. Voluntary actions,
says Aristotle, are subject to praise and blame, whereas involuntary ones are excused (NE 3.1
1109b30–32). Voluntary actions are ones with their origin in the agent themself, where they
know the particular circumstances of the action (NE 3.1 1111a23–24). To say that the origin of
an action is the agent simply means that the cause or explanation of an action is the person’s own
beliefs, desires, states of character, and other psychological states. If I decide to poison my
mother for the sake of getting my inheritance, the action of putting cyanide into a mug of
chamomile and almond tea can be explained by my greed and callousness, by my resulting desire
for the inheritance and disregard for the welfare of my mother, and by my belief that poisoning
my mother would be an effective means to obtaining the inheritance. On the other hand, forced
actions are involuntary—for instance, the movement of a sea voyager who is blown astray by a
wind or carried away by kidnappers. In such cases, the person’s movements have an external
origin, and they themself don’t contribute anything to their movements.

Besides force, another excusing condition is non-culpable ignorance of particular matters of fact
regarding the circumstances of the action. If my mother’s joints are aching, and I bring her some
Tylenol capsules that, unbeknownst to me, have been laced with cyanide, I should not be blamed
for her death. Even though my action of bringing the capsules has an “internal origin”, I did not
willingly kill my mother—rather, it was inadvertent, and my action evinces no malevolent
desires or character flaws. (Nonetheless, says Aristotle, I should regret what I have done and feel
pain at it. If I do not, then something is wrong with me, and so the action is not entirely
involuntary, but “non-voluntary” (NE 3.1 1110b18–24).) But not all ignorance excuses. For
instance, if I willingly get drunk, and therefore I don’t notice a stop sign and end up
inadvertently harming somebody when I run the stop sign, I am responsible for putting myself
into the state of ignorance, and hence responsible for my subsequent actions. Also, Aristotle
believes that ignorance of what is good and bad does not excuse a person. If I am depraved
enough, I might sincerely believe that I am doing nothing wrong when I poison my mother, that I
am simply being savvy and appropriately ruthless in pursuing my self-interest. That kind of
ignorance, says Aristotle, is what makes people vicious, and being a bad person isn’t an excuse
for acting badly (NE 3.1 110b28–1111a2). (As we shall see, Aristotle believes that people are at
least partly responsible for their own characters.)

Aristotle also discusses “mixed actions”, ones that are done knowingly but unwillingly. He gives
the examples of a captain tossing their cargo overboard to save their ship during a storm, and a
person doing something dishonorable at the order of a tyrant in order to save the lives of their
family. These are not the sorts of actions they would normally perform, but they feel forced to do
so under the circumstances. Such actions, says Aristotle, are voluntary, and the agent is
responsible for them—after all, the origin of the action was inside the agent, and they knew the
particular circumstances of their actions. However, when assessing actions, we need to take those
circumstances in account, so that actions that normally would be wrong, like tossing cargo
overboard, are sometimes actually praiseworthy and reflect well on the agent.
 12

Finally, Aristotle says that sometimes people do wrong actions “under pressure which
overstrains human nature and which no one could withstand”, and such actions are forgiven (NE
3.1 1110a23–25). Unfortunately, he does not give an example or explain why such actions are
pardoned. But a plausible example would be in the novel 1984, when Winston Smith betrays his
lover Julia at the point where O’Brien threatens to have his face chewed off by rats, after months
of torture in the bowels of the Ministry of Love. While the betrayal does have an “internal
origin” in Smith’s terror of the rats and his belief that betraying Julia would spare him, almost
any human being would have been broken under the circumstances. Therefore, when we wish to
explain why Smith betrays Julia, it is not because of any character flaws or disordered desires
particular to Smith—instead, we say that no matter whether a person was virtuous or vicious,
they would have acted as Smith did in such a situation, so Smith’s betrayal doesn’t reflect badly
on him.

When an action is voluntary and its origin is within us, it is up to us either to perform the action
or not (NE 3.1 1110a17–18), so if it’s up to us to perform some action which is noble, we also
have the ability not to act, which would be base (NE 3.5 1113b5–14). Since we have the ability
to do otherwise in the case of all voluntary actions, and it is only for voluntary actions that
people are rightly held responsible, Aristotle endorses the Principle of Alternate Possibilities
(PAP): a person is morally responsible for what they have done only if they could have done
otherwise.

Whether Aristotle’s theory of what is voluntary is compatibilist or incompatibilist with regard to

causal determinism is highly contested. But the question itself may be misguided, as Aristotle
never formulates the thesis of causal determinism or asks whether determinism is compatible
with people engaging in voluntary actions. The best we can do is ask whether, given his other
philosophical commitments, Aristotle’s conditions on voluntary action are best understood as
compatible with determinism, or incompatible with it. Some contemporary philosophers believe
that causal determinism is incompatible with an agent genuinely being the source of his action,
as his action could be traced back to environmental, genetic, and other factors outside of and
prior to the agent. But Aristotle seems not to be working with that strong a notion of sourcehood
when he says that the agent is the origin of his actions: he says that choice is origin of action,
while desire and practical reason are the origin of choice (NE 6.2 1139a32–33). So Y can be the
origin of Z, while Y itself has an origin in X. Likewise, many philosophers believe that PAP is
incompatible with causal determinism, while others believe that they are compatible. Aristotle
himself is silent on the issue, and he never produces an explication of what exactly he means
when he says an agent who acts voluntarily could have done otherwise. However, he does think
that virtue is a perfection of a person’s character, one that reliably produces virtuous actions. The
virtuous person has both correct beliefs about what to do, and correct desires, so he would seem
to have no motive to do anything other than the right thing, and Aristotle does say that the
virtuous person would never voluntarily do anything vicious (NE 4.9 1128b25–30). So it seems
that, while the virtuous person who voluntarily performs a virtuous action could have acted
otherwise and done something vicious, nonetheless there are sufficient conditions—ones that
include his own virtue—which preclude him from exercising this ability. While opinions on the
question are divided, perhaps the safest thing to say is that Aristotle’s theory is compatible with
compatibilism. (See Destrée (2011) for an incompatibilist interpretation of Aristotle based on
‘sourcehood’ and Aristotle’s acceptance of PAP, and Bobzien (2014) for criticisms. Meyer
 13

(2011) gives an interpretation on which Aristotle’s theory of voluntary action and of character
formation is compatible with compatibilism.)

