Sharples - Soft Determinism and Freedom in Early Stoicism

8/10/2019 Sharples - Soft Determinism and Freedom in Early Stoicism

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Soft Determinism and Freedom in Early StoicismAuthor(s): R. W. SharplesSource: Phronesis, Vol. 31, No. 3 (1986), pp. 266-279Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182261 .Accessed: 29/04/2011 20:40

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DISCUSSION NOTE

Soft Determinism and Freedomin Early Stoicism

R.W. SHARPLES

In her paper 'Freedom, Causality, Fatalism and early Stoic philosophy Dr. SophieBotros challenges assumptions that have perhaps too readily been taken for granted inrecent discussions, and makes important suggestions about the perspective from whichwe should approach Stoic thought on these topics. It is therefore all the more necessary oexamine her conclusions and consider whether they are all equally convincing.

B. is right o emphasise (p. 275) that attempts o assess the Stoic position n terms of themodern debate between compatibilists and incompatibilists, oft-determinists nd liber-tarians, run the risk of obscuring he distinctive perspectives of Stoic thought. She is rightto doubt whether the Stoic conception of causation can be fully captured n the terms ofmodern post-Humean formulations of determinism,2 nd to emphasise both the fact thatthe Stoics may have regarded causes as constraining heir effects3 and also the teleologicaland pantheistic aspects of Stoic determinism.

Perhaps, though, the conflict which B. sees (pp. 279-280) between the chain of causesand causation by the divine is an unreal one. For Stoic pantheism dentified God with theactive principle which is present in all things and makes them what they are - and isparticularly inked, as nveiipa, with the principal cause of a thing's behaviour and henceof its effects on other things.4 Indeed, when B. suggests that we might assume that ateleological account can in principle always be reduced to a deterministic one (p. 280), itis arguable that for the early Stoa the reduction would, if anything, operate in the other

I Phronesis 30 (1985) 274-304.2 pp. 276-280. The suggestion on p. 277 that a distinction between logical and causalnecessity is anachronistic or the Stoics relates to wider ssues concerning ancient thoughtgenerally; cf. R. Sorabji, Aristotle and Oxford Philosophy , American PhilosophicalQuarterly 6 (1969) 127-135, at 129 and 133-5.3 p. 277. Due weight should however be given here to the hostile, anti-deterministcharacter of much of our evidence; and it is noteworthy that in Alexander's Defato theverb &vayx6(Elv seems to be applied not to the action of causes, but only to speakersbeing compelled to adopt particular positions (165.19; 193.27; 207.22).4 Cf. M. Frede, The original notion of cause , in M. Schofield, etc., eds., Doubt andDogmatism (Oxford, 1980), 217-249, especially 243f. The passage from Alexanderquoted by B. p. 279 itself refers to fate as identical with the divine nature which s presentin all that is and comes to be (my italics). Seneca, De beneficiis 4.7 (SVF 2.1024)combines the notion of god as first cause with the identification of god and nature n a waythat is at least compatible with the close identification of god and the causal chain; cf. alsoSVF 2.528 (Arius Didymus), 2.1076 (Philodemus), 1077 (Cicero), and next n.

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direction. It is true that Plotinus treated causation by a single divine cause and the chainof causes as distinct doctrines (3.1, chapters 4 and 7; cf. chapter 2, 37ff.), but this mayreflect a tendency in later antiquity to move away from the original Stoic conception to amore hierarchical view of the relation between god and the world.5 The point is animportant one because B. uses the alleged failure to clarify the relation between divineagency and fate to support her claim that the relation between human agency anduniversal determinism had not been clarified either (p. 299). At the very least it seemsthat the problem where divine agency is concerned, if there is a problem at all, may justbe an aspect of a general metaphysical problem about the relation between God and theuniverse.

B. is also right to emphasise (pp. 280ff.) that the Stoic discussions of possibility havelittle obvious connection with individual freedom6 and that we should not necessarilyaccept the views of ancient critics who, themselves preoccupied with the issue of freedomand determinism, assumed that this must be the Stoics' primary concern too in theirdiscussion of possibility. However, the suggestion that the Stoics accepted Philo's defini-tion of possibility in terms of bare suitability whether impeded or not, as well as thedefinition of the possible in terms of what is not impeded, seems wrong (p. 281).7 Nor is itclear that Alexander presents the claim that the Stoic position removes the point ofdeliberating, in chapter 11 of his Defato, as a consequence of his rejection of the Stoicdefence of possibility, in ch. 10 (cf. B., p. 282); rather, both the denial of possibility andthe uselessness of deliberation are presented as parallel and unacceptable consequencesof the doctrine that all things come about of necessity (7 171.26), and the allegedexclusion of real possibility by determinism s objectionable to Alexander in itself, andnot just in

connection with human action.8Suggestive, too, is B.'s claim that the early Stoics may have combined a fundamentalassumption that human agency was distinctive n type with a causal determinism he fullimplications of which had not been realised - that they were, as she puts it, agent-causalists who simply did not fully realise the conflict between determinism and humanautonomy. For the combination of belief in fate and the assumption that men are, evenso, responsible for their actions is, as B. argues (p. 301), familiar from earlier Greekthought;9 and so in particular s the idea that human choices and fate function jointly

I God is distinguished from fate as the expression of his will or design in texts like SVF2.932 (Augustine), 2.933 (Calcidius); but elsewhere the two are identified (SVF1.102=2.580, 160, 2.580, 929-931, 937). Cf. W. Theiler, Tacitus und die antikeSchicksalslehre , n Phylloboliaffur P. von der Muhil (Basel 1946) 35-90, at 43-48; J. denBoeft, Calcidius on Fate (Leiden 1970), 14. It is true that even Chrysippus' doctrine ofnvEi34tc ompromised divine immanence to some extent as contrasted with the originalposition of Zeno (cf. R.B. Todd, Monism and immanence , in J.M. Rist (ed.), TheStoics (Berkeley 1978), 137-160); but Alexander for one could still object to the Stoicemphasis on divine immanence (SVF 2.1047-8).6 Cf. especially her remark about the jewel that can be broken; Cicero Defato 31, B. p.281.7Cf. my discussion in Alexander of Aphrodisias: Problems about possibility, I , BICS29 (1982), 91-108, at 92, and M. Frede, Die stoische Logik (Gottingen 1974) 107ff.8 Cf. Alexander Defato 7 172.6-9, 24 194.23-5.9 Cf. E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational Berkeley, 1951), 7; A.W.H. Adkins,Merit and Responsibility Oxford 1960) ch. 2.

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without there being any conflict between them. 0 These ideas may even throw ight on theformulation of two problematic passages, reflecting Greek philosophical discussions, inan author as late as Josephus:

judging that everything is done by fate they (the Pharisees) do not deprive thehuman will (lit. the willing (part) of what is human) of the impulse that depends onthemselves, it having seemed good to God that there should be a blending between(fate's) council-chamber and him among men who has consented (reading -uiO8EXoavtL) o approach it with virtue or vice.

(Jewish Antiquities 18.13)

The Pharisees .. attribute everything o fate and God, and say that acting ustly ornot depends on men for the most part, but that fate also assists in each thing.

(Jewish War 2.162)There are however two aspects of B.'s account about which some hesitation may be felt.They are, first, her arguments against the classification of the Stoics as soft determinists,and, secondly, her failure to distinguish within Stoic doctrine between the two concep-tions of what, for want of a better word, I shall call responsibility '2 nd freedom. It is tothese two issues and their ramifications hat the rest of this paper will be devoted.

lI

In discussing whether the Stoics were soft determinists there are both conceptual andhistorical difficulties. The point of agent-causation heory, as B. says (p. 298), has inmodern times usually been to argue that the discussion of human agency in the context ofphysical determinism is simply misplaced. An agent-causalist will therefore reject theattempt of the compatibilist, or soft determinist, to reconcile responsibility and determi-nism by - as a libertarian will see it - unacceptably watering down our notion ofresponsible action. But the agent-causalist will also reject the claim that true responsi-bility can only be established by admitting a radical ndeterminism, or example like thatof the Epicurean atomic swerve, into the realm of physical events. In other words, theagent-causalist, by drawing a contrast between human actions and physical events,

10 Cf. Aeschylus, Persae 742, Agamemnon 912f., 1507ff. Aristotle in NicomacheanEthics 3.5 1114b23 suggests that men might be OVOELTLOL f their dispositions; cf.W.F.R. Hardie, Aristotle's Ethical Theory (20xford 1980) 178-80 and 384-5.

Cf. G.F. Moore, Fate and free will in the Jewish philosophers according toJosephus , Harvard Theological Review 22 (1929) 371ff.; Theiler (above n. 5), 39ff.;A.A. Long, Stoic determinism and Alexander of Aphrodisias Defato (I-XIV) , AGPh52 (1970), 266; R.W. Sharples, Alexander of Aphrodisias On Fate (London 1983) 126.12 Nicholas White has criticised this rendering of x6 tip' ilAiv in his review of myAlexander: On Fate n Philosophical Review 94 (1984) 31. I used the term simply becauseit seemed neutral in itself between libertarian and soft-determinist interpretations; tshould certainly not be taken as indicating moral or legal concerns to the exclusion of theunderlying physical and psychological theory of human action. I have endeavoured toclarify the point in Could Alexander (follower of Aristotle) have done better? A replyto Professor Frede and others , Oxford Studies n Ancient Philosophy 5 (1987).

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argues that the dilemma - soft determinism or radical ndeterminism is misplaced.'3B. however holds (p. 302) that a sharp distinction between human agency and other

causation is fundamentally nconsistent with the tendency of early Stoicism to see thewhole world as a unified system. Since the Stoics certainly were determinists andcertainly did believe in human responsibility, the only possibilities are either that theyassumed a soft-determinist notion of responsibility or that they took for granted aseparation between human agency and other causation which they did not clearlyformulate with all its implications, and indeed could not have clearly formulated withoutcompromising their whole system. (B.'s claim that philosophers who were concernedwith both determinism and responsibility'4 ould treat these topics in virtual isolationfrom each other (p. 274) is only legitimate f it rests on at least a tacit assumption of eitheragent-causation theory or compatibilism.) The question is thus, in general terms,whether we should explain the Stoic position by attributing to them a doctrine ofresponsibility which has been widely held by modern philosophers, even if others havefound it unacceptable, or whether we should attribute to them a distinction betweenhuman agency and other causation which may seem intuitively attractive but is in fact onB.'s own showing ultimately incompatible with their general position. Individual scho-lars' own views on the free-will question may influence their approach o the Stoics here;and the philosophically more satisfying answer and the historically more accurate onemay not necessarily be the same. At one point B. herself, in attributing the Stoics'position to their defective concept of freedom (p. 275) might be thought to imply that itis tacit compatibilism, rather han tacit agent-causation heory, that is at work in the Stoicposition.