2.2 Aristotle on character formation

Although Aristotle says that voluntary actions are subject to praise and blame, he does not
simply identify morally responsible actions with voluntary ones. Small children and animals can
engage in voluntary behavior, moving themselves around, using the information they have about
their environment, in order to get what they want. What distinguishes adult humans from small
children and other animals is our possession of practical reason, which allows us to deliberate
about what to do in order to best achieve what we believe to be good and then to make choices
on the basis of that deliberation (NE 3.2–4). Only creatures who can make these sorts of
deliberative choices are capable of virtue or vice, and only such creatures are accountable for
what they do.

Furthermore, our capacity for deliberative choice allows us to shape our own characters, and
Aristotle thinks that we need to be able to do so in order to be responsible for the actions that
flow from those characters. In NE 3.5, Aristotle considers an argument against our responsibility
for our actions that proceeds from psychological determinism. It goes as follows: let us suppose
that a careless person exceeds the speed limit because they did not notice the sign posting the
limit. Aristotle says that the law rightly punishes such cases of ignorant wrongdoing, because the
person is responsible for his own negligent ignorance, just as in the case of the ignorant
drunkard. But, the objection goes, some people just are careless; they’re simply the sort of people
who aren’t going to take care (NE 3.5 1114a3–4). So it’s not up to them not to be careless. More
generally, people do what they do because they believe it gets them what is good. But what
seems good to a person is not under their control; instead, it is determined by their character (NE
3.5 1114a30–1114b12). If I choose to poison my mother, it’s because I believe that doing so will
be good for me. But I did not choose to believe that wealth is so incredibly important for my
well-being, and the interests of others and considerations of justice so negligible, that getting lots
of money through undetected murder would be good for me. As Plato says in his dialogue the
Timaeus, nobody is willingly evil. Instead, through some combination of poor natural
endowments and poor education, neither of which the evil person had under their control, they
become vicious. So they are not to blame for their vice; rather, those who nurtured them are to
blame (Tim. 86d-87a).

Aristotle agrees that what seems good to us is determined by our character, and that we aim at
what we believe is good. There are cases of akrasia, or “weakness of will”, where a person’s
beliefs about what is good and their desires conflict, and they do what they believe is bad in
order to gratify their desires (NE 7.3). But when a person’s beliefs and desires are in harmony—
as in the case of a thoroughly virtuous or vicious person—their actions will follow from their
beliefs about and desires for what seems to be good, plus their beliefs about what means will
achieve that apparent good. So in the case of the vicious and willing murderer, while he may be
able to refrain from murder, he will not do so, given who he is. He will not choose to go against
what his beliefs and desires have set before him as good. For Aristotle, choice is the final step of
 14

a process of deliberation, in which we work through the possible means to achieve our end, until
we hit upon the one that we think will work best to get us what we wish to achieve, whereupon
we choose that means and act (NE 3.3).

But Aristotle thinks that this does not absolve the vicious person of responsibility for their
actions, because they are responsible for making themselves into the person they currently are
through their past actions. Virtue is a state of character developed through practice in a way
analogous to how we gain craft knowledge or other practical skills: I become courageous by
acting courageously, just as a person becomes a good carpenter by practicing making cabinets or
a good basketball player by working on their free throws (NE 2.1). But vice is also developed
through a person’s repeated actions; it’s by cheating that a person makes themselves unjust and
by engaging in drinking bouts that they become dissolute drunkards (NE 3.5 1114a4–7).
Aristotle admits that some people are incorrigibly bad, because they have firmly fixed bad
characters, and hence they cannot now control what appears good to them. But at one time, they
had the ability to change their character, and hence they are responsible for what now seems
good to them. Aristotle compares such a person to an incurably sick person, who made themself
ill through their dissolute living and their refusal to listen to their doctor’s orders. The sick
person is responsible for their sickness, even though there is nothing they can do about it now; so
too with the thoroughly vicious person (NE 3.5 1114a12–22).

It might seem that Aristotle’s response implies a vicious regress. My present action is caused by
my present character plus my other psychological states, such as my beliefs. In order to be
responsible for this action, I must be responsible for the state of character that in part causes it.
Aristotle responds that my past voluntary actions caused my present character, and so I am
responsible for it. But if I must be responsible for these actions in order to be responsible for the
character state that they cause, we ask in turn whether I am responsible for the character states
that caused these actions, and so on and so forth, until we are drawn back to factors of heredity
and environment which I am not responsible for. In response to this problem, some scholars have
proposed that Aristotle believes that some character-forming actions are not caused by my past
states of character (Kane (2014), who attributes such a view to Aristotle and uses it as inspiration
for his own view), or that he believes there are some breaks or “fresh starts” in the causal process
leading to my present character, so that it cannot be drawn back to past factors that were not in
my power (Furley 1967; Bobzien 2000). But it is difficult to see how positing causal breaks
would help make the process of character formation more under the control of a person, and in
any case, Aristotle apparently is not aware of this supposed problem with his response. Instead,
he seems to think that, as long as we need to refer to a person’s past actions in order to explain
how they came to be the sort of person they are, this suffices for showing that they helped form
their own character and it is was up to them who they became.