B.'s case would be strengthened f it could be shownthat the problem of determinismand freedom in its modern terms had simply not yet been realised. This, however, seems

at least uncertain. Realisation of a problem in reconciling reedom with universal causaldeterminism indeed presupposes clear formulation of such a theory; and it is true thatAristotle does not generally seem to envisage such a theory explicitly, or draw a connec-tion between his rejection of necessitating causal chains of indefinite extension inMetaphysics E3 and his discussion of responsible action in Nicomachean Ethics 3.5. Theinterpretation of the latter passage raises issues too complex to discuss here. 5 ButEpicurus at least does seem to have seen an incompatibility between causal determinismand human freedom.16 Moreover, the question of the relation between individual

13 One may compare the attemptof thinkers ike Carneades and Alexander to escape theStoic dilemma of determinism without a cause (cf. Sharples, above n. 11, 13 and 147-8).

White, above n. 12, indeed argues that Alexander should be regarded as an agentcausalist; I am not sure that this captures all aspects of Alexander's position (for example,his apparent treatment of chance events as exceptions to determinism), but it seems anacceptable description as far as it goes. (I have discussed his further n the article cited inn. 12 above.)14 B. says freedom ; but see below, section III.'5 Cf. Hardie, above n. 10, 173-181 and 381-6; Sharples, above n. 13, 6-7.16 Cf. Epicurus On Nature, 34.30 (7.XI.7ff.) in G. Arrighetti, ed., Epicuro: Opere(2 Turin, 1973), with the discussion by D. Sedley, Epicurus' Refutation of Determi-nism in Syzetesis, studi offerti a M. Gigante (Naples 1983) 20 and

22-23; Letter toMenoeceus 133-4. P.M. Huby, The first discovery of the freewill problem , Philosophy42 (1967) 353-362.

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prophecies or divine dispensations and human responsibility or the actions prophesiedor decreed, while it is not the same as the issue of freedom and universal causaldeterminism, does have some bearing on the realisation of the problem. It is true that aconflict between destiny and responsibility s not an issue in early and classical Greekliterature as often as modem readers, looking back over centuries of argument aboutindividual responsibility in philosophical and theological contexts, tend to assume.Nevertheless, besides the passages cited earlier which suggest a combination of destinyand human responsibility with no incompatibility being felt, there are others, from wellbefore the period of the early Stoa, that do suggest awareness of a problem n this area.

There are three main considerations that lead B. to reject the attribution of a soft-determinist position to the Stoics. First, she argues that the Stoics do not display thedesire of most soft-determinists to show that their position does not do away withresponsibility or action (p. 275, n. 6). This assumes - plausibly enough perhaps - thatsoft determinism must be a consciously adopted position, that a soft-determinist oncep-tion of responsibility can only arise as the result of a realisation of the primafacie conflictbetween determinism and responsibility as ordinarily understood, while the assumptionthat there is something distinctive about human action can be made without reflection,and indeed in her view must be, if there is to be room for it in the Stoic theory at all.

But in fact the Stoics were it seems concerned to rebut the notion that their positiondoes away with responsibility. B. herself goes on to cite Chrysippus n SVF 2.1000arguing hat wicked ... men ought not to be endured . . . who, when they are caughtfast in guilt and sin, take refuge in the inevitable nature of fate, as if in the asylum of someshrine, declaring that their outrageous actions must be charged, not to their own

heedlessness, but to fate (p. 301). (It might be thoughtthat it is not absolutely certain

that it is his own position that Chrysippus s defending here; but in fact Gellius, who is thesource of this report, explicitly indicates that Chrysippus' discussion of the question ofresponsibility ollowed directly on from the statement of the cylinder-argument.) Alex-ander gives Stoic arguments claiming to show that praise and blame are only in place iffate exists (Defato 35 207.5ff., 37 210.15ff.); it is at least highly plausible to suppose thatthese were intended to counter arguments that belief in fate renders praise and blameinappropriate, hough we do not know the date at which they originated. 18B. herself (p.302) interprets the analogy of the dog tied to the chariot, which may follow willingly orunwillingly but must follow none the less, as an attempt by the Stoics to come to gripswith the problem posed for freedom by their thesis of determinism , hough her discus-

sion of this passage raises further problems to which we must return later.Secondly, B. argues that modem soft-determinists characteristically mphasise thedifference between cases where the agent is, and those where he is not, unable to actotherwise because constrained by the circumstances; nd she argues that the Stoics, whodo not emphasise this point, are therefore not typical soft-determinists. She recognises

17 Cf. Aristophanes Frogs 1182ff. - though it may be noted that this suggests thatOedipus' destiny was incompatible with his happiness, not his responsibility and, moretellingly, Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus 969, which mentions the oracle as one amongOedipus' reasons for denying his guilt (contrast B. p. 301, on the Oedipus Tyrannus).18 The definition of law used in one of the arguments, at 207.8, is known to be Chrysip-pus' own - SVF 3.314, etc. - but that is not conclusive.

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that the presence or absence of external constraint s mentioned in a passage of Nemesius(SVF2.991),'9 but argues that the Stoics did not in general emphasise this point.20

It is true that some modern soft-determinists have emphasised the difference betweencases where human agents are, and those where they are not, subject to externalconstraints.2' But they have done so, in effect, in order to argue that other types ofnecessitation - not external to the agent, immediately anyway22- do not remove responsi-bility. It is this latter point that is at issue in the debate over whether could n he couldhave done otherwise , regarded as a necessary condition for responsibility, has acategorical sense or is always n fact accompanied by a suppressed condition such as if hehad chosen .23

Some caution is needed here. To say that he could have done otherwise can alwaysbe interpreted as he could have done otherwise if he had chosen sounds, on its own,like an innocent truism; for even the libertarian is not presumably going to

makeresponsibility depend on our actions being at variance with our choices. When the issuebecomes a real one is when it is admitted as it must be by the committed determinist, asopposed to the agent-causalist - that our choices are themselves as predetermined aseverything else. For this reason it may be better to take the argument a stage furtherback, and to state the issue as whether or not the determining of choices and actions byfactors internal to the agent,24 hese being themselves predetermined by other factorsbefore them and so back ad infinitum, is to be regarded as removing responsibility or

'9 Cf. R.W. Sharples, Alexander of Aphrodisias Defato: some parallels , Class. Quart.28 (1978) 243-266, at 254-5. Origen in SVF 2.990 makes a similar point to Nemesius(p. 290.6-8, where what is in our power includes not just our attitude to them but alsowhat use we make of them). The passage is influenced by the Stoics rather han a reportof their position, but it does occur in a context (following on directly from SVF 2.988)which shows considerable influence of Stoic thought. B. is right to point out thatEpictetus' view that our will alone is free, on the grounds that it alone cannot beconstrained by external factors (whereas even our bodily movements can) makes adifferent point from the modern soft-determinist discussion of cases where we are andcases where we are not constrained (p. 286); but Epictetus' view can be seen as adevelopment of a more general point about actions that are or are not impeded. Seebelow, section III.2' The importance of external constraint had been indicated in Aristotle, NicomacheanEthics 1109b35-11 0a4; but it is questionable how far the Stoics were either aware of orinterested in Aristotle's esoteric works. Cf. the generally negative conclusions of F.H.Sandbach, Aristotle and the Stoics, Proc. Cambridge Philological Soc. supplementaryvolume 10, 1985.23 Cf. e.g. A.J. Ayer, Philosophical Essays (London 1954) ch. 12, cited by B. p. 275, n.10.22 See below, n. 25.24 Cf. G.E. Moore, Ethics (Oxford 1912) 102ff., reprinted n G. Dworkin, ed., Determi-nism, Free Will and Moral Responsibility Englewood Cliffs NJ 1970) 129ff. (especially137ff. of the reprint), and J.L. Austin, Ifs and Cans , p. 297 of the reprint in B.Berofsky (ed.), Determinism and Free Will (New York 1966).

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not.25The soft determinist will hold that, even if external constraint at the time of actionremoves responsibility, such internal necessitation does not.26

B. is right to argue that Chrysippus' cylinder-argument, oncerned as it is with thecontrast between the principal cause of action and initiating causes that prompt it, hasnothing directly o do with questions of constraint or of factors preventing action, and thatit therefore has nothing directly to do with the Stoic definition of possibility, in so far asthat is concerned with whether an outcome is prevented or not.27 But it is very muchconcerned, it would seem, with establishing that, even within the Stoic deterministsystem, it is factors nternal o us that play the major part n determining how we behave.This is especially apparent n the version reported by Cicero (Defato 42): a cylinder and a