2.3 Epicurus on reason, character formation, and what “depends on us”

Like Aristotle, Epicurus believes that our ability to shape the development of our character is
central to our being responsible for our actions, and that we have this ability because of our
reason. Furthermore, the person who argues that our actions do not depend on us refutes themself
in the very act of arguing for their thesis.
 15

The Epicureans think that all of our actions are explained by our desire for pleasure, our aversion
to pain, and our beliefs about how best to obtain pleasure and avoid pain (Ep. Men 128, Fin.
1.23, 1.30 1.46). People engage in wrongdoing because they have incorrect beliefs about what
will bring them pleasure (KD 7, 10, SV 16, Fin. 1.32–33, 1.55). If a person wrongly believes that
pursuing great wealth will make them happy, then they will pursue wealth. But this
psychological hedonism does not render us helpless, because our beliefs are under our control,
and it is reason which gives us this control over our beliefs. We can learn to distinguish which of
our desires are for things we really need, and which desires cause us harm, and thereby reject the
harmful desires (KD 18–22, 29–30). Using our reason, we can overcome hate, envy, contempt,
and other emotions that might lead us to wrongdoing (DL 10.117).

This reasons-responsiveness is what distinguishes us from other animals and allows us to control
our own development, while other animals cannot. Other animals have in-born temperaments:
for instance, lions are naturally irascible because their minds contain many fire atoms, while
stags are timid because they have more wind atoms (DRN 3.288–306). People also have natural
temperaments: some are easily moved to anger, while others are too fearful (DRN 3.307–318).
But we can use our reason to expel any harmful dispositions, so that only trivial traces of these
temperaments remain, and we are able to achieve a life worthy of the gods (DRN 3.319–322).

In book 25 of his treatise On Nature (LS 20B–C), Epicurus also asserts that how we develop
depends on us, and then he tries to show that it is self-refuting to maintain that all things occur of
necessity. Unfortunately, while this is an important text for understanding Epicurus, it is also
extremely unclear. Epicurus has a contorted and jargon-ridden writing style, and the text as we
have it is full of gaps, because it is preserved on charred scrolls from an Epicurean villa buried
by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. So the summary of his arguments below, like any
summary of this text, is bound to be controversial, and it is considerably more clear than
Epicurus’ own arguments.

Epicurus says some people have disordered congenital dispositions, e.g., they are naturally
hotheaded due to their atomic make-up. But unlike wild animals, we blame a person who
develops badly and remains a hothead as an adult, because the way we actually develop depends
on us, and not on the nature of our atoms. We each have “seeds”, psychological potentials to
develop one way or the other, and which “seeds” develop depend on us and on beliefs of our
own making. Further evidence for our control over ourselves, says Epicurus, is that we rebuke,
oppose, and reform each other as if the responsibility for what we do lies also “in ourselves”, not
just in our congenital dispositions and in our environment. If somebody argues against this thesis
and maintains that everything we do is necessitated, he refutes himself. That is because in his
action of engaging in debate, the person is assuming that he is responsible for reasoning correctly
and that his opponent is responsible for talking nonsense.

At first blush, this self-refutation argument appears quite unpromising, as Epicurus’ opponent
has an obvious reply: they can maintain that the actions of the people engaging in the debate,
including their own, are necessitated, and nonetheless try to show that their own position is
better-supported and thereby convince their opponent to change their mind. Epicurus, however,
thinks that this reply fails. We have a concept of what it means for something to be necessitated,
versus for something to depend on us. And the empirical basis for these concepts is observing
 16

ourselves in action—in particular, observing our actions of rebuking, opposing, and reforming
one another. We see that we can dissuade other people from an action, e.g., I can talk to my
friend and convince him not to give in to a bully’s demands and to stand up to him instead. We
also see that sometimes we decide to do things we don’t feel like doing, e.g., I undergo painful
dental work in order to avoid greater pain in the future. From these observations, we form the
distinction between things that depend on us, versus ones that are necessitated, and we show our
understanding of this distinction in our actions, as we try to dissuade one another from things
that “depend on us”, while it would be pointless to do so for those that are necessitated.
According to Epicurus, if his opponent claims that all of our actions are necessitated, and they do
not challenge the empirical basis of our distinction, they are merely “changing a name”. To show
that our actions are necessitated in a substantial way, the opponent would have to show how we
are mistaken when we think that we can use our reason to persuade one another to act differently,
that we can decide to undergo short-term pain for the sake of long-term gain, and the like. But
the action of trying to persuade somebody to change their mind, by giving them reasons to think
that their current conviction is mistaken, is precisely the sort of thing that forms the basis for the
conceptions that Epicurus’ opponent is trying to challenge (see Castagnoli 2010: 145–159 for
more on this argument).

2.4 The role of the swerve in protecting our freedom

As noted above (in section 1.2), Epicurus introduces an indeterministic atomic motion, the
swerve, in order to protect human freedom. It is not mentioned in any of the extant texts by
Epicurus himself, but a variety of later sources attribute the doctrine to him. The two most
extensive discussions we have of the swerve’s role in protecting human freedom are in Cicero’s
On Fate, which describes how the swerve is needed in order to preserve the openness of the
future and avert the fatalistic implications of the Principle of Bivalence, and in lines 251–293 of
Book 2 of On the Nature of Things, Lucretius’ exposition of Epicurean physics.

Lucretius argues that is evident that animals can and do act freely. However, if atoms did not
sometimes randomly swerve to the side, animals would not be able to act freely. Therefore,
atoms sometimes randomly swerve to the side. In this argument, Lucretius moves from
something he thinks we can observe (that animals act freely), and on its basis infers something
that we cannot directly perceive (that atoms swerve slightly to the side). Free actions are ones
where the body follows the mind’s desires (DRN 2.268), and free actions have an “internal
source” in a literal sense for Lucretius: they are produced by the animal’s mind, which is a bodily
organ in its chest.

Lucretius spends most of his argument establishing the premise that animals do, in fact, act
freely, by giving two examples. Both examples are supposed to show that animals have an
internal capacity to initiate motion, which distinguishes animal motion from the way in which
inanimate objects are simply moved around by external blows. The first example is of race
horses eager to burst from the starting gates. Lucretius claims that we see a slight delay between
the external stimulus of the opening of the gates and the resultant motion of the horses surging
forward. This delay supposedly shows that there exists motion initiated by the mind, in which
case it takes some time for the decision of the mind to stir together and move all of the matter of
the horse. The second example appeals to our own experience, in cases such as being in a
 17

jostling crowd: we are not always helplessly shoved around by these outside forces but are
sometimes able to fight against them to go where we wish, and we initiate this motion ourselves.

Unfortunately, Lucretius is much less forthcoming in supporting or elucidating his other premise.
If there were not a swerve, and causal determinism were true, why would animals be unable to
act freely? And how exactly is the swerve supposed to help preserve freedom? At the start of his
argument, Lucretius says that if there were not an atomic swerve, to prevent all motion from
being interlinked in an endless chain of causation and thereby to annul the decrees of fate, we
would not have the ability to move ourselves around as we wished. And at the end of his
argument, Lucretius says that, in order for our actions not to be subject to an “internal necessity”,
there must be an atomic motion that is not necessitated, since nothing comes to be from nothing
(DRN 2.284–293). A number of answers to the above questions have been advanced, but each of
these interpretations suffers from philosophical and textual problems. Below are some of these
answers.

2.4.1 Free will and the ability to do otherwise

A common way of answering these questions is to say that free will is incompatible with causal
determinism because determinism precludes us from having the ability to do otherwise than we
do, and this ability is needed to have free will (Purinton 1999). Human beings are aggregates of
atoms, and our decisions are caused by the motions of the atoms that make up our minds. If the
atoms that make us up moved in accordance with deterministic laws—if we were subject to
“internal necessity”—then we would be unable to act otherwise than how we do act. But because
the atoms in our mind can swerve, then it is possible for me to do otherwise than I do. There is a
range of possible outcomes for any action I take, depending on whether, when, and how many
atoms in my mind swerve. And so, I have free will and can be rightly held responsible for my
actions.

One problem with this interpretation is that Lucretius does not seem concerned with moral
responsibility or the ability to do otherwise. The Latin phrase Lucretius uses for what allows us
to “act freely” is libera voluntas, which is often translated as “free will”. But libera voluntas is
not something particular to adult humans, who can be held morally responsible for their actions.
It is shared by all animals. And libera voluntas is not described as an ability to do otherwise,
which allows animals to be accountable for what they do. Instead, libera voluntas is effective
agency; it allows living creatures all over the earth to do what they want to do and to advance
wherever pleasure leads them (DRN 2.251–260). And in any case, inserting random atomic
swerves into one’s mind is an unpromising basis for the production of free and responsible
actions; instead, it would seem to result in random and blameless twitches. Let us imagine that
after thinking things over, I am getting ready to pick up the phone and accept a job offer, but
before I pick up the phone, a series of atomic swerves occur in my mind, and I start singing
Queen’s “We Are the Champions” instead. Is the singing a free and responsible action? Or if I do
pick up the phone and accept the job, does the possibility that random atomic swerves might
have caused me to sing instead help preserve my free will? To the extent that random swerves
are involved in action, they seem to undercut our control over our actions, rather than preserve it.

2.4.2 Character development and internal necessity

 18

Alternatively, it has been proposed that the Epicureans’ concern is with our control over
character development, which Epicurus discusses in On Nature book 25, not free will (Furley
1967; Bobzien 2000). If determinism were true, how we develop would be necessitated—our
current character would be the inevitable result of eternal chains of cause and effect, and
traceable entirely to external factors of environment and heredity beyond our control. Lucretius
is referring to this threat when he talks about the “internal necessity” that the swerve saves us
from by breaking the chains of cause and effect. Once again, however, Lucretius’ concern when
he describes the swerve does not seem to be the ability of humans to shape their own character
development, or the way determinism may threaten it. And leaving that worry aside, having the
process of character development caused in part by random atomic swerves seems no better than
having it caused entirely by deterministic atomic motions, as far as our control over it. What is
needed is not to falsify determinism, but to preserve our ability to use our reason to change
ourselves.

2.4.3 The self and emergence

In On Nature 25, Epicurus says that how we develop depends on us, and not on the nature of our
atoms. Based on this assertion and some other passages in On Nature 25, David Sedley (1983,
1988) argues that Epicurus believes that how we act is not determined by the atoms that make up
our minds. Instead, from complex atomic systems like the atoms that makes up our minds, there
emerges human reason, our desires, and other psychological entities, which cannot be identified
with atomic states. All together, these entities make up the person, or the self. According to
Sedley, Epicurus thinks that the self acquires causal powers that transcend the laws that bind
atomic motion and that can even “reach down” and cause changes to the atoms that make up my
mind, and thereby initiate actions. However, the self would not be able to exercise this power if
physical laws were sufficient on their own to determine all atomic motions. As a minimal
indeterminacy at the atomic level, the swerve allows the self “elbow room” where it can exercise
its power to act one way or the other within the laws of physics, but in a way that is not
determined by the laws of physics.

On Nature 25, however, is extremely unclear. The better-preserved and clearer texts we have by
the Epicureans that deal with their philosophy of mind, such as On the Nature of Things and The
Letter to Herodotus (Epicurus’ summary of his physics) seem to support an identity theory of
mind—that the mind is just a bodily organ (like the brain, but located in the chest), and that
psychological states and events are the same as atomic states and events. The passages cited to
support an “emergent self” do not obviously commit Epicurus to the position, and they can be
read in a way that is consistent with an identity theory of mind. And even if Epicurus did believe
in an emergent self that acquires causal powers that transcend the powers of the atoms, he would
not need to posit the swerve. The “laws of physics” simply sum up the effects of a number of
causal factors that determine how an atom will move, like its weight and its collisions with other
atoms. If there really were an emergent and transcendent self, that self would add another causal
factor that could move the atoms. There doesn’t need to be an antecedent indeterminacy to
ensure that the atoms can be moved by the self. In his solution to the fatalist “lazy argument”
(see section 1.3), Carneades says something along these lines: once we have a “voluntary motion
of the mind” that obeys us, we do not need a random swerve to help ensure our freedom.
 19