25 One might rather say, by a combination of internal and external factors; for in adeterminist system it is true not only that people with different characters will react indifferent ways to the same situation, but also that how a given person reacts depends onthe situation with which he is confronted. However, the emphasis in the cylinder-argument s all on the effect of the principal cause, located in the agent, in determiningthe action (cf. below, n. 27, and B. pp. 287-8).26 One needs to stress and so back ad infinitum , because the claim that internal actorspartly determine our actions sounds as innocuous in itself as the claim that our actionsfollow our choices; it is the unbroken chain of causal necessitations into the past thatcreates the problem. Similarly, to say that a man's character determines his action is atruism f his character s defined in such a way that it includes his deciding as he does onthe occasion in question (cf. A.A. Long, Problems n Stoicism (London 1971) 188); butthis does not mean that there is not still a question whether or not our actions arepredetermined by antecedent factors some of which may be grouped together anddescribed as our character . I am not convinced by Long's attempt, loc. cit., to give thetruism force by relating it rather to the doctrine of the cyclical recurrence of events.)Putting t another way, in an unbroken deterministic causal nexus all factors, even thoseapparently nternal to the agent at the time of action, can ultimately be traced back toones external to him (cf. Sharples, above n. 13, 20 and n. 135). In a unified deterministsystem human agents cannot be seen as ultimately distinct from the causal nexus as awhole.26The point about external constraint needs to be emphasised. It is questionablewhether, as B. p. 285-6 suggests (in the context of an analysis he does not herself accept),Chrysippus would see any moral difference between an alcoholic compelled to drinkby his own desire and someone who simply chooses to drink. For even in the case of thealcoholic it is not a matter of external constraint. It is true, as it happens, that Chrysippuswould not regard he alcoholic as free, but neither would he so regard he non-alcoholic,unless he happens to be perfectly virtuous; see below, section III.27 The distinctions between causes found in the cylinder analogy can indeed be related tothe Stoic definition of possibility; what is possible is what admits of being true and is notprevented (SVF2.201; above n. 7), and admits of being true is plausibly nterpreted nterms of the nature of the thing involved and hence of the principal cause (cf. M.E.Reesor, Fate and Necessity in Early Stoic Philosophy , Phoenix 19 (1965) 285-297). Butthe point of emphasis n the cylinder analogy as actually used by Chrysippus eems not tobe that the cylinder can roll, but will not unless pushed (and still less that it can in itself rollbut cannot if it is impeded by something). Rather, the point is that a cylinder can rolldownhill in a straight ine while a cone (or a cube) cannot.

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cone react in different ways to the same stimulus.28 o the cylinder argument, while notdirectly related to one half of the soft-determinist position, the presence or absence ofexternal constraints, does seem very much related to the other part, the claim thatnecessitation which is not (directly) external does not remove responsibility.

B. might ndeed object to bringing he agent's character r nature nto the discussion ofthe principal cause at all; in her analysis of the cylinder argument she emphasises assentand impulse as the principal causes. However, this reflects her general. view of thesignificance of the argument. If it is regarded as consciously stated within a deterministcontext, then assent and impulse must be as predetermined as everything else, and theagent's character is at least a convenient shorthand for those factors, internal to theagent, through which they are predetermined. Moreover, the link between the principalcause and the nvefi4a that determines the nature of a thing, suggested by Frede,29suggests that it is not just the fact that the agent has the impulses and makes the assentsthat he does that is at issue, but something about the agent's nature. It might still beargued that what corresponds o the shape of the cylinder n the analogy is the nature of ahuman agent as such rather han the character of any particular human agent. But the factthat the tension of one's soukrvei3iLa etermines, or rather s, one's moral state - of whichone's impulses and assents are the expression or the result - suggests that it is thecharacter of the particular agent that is at issue.

B., however, interprets the cylinder argument differently, as emphasising that theprincipal cause of our actions is human agency, regarded - even if only as a tacitassumption rather than explicitly as different in kind from other types of causation (B.p. 287-8: human action . . . is distinguished rom mere happening n terms of its specialcausal structure ). This goes beyond the suggestion that principal causes and externalinitiating causes are in principle different in kind,-10 nd involves a specific claim abouthuman agency. But if this is the point of the argument, t seems that the choice of exampleis hardly a good one, as it makes it all too easy for critics to claim that the Stoic position,far from distinguishing between human agency and other causation, reduces humanagents to the level of inanimate objects. Alexander actually makes this point, with ratherless justice, against an argument, mentioned by B. on pp. 286-7, that does seek toestablish a difference in kind between the behaviour of animals qua animals, which

28 Cf. also Origen, SVF 2.988 fin., on the reactions of two different men to the samesituation.29 Cf. Frede, above n. 4, 243f.-0 B. suggests that, because the principal cause of action is in the agent, the distinctionbetween cases where we are and cases where we are not compelled ceases to beintelligible in the Stoic system (p. 288). However, if a case is truly one of forcible physicalcompulsion, so that my assent is not involved at all, it is not really my action (cf. B. p.295), and there is no reason to expect the causal analysis to apply in the same way. Aperson who is pushed and stumbles into someone, say (cf. Alexander, Ethical Problems12 133.7-9), is not reacting as a person at all, but simply as a dead weight. If on the otherhand it is rather a question of my choosing, however reluctantly, o succumb o a threat, itis not a matter of the external cause predominating over assent and impulse, but of itsproviding the initiating cause for them in the usual way; for different people will react indifferent ways to the same threat, just as they would to other stimuli n general. (Cf. B. p.300-1.)

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results from impulse, and that of inanimate objects; though it may be noted that it is withanimal rather than human behaviour that this argument s concerned.3'

The singling out of human agency from other types of causation, which B. sees in thecylinder-argument, s the third factor which leads her to argue against a soft-deterministinterpretation of the early Stoics and to see them rather as implicit agent-causalists. Shesees evidence for a tendency to draw a sharp distinction between human agency and othertypes of causation, at least implicitly, not only in the cylinder argument but also in theanalogy of the dog tied to the waggon, which can either follow willingly or be dragged.32This analogy plays a central part n B.'s interpretation, and she devotes a large part of herarticle to a detailed discussion of it.