2.4.4 Bivalence and the swerve

Finally, the swerve may do nothing more than fulfill the function, described above, that Cicero
gives to it in On Fate—because of the swerve, statements about what will happen in the future
are, at present, neither true nor false. And so, what will happen is not inevitable, and our
deliberations about what to do and our actions are not futile (O’Keefe 2005). This fits with
Lucretius’ description of how determinism threatens our libera voluntas—if each motion were
linked to a prior motion from eternity, animals would not be able to do what they want to do and
to advance wherever pleasure leads them. So the swerve is not directly involved in the
production of free action, it simply helps dispose of one threat to our freedom, the one spelled
out by the fatalist argument: if the Principle of Bivalence were true, and applied to statements
about the future, the future would be necessitated, and we would be helpless.

However, the Epicureans need not have such concerns about the Principle of Bivalence. If the
Stoics are right, neither the Principle of Bivalence nor causal determinism would rob us of
freedom, since action and deliberation can still be effective even if the Principle of Bivalence
holds and causal determinism is true. However, if one is not convinced by the Stoics, then
Carneades’ position seems more cogent than Epicurus’. To secure our ability to shape the future,
what matters is our ability to control our actions in a way that is not causally predetermined—
Carneades’ “voluntary motion of the mind”—whereas positing a random atomic motion to
falsify a logical principle is beside the point. And if the swerve has no direct role either in the
production of action or the formation of our character, it is unclear what Lucretius might be
referring to when he says that the swerve saves us from “internal necessity”.

No matter which interpretation is correct, it looks like introducing an atomic swerve to preserve
our freedom was not a good idea.

2.5 The Stoics on what is “up to us”, the principle of alternate possibilities, and
punishment

The Stoics are materialists, and they believe that every action we perform is causally determined
by god as part of his divine plan. This might seem to make us helpless puppets of god, puppets
who cannot rightly be held responsible for what we do. The Stoics, however, develop a theory of
animal behavior generally and human action in particular that tries to counter this suspicion. Like
both Aristotle and Epicurus, for the Stoics, the possession of reason is key to making humans
responsible for their actions.

According to the Stoics, inanimate objects like logs and stones are moved around from the
outside. Animals, however, move themselves around. Animal motion has an internal source, the
animal’s own mind, which is a material, bodily organ. The Stoics’ distinction between inanimate
and animate motion is reminiscent of Lucretius’ distinction between the passive way inanimate
objects are moved around, compared to the active motion of animals, which have libera voluntas
and can move themselves around as they wish. The Stoics, however, believe that animals moving
themselves around is compatible with the way in which animals move being causally
determined. Animals move themselves when an impression occurs which arouses an impulse.
For instance, a hungry dog may see a hunk of meat, and this arouses an impulse to run up to the
 20

meat and eat it. The impulse is triggered by the impression, but this is still a case of the dog
moving itself toward the meat, not merely being passively pushed around by the impression.

In the case of rational animals, like humans, there is a crucial additional step. We have

reason, which passes judgment on impressions, rejecting some of these and accepting others, in
order that the animal may be guided accordingly. (Origen, On principles 3.1.2–3, LS 53A)

For instance, I may see a pulled-pork sandwich in front of me when I am hungry. But instead of
saying, “Mmmm, looks good”, and straightaway gobbling it down, I think “Eating meat
produced by factory farms would be wrong” and refrain. On the other hand, Chrysippus believes
that animals are made for the sake for human beings—for instance, that appetizing pigs have no
purpose other than slaughter and that god created them as part of our cuisine (Porphyry, On
Abstinence, 3.20.1, 3, LS 54P). And so, given his foolish and vicious views about the moral
status of animals, Chrysippus would gladly decide to chow down on a pulled-pork sandwich.

Any action proper will include this step of assent to an impression that leads to an impulse, and it
is this additional step that distinguishes human action from mere animal behavior. This does not
mean that actions require extended and self-conscious deliberation. If you insult my hipster
sideburns and I straightaway get angry and punch you in the face, I have assented to the
impression that you have wronged me and it would be good to retaliate and cause you pain, even
though I haven’t thought it over carefully.

To illustrate the Stoic doctrine of the internal source of animal motion Chrysippus uses the
analogy of a stone cylinder rolling down a slope. The cylinder’s rolling down the slope may
require an initial shove. But that initial shove only triggers the motion, and the primary cause of
the motion is the cylinder’s own shape and “rollability”. Likewise, human action may require an
initial impression as its trigger, but how a person acts depends on the person themself, on the sort
of person they are and how they respond to their impressions (Cicero, Fat. 39–43, LS 62C).

Assent is up to us and under our control, and assent is the cause of our actions. Therefore, our
actions are attributable to us, and we are rightly held responsible for them. I do not control
whether I am healthy, although I can aim at maintaining my health. I do not control whether
other people hurl insults at me, but it is up to me whether I react angrily when I am insulted.
What we do is controlled by our will and intellect, and the misdeeds of bad people can rightly be
attributed to their own vice (Gellius, Noctes Atticae, 7.2.6–13, LS 62D).

The Stoics reject the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP). We don’t have

the freedom to choose between opposite actions … [instead], it is what comes about through us
that is up to us. (Alexander, On fate ch. 13, 181,13, LS 62G1)

Assent is up to us and under our control, and we are rightly held responsible for what we do,
even though we do not have the ability to do otherwise than we do. If we accept PAP, then the
actions of the virtuous person will be praiseworthy only if they are capable of acting in a way
other than how they do act. But the truly virtuous person is incapable of acting viciously, of
 21

doing anything wrong. Imagine that I am a virtuous person, and that I have promised my young
daughter a piece of cake if she finishes her dinner. She finishes her dinner and asks for the cake.
There is only one action that I can and will do in that particular situation: give her the cake as
promised. Let us suppose that there was some small chance that I would not keep my promise—
that I’d pretend to look for the cake and not find it, and lie to her about its being missing, so that
I could have it for myself later. If I were capable of depriving my daughter of her promised cake
so that I could chow down on it later, then I would not really be a virtuous person. There would
have to be something wrong with me. And so if we accept PAP, we would have to accept the
absurd result that we should not praise virtuous people for acting virtuously, as they cannot do
anything other than the virtuous action in any situation. And so, we should reject PAP
(Alexander, On fate ch. 26, 196,24–197,3, LS 61M).