One problem for B.'s case, already touched upon, is that of chronology. Since sherightly sees excessive emphasis on the human agent, as opposed to the whole causalnexus, as threatening he unity of the Stoic physical system, she seems at times to presentit as a tendency which was present from the first but developed only gradually. However,the more one stresses the fact that the tendency was not initially strong or explicit, theharder t becomes to make it the central point of an interpretation. When she says that inthe dog and waggon analogy there begins to emerge that metaphysical conception of a'willing subject' which 'stands over and against' he whole determined world . . . such aconception would have seemed alien, even revolutionary, o the early Stoics (p. 302), itis easy to forget that the analogy itself is early Stoic, explicitly attributed to Zeno andChrysippus B. p. 290); and indeed it is essential for B.'s argument hat it should be earlyStoic. B. is of course aware of the difficulty, and attempts to resolve it by suggesting that

it might even have been resistance to such a picture of the relation between the self and

the world (sc. as standing over against each other) that prevented them (sc. the earlyStoics) from fully articulating he free will/determinism onflict, and thus from grapplingwith it except by a confused, though suggestive, analogy . But in fact it can be argued,first that the analogy does admit of a consistent soft-determinist interpretation, andsecondly that the shift in Stoic views may not have been as great as B. supposes.

The analogy certainly expresses a contrast between what is in our power and what isnot, between the human agent and external circumstances. But an adequate interpreta-tion of this can be given without introducing he tensions B. detects, provided that a soft-determinist account of responsibility s accepted. It may be predetermined hat one manwill, by his actions, try to resist what is decreed by fate and providence, while another willact in such a way as to assist t. Even if the actions of each man are pre-determined by fate,

they are none the less his actions, and he is - on a soft-determinist account such as thatimplied by the cylinder argument as interpreted above, though not as interpreted by B. -responsible or these actions precisely up to the point where their effects are thwarted byfate, as the analogy mplies they sooner or later will be if they are opposed to the directionthat it is already predetermined hat events will take.33 The dog's attempt to resist the pullof the rope is doomed to achieve nothing as far as the dog's remaining where it is or goingin another direction is concerned; but it does have some effects - abrasions on the dog's

31 Alexander, Defato chapters 13 and 14; cf. Sharples, above n. 19, 253-258.32 SVF 2.975; B. p. 290 and n. 33.33 Predetermined, of course, in a way that is not independent of the agent's action, buttakes it into account - which need not be the same as admitting that it will actually besuccessful. See below, notes 38 and 39.

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paws, for instance - and the dog is responsible for those.34 t may be objected that talk ofresponsibility only makes sense because, in the analogy, the dog is distinct from thewaggon, which represents fate, so that its mode of following is not decided by fate; but itis only those already opposed to a soft-determinist, compatibilist conception of responsi-bility who will make such an objection. No analogy is perfect, and it is not clear that theseparation of the dog from the waggon in the example should lead us to regard he dog'schoice as anything other than predetermined.35

There are of course difficulties n such an interpretation. One objection might be that itdoes not make sense to speak of fate itself causing some people to struggle against thedictates of fate. However, it is not clear that there is anything n this incompatible withthe notion of a deterministic causal nexus as such; it may well be that, in a deterministicsystem, certain effects of parts of the causal nexus conflict with those of others or evencancel them out. It might indeed be asked why a fate identified with divine providenceshould behave in this way; but whether or not a plausible answer can be found,36 heproblem is one that is present for the Stoics on any account, since they hold both thateverything is governed by divine providence and also that the majority of men are bothbad and mad.37 t might also be argued that it makes no sense to speak of a man's actionsas assisting fate when they are a part of it; but there clearly is a contrast between actionsthrough which what eventually happens - and hence was fated to happen38- is broughtabout and actions which, if they had succeeded, would have brought about an outcomedifferent from that which eventually occurred. One might be tempted to draw a contrastbetween actions that play their part in the causal nexus and those that do not; but in factall actions do that - the difference is that for some the allotted part is an unproductiveone.39

u Clearly the dog is an analogy for a human agent, so the question whether animals areresponsible for their actions does not arise. In fact, though, the Stoics may have held thatthey were, in a sense; cf. C. Stough, Stoic determinism and moral responsibility , inRist, above n. 5, 203-232, at 229 n. 21.35 One is tempted to replace the image by one of a man sitting on a runaway bicycle(controlled of course by divine providence) who can choose whether to pedal or to try notto. But even the cyclist is distinct from the bicycle. B. herself elsewhere rejects Cicero'sclaim (following Antiochus?) that the cylinder-argument s intended to confine fate toonly a part of the chain of causes (B., p. 287 n. 30).36 It might for example be argued that providence inflicts adversity on men in order toteach them the hard way that external things are of no account compared to virtue (cf.Seneca, De prov. 4.5ff.; F.H. Sandbach, The Stoics (London 1975) 107f.); but that willjust raise the question, why in a providential world should men need to be taught this? Cf.also SVF 3.177.37 Cf. Alexander, De fato 28, and Sharples (above n.13) pp. 162-3. We know that theStoics attempted, not very plausibly, to account for this: Calcidius, In Timaeum 165 =SVF 3.229.38 But not, of course, fated to happen regardless of the action, as the doctrine of co-fatedevents shows (cf. B. p. 288, on Chrysippus' reply to the Lazy Argument).39 Alexander in Defato 23 represents the Stoics as claiming that everything has an effect;but they must clearly have recognised that there were cases where one thing was impededby another and so did not achieve its full effect, at any rate. The question is partly one ofwhat counts as having an effect . Cf. Sharples, above n. 13, p. 154.