Aristotle would say that the virtuous person will not break their promise to their daughter, but
that they are capable of doing so. The Stoics reject this response. Virtue is a reliable disposition
to do what one should. I am not forced to get the cake for my daughter, but if I am truly a good
person, I am incapable of doing otherwise, because I cannot but want to get her the cake (Seneca
On Benefits 6.21.2–3). The Stoics conceive of virtue as a kind as practical skill that allows a
person to live well, and the wise person will consistently exercise this skill, so that everything
they do they do well (Stobaeus Eclogues 2.66,14–67,4, LS 61G). So an “ability” to break my
promise to my daughter is something I do not want to have, as it would be a defect, a form of
folly, and a disability.

The Stoics believe that their doctrine that god causally determines our every action is compatible
with all of our ordinary moral practices. They share with Aristotle the idea that virtue is a
perfection of our nature as rational and social animals, and they believe that the proper action to
perform is the one that can be given a reasonable justification. (See the texts in Long and Sedley
sections 59–61.) Let us suppose that causal determinism is true and that I break my promise to
my daughter and chow down on the cake. Even if every action is causally determined by God,
right reason still commands right actions and prohibits wrong ones. We can still give the reasons
why breaking my promise to my daughter is irrational and wrong, and why keeping my promise
would be rational and right. So, even though I was causally determined to break my promise, my
doing so was wrong. And if there are right and wrong actions, there are also virtues and vices,
character traits that dispose us to act rightly and wrongly, respectively. So, in the example above,
I am a vicious person: I am the kind of person who will break his promise to his daughter for the
sake of filling his belly. But virtue is noble, and thus commendable, whereas vice is shameful,
and thus reprehensible. And commendable things deserve honor, whereas reprehensible things
deserve censure and punishment. So I am a shameful, reprehensible person, and I am rightly
criticized for my action (Alexander, On Fate ch. 35, 207, 5–21, LS 62J).

While the Stoics think that vicious people are responsible for what they do, and that wrongdoing
merits censure and punishment, they reject retributive punishment, punishment that seeks to set
back a person’s interests as fitting payback for the wrong they have done. Like god, the virtuous
person wishes to harm none and to benefit all. We should regard ourselves as akin to all human
beings, and we should seek to benefit as many people as we can (Cicero Fin. 3.62–8, LS 57F).
Punishment is a fitting response to wrongdoing, but right punishment is rehabilitative, a loving
correction of the person punished (Alexander, On fate ch. 35, 207,5–21, LS 62J). The model here
 22

is akin to parental discipline. If my sons are squabbling, and one of them angrily hits the other, I
might send him to time-out, deprive him of dessert, and ground him for a week. But I do not do
so because I want my son to suffer or I think he had it coming to him. Instead, while my son
might find the punishment painful, I inflict the punishment because I think that the discipline will
be good for him, that it will help him realize that he has done something wrong and that he needs
to change himself. In their theory of punishment, as in much of their ethical theory, the Stoics are
following the lead of Plato, who also rejects retributive punishment in favor of rehabilitative
punishment. (See in particular Protagoras 323d-324d and Gorgias 472d-479e.) Plato, however,
rejects retribution in part because he believes that all wrongdoing is due to ignorance of what is
good. Hence, he thinks, nobody does wrong willingly, and nobody is deserving of retributive
punishment.

According to the Stoics, both the virtuous, wise person and the vicious fool are responsible for
their actions, because the actions of each of them are equally a result of their assent, which is
under their control. Nonetheless, in another sense, only the wise person is truly free (DL 7.33).
The later Stoic Epictetus often compares the foolish person to a slave, under the yolk of vicious
and damaging desires (for instance, Handbook 14 and Discourses 2.2). Similarly, the Stoic
emperor Marcus Aurelius likens the fool to a puppet who is jerked here and there by irrational
impulses (for instance, Meditations 2.2, 6.16). The fool is dominated by desires and beliefs that
are alien to his nature as a rational being, because right reason commands all virtuous actions and
forbids all vicious actions. Only the wise person is free from these alienating and disturbing
desires and beliefs; only the wise person has mastered himself and is in harmony with himself.

2.6 Alexander of Aphrodisias’ incompatibilist Aristotelianism

Alexander of Aphrodisias is an adherent of Aristotle’s philosophy, best known for his extensive
commentaries on Aristotle’s texts. In his treatise On Fate, Alexander develops an Aristotelian
theory on human freedom in reaction to the Stoics’ clearly determinist and compatibilist theory.
Alexander’s theory is based on what Aristotle says, and he claims simply to be presenting
Aristotle’s views. But Alexander’s treatment takes many elements of Aristotle, which on their
own can be read as either compatible with causal determinism or incompatible with causal
determinism, and develops them in incompatibilist ways. Alexander thinks that causal
determinism is incompatible both with effective deliberation and with the sort of control over our
actions needed for moral responsibility.

The Stoics identify fate with the causal organization of the cosmos. Every thing that occurs has a
cause which is sufficient to produce exactly that outcome. And given the totality of
circumstances, it is causally impossible for things not to turn out the particular way that they do
(Alexander, On Fate ch. 22). Alexander believes that having things causally determined by fate
in this way is incompatible with some outcomes being contingent. On the Stoic position, if there
is going to be a sea battle tomorrow, the causal structure of the cosmos guarantees that there will
be a sea battle tomorrow and makes it impossible that there not be a sea battle tomorrow
(Alexander, On Fate ch. 9). But deliberating about things that will necessarily occur or
necessarily not occur is pointless; it makes sense to deliberate only about things that can either
possibly occur or not. Furthermore, if I deliberate about whether to instigate a sea battle or not, it
makes sense to do so only if I have the ability either to instigate a sea battle or not to do so. I do
 23

not deliberate whether or not to fly if I cannot fly, or if I must fly (Alexander, On Fate ch. 11–
12). So, effective deliberation requires that a person have the ability to do otherwise than they
do, and Alexander thinks that such an ability is incompatible with causal determinism.

Alexander also believes that the Stoic position implies that our actions are not really “up to us”,
i.e., that we do not have the sort of control over our actions which is required to be rightly
praised, blamed, rewarded, or punished for them. Alexander thinks this because he subscribes to
something like the principle that “ought implies can”, i.e., that a person can be morally obligated
to do something only if they have the ability to do it. This is shown in our own case, when we
feel regret and blame ourselves for doing something because we think we were able not to
choose to do the evil thing we had done (Alexander, On Fate ch. 12, 180.29–31). And in the case
of other people, too, we blame and punish them on the assumption that they were able to refrain
from wrongdoing. If they had to do what they did, under the circumstances, they are blameless.
(Alexander thinks that it is inadequate to say that they would have acted differently if
circumstances had been different; Alexander, On Fate ch. 16.)

Alexander turns Chrysippus’ analogy of the cylinder rolling down the slope against the Stoic
position. Chrysippus says that, while an initial shove is required to get the cylinder moving,
whether and how the cylinder rolls depends on its shape, and likewise, while an initial
impression is needed to get a person moving, how they respond to the impression depends on the
type of person they are, and thus they are responsible for how they act. But, says Alexander,
round things must roll down a slope when shoved; it is not up to them whether or not to roll.
Instead, they are compelled to roll by a kind of internal necessity. And if the Stoics are right,
vicious people are likewise compelled by their vicious natures, by a kind of internal necessity, to
do their evil deeds (Alexander, On Fate ch. 17).

Like Carneades, Alexander believes that his own doctrine of free choice doesn’t introduce
motion without a cause. A person has various motives they can act on: they may want to obtain
this pleasure or that one, or to get something that they believe is to their advantage, or to do
something because they think it’s the right thing to do. Nothing predetermines or necessitates
what the person will end up freely choosing to do: they might accept this job or that one, given
the competing considerations in favor of each, and they can value the pleasure of cake over the
importance of keeping their promises, or vice-versa. But no matter what they end up choosing,
they are the cause of their own choices and of the actions that result from them (Alexander, On
Fate ch. 15).

But what about the thoroughly virtuous person? Alexander agrees with the Stoics that virtuous
people are psychologically incapable of doing anything vicious. However, it does not follow that
every action they perform is causally necessitated. There is often a range of available actions that
are consistent with virtue, or some leeway in the precise way in which they may do the action
which virtue requires, and it is up to them which of these options they choose (Alexander, On
Fate ch. 29). Alexander also follows Aristotle in thinking that people are responsible for
developing their character through their own voluntary actions, in a way analogous to developing
skills through practice. This, thinks Alexander, distinguishes virtuous humans from the gods.
Humans are not by nature virtuous. Instead, they have to develop their virtue, and they are
capable of either becoming virtuous or not. And so, we praise the person who develops the
 24

virtues, because the type of person they became was up to them. But the gods necessarily possess
their goodness as a kind of natural gift, and they are incapable of becoming bad. And so, because
their goodness was not up to them, we rightly honor the gods for their goodness, but we do not
praise them (Alexander, On Fate chs. 27, 32).

2.7 Plotinus on freedom and the good

Plotinus is a follower of Plato, and in his attempt to spell out systematically the truths contained
in Plato’s dialogues, he founded the philosophical movement nowadays called Neoplatonism. He
develops a distinctive position on human freedom, one that overlaps considerably with the
Stoics’ position. However, because of his deep metaphysical differences with the Stoics, he
breaks with them on the role of fate in producing human action.

For Plotinus, to say that something is “up to us” is to say that we have power or mastery over it.
He contrasts this mastery with servitude or slavery. True power is the power to do what we wish,
in order to gain what we desire. So Plotinus thinks that a person who acts under compulsion is
not acting freely. He also agrees with Aristotle that a person who acts in ignorance of the
particulars of his situation is not acting voluntarily: if I inadvertently poison my mother with
cyanide-laced Tylenol, I am not doing what I wished to do, as I did not wish to poison my
mother. But he disagrees with Aristotle, and agrees with Plato, in thinking that ignorance of the
rightness or wrongness of what I propose to do excuses (Enn. VI.8[39].1). Plotinus believes that
all desire is desire for the good (Enn. VI.8[39].7). If I poison my mother, I do so because I
believe that doing so is good for me. But if I’m wrong about that, then when I kill her, I’m not
really gaining what I desire, because I wanted to get what was good for me. (It’s for these sorts
of reasons that Plato, in Gorgias 466c-468e, denies that a tyrant who is able to kill, torture, or
imprison anybody as he sees fit has great power. Power enables a person to get what they desire,
which is what is good for them, and the tyrant’s so-called “power” actually harms him.)

Following Plato in the Republic, Plotinus repeatedly asserts that for the mind to be controlled by
the appetites or passions is a kind of slavery, because the mind is being controlled by something
outside of itself (Enn. VI.8[39].2, VI.8[39].3). Reason should rule the person, and an action is
free if it proceeds from knowledge (Enn. VI.8[39].1, VI.8[39].6). So Plotinus joins the Stoics in
thinking that only the wise person is free. “Freedom” in this sense is primarily an ethical ideal,
not a condition on moral responsibility.