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Admittedly, in discussing cases like that represented by the analogy of the dog and thewaggon it is almost inevitable that one will in fact slide into treating he agent and the restof the causal nexus - that part which does not operate through him - as distinct not just atthe moment of action but more fundamentally. But this is simply the difficulty hat non-compatibilists have always found in believing that anyone could simultaneously gothrough a process of deciding how to act and be aware that the outcome of that processwas predetermined. I would not want to argue that the tendency to treat human agency asseparate from the causal nexus which B. detects never influenced the thought of in-dividual Stoics in particular contexts;40 my point is rather that we should not too readilygive up the attempt to interpret ormal discussions of the issue, like the cylinder argumentand the example of the dog and the waggon, in terms of consistent soft-determinist viewswhich, however implausible hey may seem, have been held by many, rather han basingour whole interpretation on the imputation o the Stoics of viewpoints which were not yetmade explicit and in fact could not consistently be so. The suggestion s not that the pointof the analogy of the dog and the waggon is actually to emphasise our responsibility orour behaviour, as the example of the cylinder s; the point of the analogy s, by contrast-ing two types of reaction, to make a point about the nature of freedom (below, sectionIII). But the actual point of the analogy, and the question whether t can be interpreted asmaking hat point in a way that is compatible with Stoic determinism n general and with asoft-determinist account of human action in particular, are two different issues.

B. describes the analogy of the dog and waggon, in considering he individual who doesnot want to do what he is compelled by fate to do, as virtually unique in early Stoicism(p. 302). As she herself remarks in a footnote - the implications of the fates lead the

willing and drag the unwilling , attributed to Cleanthes by Seneca, are similar;41 utthere is a complication here in that Cleanthes did claim that the actions of wicked menwere not caused by divine providence,42 whether or not he nevertheless held that theywere caused by fate.43 However, it seems that Cleanthes, in denying the universality of

40Alexander points out that it is above all the determinists' practice of exhortation that isat odds with their position (Defato chapter 18); even if my appeal to you is one of thefactors that will determine whether you seek virtue or not, it is difficult to urge you toseek virtue while in the same breath saying that, even if it is your decision, it ispredetermined whether you will say yes or no.41 p. 290 n. 33. 1do not know why B. refers to Augustine as quoting Seneca, when the

Seneca text itself isextant (SVF

1527); nor is the citation taken from Cleanthes' Hymn to

Zeus (= SVF 1.537). In fact the line quoted from Seneca's version does not correspond oanything n that cited by Epictetus (also in SVF 1.527); but even if it is an addition bySeneca himself, it only sums up in epigrammatical orm what is implicit n the precedinglines.42 In the Hymn, SVF 1.537 line 13. It is here if anywhere hat the setting of the individual(but only the wicked ndividual?) over against the universe s found in early Stoicism; butsee next note.43 Calcidius n SVF 1.551 suggests that Cleanthes held that everything was due to fateeven if not to providence, whereas Chrysippus held the scope of the two to be identical;but M. Dragona-Monachou, Providence and Fate in Stoicism and pre-Neoplatonism ,Philosophia 3 (Athens 1973) 262-304, has argued with some force that the formulationmay reflect Calcidius' desire to find a counterpart o the Middle Platonist view accordingto which the scope of fate was narrower han that of providence.

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divine providence, was at variance with the general early Stoic opinion.44The difference between early Stoic emphasis on co-operation with the divine, provi-

dential plan45 nd the later attitude of resignation (B. p. 291) is a matter of emphasisrather than of substantial difference in doctrine. When B. notes an emphasis on(unhappy) human fate in the later period, it is worth stressing hat for the early Stoics thedestiny of an individual was part of universal destiny, so that what we have is a shift inemphasis, a stressing of one particular aspect, rather than a change in doctrine.46Moreover, in saying that individual nature could be impeded, but universal nature never(SVF2.935), Chrysippus was recognising he possibility of conflicts between the particu-lar and the general;47 nd it seems to have been Chrysippus himself who said that thefoot itself, if it had a mind, would eagerly seek to be covered with mud .

It is true that Epictetus, later, lays emphasis on the contrast between his own attitudes,which he can control, and the external factors which he cannot, without admitting as heshould if he is to be consistent with early Stoic determinism that his own attitudes arethemselves predetermined. But even if this marks a change and development in the Stoicposition, it may be seen as a natural result of the personal nature of Epictetus' writing andconcerns. Soft-determinist accounts of choice which may be plausible n the third personare less so in the second or first.49

III

B. argues that the analogy of the dog and the waggon suggests that the Stoics regardedhuman agents as primarily unfree (p. 290). But for the Stoics free has a special sense. It

44 Even if Calcidius' formulation goes beyond what the early Stoics explicitly said (seelast note), he would hardly have expressed himself so if Chrysippus had regardedprovidence as less than universal; and for the universality of fate and its identificationwith providence by Chrysippus cf. SVF 2.937.45 Cf. SVF 3.4 (Chrysippus); also Posidonius in Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 2.21129.4 (fr. 186 Edelstein-Kidd).46 A similar question arises in connection with Panaetius' emphasis on individual naturein ethics; cf. J.M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge 1969) 186-7, and I.G. Kidd, StoicIntermediates and the end for man , in Long, above n. 26, at 160-162.