Because freedom is a power to obtain what is truly good for yourself, Plotinus also joins the
Stoics in rejecting the principle that, in order to be in control of what you do, you must have the
ability to do otherwise than you do. Let us imagine that my daughter has a serious heart
condition, and after researching the options to repair her heart, I follow the correct course of
action, both because I love her and because I recognize that doing so is also good for me. If my
reason is in charge of what I do, and I know that what I am doing is for the best, then I am
incapable of not doing what I do. But it not some lack of power or external obstacle that prevents
me from neglecting my daughter and doing what is worse. Instead, my action is an expression of
my knowledge and my will, and that is why I cannot do otherwise (Enn. VI.8[39].10). Likewise,
Plotinus thinks it would be perverse to say that I am forced or compelled to help my daughter,
that my action is involuntary because it springs from some sort of “internal necessity”. Instead,
 25

an action is free when it is directed towards a good that you recognize, and slavery consists in
being powerless to move towards your good. This is the kind of freedom enjoyed by the divine
intellect. Plotinus believes that the Form of the Good, as described in places like book 6 of
Plato’s Republic, is the transcendent source of everything that exists. (Plotinus sometimes calls it
the One, to stress its simplicity.) The divine intellect fully understands and eternally
contemplates the Good, and it does so freely—for why would it not do so? (Enn. VI.8[39].4)

Plotinus wants to allow the wise person untrammeled mastery, and so he restricts the scope of
their freedom to their reasoning and will, and not, strictly speaking, to their actions. If I am wise,
I have control over my reasoning and the decisions I make on account of my reasoning. But
which actions I perform are not entirely up to me, but depend on external circumstances beyond
my control. If I am a brave person, I will stand ready to risk my life in war for a noble cause, but
such a war may never arise. And of course, the effects of my actions are not up to me—perhaps
my daughter will die of her heart condition despite my best efforts (Enn. VI.8[39].5). However,
because happiness consists in wisdom and virtue, the wise person’s inability to entirely control
their actions or their actions’ effects does nothing to prevent them from having the sort of power
that matters—the power to obtain what is good. This aspect of Plotinus’ thought echoes the
Roman Stoic Epictetus. In order to be happy, says Epictetus, we must distinguish between what
is up to us and what is not, and the one thing that god has placed under our control is the correct
use of impressions i.e., to decide rightly what to believe and what to do (Epictetus, Discourses
1.1.7–12, LS 62K). Because Epictetus thinks that freedom consists in our control over an internal
power of assent, Frede (2011) claims that the notion of a “free will” first appears in Epictetus.

Despite the considerable overlap between Plotinus and the Stoics on freedom, they differ
significantly on fate. The Stoics think that god’s mind is a fiery breath. It is a material substance
that pervades the cosmos and causally determines every event that will occur through its
organization of the cosmos, which includes the matter that makes up our own minds. The
motions in the cosmos, then, are the result of both the operations of matter and of reason.
Plotinus, on the other hand, distinguishes the causal influences of matter and of mind. The One,
the divine intellect, soul, and our intellects are all immaterial, and bodies are the lowest form of
beings. For Plotinus, any purely materialistic metaphysics, such as the Epicureans’ scheme of
atoms moving in the void, cannot explain the operations of mind, which stands above matter
(Enn. III.1[3].3).

Plotinus criticizes the Stoics because, on their theory, humans and their minds are parts of god,
and god works his will through human actions. Plotinus believes that, if this were true, our
decisions would be caused by something outside of ourselves and would not really be our own—
we would not be agents any more than our feet are, when we use them to kick something. (The
Stoics would reply that humans both move themselves and are moved by god through fate.)
Furthermore, the Stoics’ theory has the unacceptable result of making god the cause of evil,
when humans act wrongly (Enn. III.1[3].4). Instead, says Plotinus, we should hold that human
minds are genuinely separate things, and that they are self-movers, the cause of their own
thoughts and decisions (Enn. III.1[3].4, III.1[3].8, III.2[47].7). Here, Plotinus again follows
Plato, who in his creation-myth the Timaeus asserts that human souls are distinct from the world-
soul that animates the cosmos (Tim. 41d).
 26

For Plotinus, wrongdoing is involuntary, because it is always due to ignorance, but the evil
person is still its cause (Enn. III.2[47].10). The wrongdoer is not culpable for what they do, but
they still suffer two sorts of punishments—although these punishments might better be called
“consequences”. The first penalty they pay for their wrongdoing is becoming evil, which is bad
for them (Enn. III.2[47].4; III.2[47].8; cf. Plato, Laws 728b-c). Secondly, our behavior in this life
will have an impact on how we will fare in our future lives. Plotinus believes in a cycle of
reincarnation in which past wrongs lead to future suffering (Enn. III.2[47].12). Furthermore, the
choices a person makes within this life will determine the sort of animal (or plant) they are
reincarnated as, with those who maintain the human level becoming humans once again, whereas
those dominated by passions or appetites reincarnated as an appropriate sort of animal or plant
(Enn. III.4[15].2).

Plotinus develops his theory of reincarnation as a reading of Plato’s Myth of Er, which closes the
Republic (Rep. 614b-621d). In the Myth, disembodied souls between cycles of reincarnation
have a variety of lives to choose between. Which life they choose is entirely up to them, and the
gods are not to blame. However, once they choose a particular life, they are bound by necessity
to that life and to the events within that life—for instance, a greedy soul chooses the life of a
tyrant without examining it closely, only to realize after his choice that he is fated to eat his
children. On a literal reading, the myth seems to confine control over what will happen within
one’s life to the choice one makes prior to that life, as a disembodied soul. But Plotinus thinks
that the Myth is an allegory for how all of the soul’s choices in this life shape what will happen
to it in the future (Enn. III.4[15].3; III.4[15].5). It is better to be incarnated in some bodies rather
than others—it is better to be a human rather than a wolf, and some humans have bodily
temperaments more conducive to goodness than others. Nonetheless, the body one is incarnated
into does not determine what one will do; it is up to the soul what it will do given the
opportunities available to it within that life (Enn. III.4[15].5).