I Cf. also the justification of what seems detrimental o the individual as being in factforthe benefit of the whole: SVF2. 1175-7. Alexander in quaestio 1.4 (p. 10.19 Bruns) refers

to the problem of those who are discontented with what is fated allegedly being sothrough fate themselves, and at p. 10.23-4 he seems to suggest that the issue was onediscussed by determinists themselves, if indeed fate creates some things which will notobey their causes without force is not a suggestion which he himself has put in theirmouths. But the suggested solution is not quite the same - or as plausible - as thatsuggested above, which could rather be expressed by saying that some things do obeytheir own causes (how could they not?), but are caused by them to perform utile actions.Nor is the date or precise identity of the determinists n question altogether certain. Cf.R.W. Sharples, An Ancient Dialogue on Possibility: Alexander of Aphrodisiasquaestio 1.4 , AGPh 64 (1982) 23-38, at 25 and 30-33.48 SVF 3.191. See von Arnim's apparatus ad loc.49 Above, n. 40.

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is the wise man alone who is free;5? e is so because his wishes are not opposed to whathappens to him (and, since it happens, is ex hypothesi destined to do so). The point is notso much that, knowing what will happen, he confines his wishes to that alone; for that sortof detailed knowledge is not humanly possible, it would seem, even for the sage.51Rather, while he will attempt to achieve those external things that are preferred , hewill recognise that virtue alone is what matters, and so will be resigned to failure and losswhere external things are concerned.52 n Long's telling example,53 a Stoic sage willbravely try to rescue a child from a burning house, but if he fails will feel no regrets,S4because he knows that the life of the child, like everything else other than virtue, is amatter of indifference, and that the fact that he acted virtuously n making the attemptmatters more than the fact that he failed.

Epictetus, in claiming that our will is free because it alone can never be impeded,whereas even our bodily movements can (B. p. 286), is making essentially the samepoint. It may often, because of the circumstances n which we are placed, be a matter ofour attitude to the actions of those more powerful than us, rather than of our taking theinitiative for ourselves, but that does not alter the fact that the essential point is how webehave, rather than either what we achieve or what happens to us, and that a man'sbehaviour will not be favourably udged if he simply has the right attitudes but does notact virtuously (whether successfully or not) when it is right for him to do so. Certainlyneither Epictetus nor the early Stoics can have held that what was in our power includedonly our attitudes and not our (predetermined) actions, as that would lead to theabsurdity hat a man compelled by fate to commit a crime would not be responsible for itprovided only that he did it with an attitude of revulsion from it. What is at issue in the

analogyof the dog and the waggon is not just what the dog feels but what - in a very

limited sense, it is true - he does. Some of the actions we choose to perform will beprevented by other factors from achieving he intended result, others will not. Epictetus'claim that our will alone is free because it alone can never be controlled by anythingoutside us is a general claim; it does not mean that we should not try to act in a way thatwill, if not impeded, affect both our limbs and the external world, nor does it mean that, ifour attempts are not impeded, we are not responsible for their effects.

It might be objected that the particular way in which the Stoics used free , confining tto the wise man, need not affect discussion of whether they regarded human actions ingeneral as free in some other sense. But the restriction of the application of freenecessarily raises the question of the terms'in which the Stoics did discuss human action in

general; and here their concern seems to be not so much freedomas responsibility or

50SVF3.355-364, 544; Long, above n. 25, 189ff. and nn.5' It might be thought that the analogy of the dog and waggon does suggest that it isconformity o the course of fate as far as one can foresee it that is at issue. But presumablywe are to think of even the willing dog as not realising where he must go until he feels thepull of the rope. On the other hand it would be wrong to be led by the analogy to regardthe issue as purely one of our passive response; running behind the waggon is itself anaction, though not one with any obvious effects on anything but the dog.52 Cf. the illuminating discussion of this point in B. Inwood, Ethics and Human Action inEarly Stoicism (Oxford 1985) 119-126.53 A.A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy (London 1974) 197-9.54 Cf. SVF 3.565.

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imputability, concepts which are, at least in the view of soft determinists, in place in asoft-determinist as well as in a libertarian system. In the Stoic system all men areresponsible for their actions, unless physically constrained; but not all men or all actionsarefree, as B. claims on p. 296. This does not however mean that we should interpret hedog and waggon analogy as suggesting that human actions are essentially unfree either(cf. B. p. 290); rather, the dog that follows willingly is, in Stoic terms, free, the one thatresists and is dragged is not (or at least, the man for whom the dog is an analogy will befree if his following willingly stems from perfect virtue). If this freedom seems unreal,we may reflect, first, that the dog who follows willingly s in a happier state than the onefor whom it is predetermined that he will, on his own responsibility, resist and bedragged; and, secondly, that it is divine providence hat is directing or the best the courseof the waggon and of all the dogs tied to it.

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Sharples - Soft Determinism and Freedom in Early Stoicism