ABSTRACT
Suppose that there is nothing in the animal’s causal history to incline him to one table rather than the other. In that case, if all his actions are causally predetermined – the inevitable effects of prior causes, which themselves are produced by prior causes in a chain that goes back indefinitely – he will sit there and perish. If causal determinism is true of animals, we might expect it to apply to people as well. Then if someone found himself midway between the food-laden tables, he would not be able to choose to go to one or the other. He might, it is true, consider tossing a coin. The trouble is that there would be nothing to make him associate heads with one table rather than another. Similarly, if he decided to choose on the basis of which of two birds reached a tree first: he would have no reason to associate a bird with a particular table. If everything that happens is determined by prior causes, he would stay there and die. And it does seem possible in principle that he should find himself in such a position. If he did, wouldn’t he always find some way of choosing a table to go to first rather than let himself starve to death? ‘If I concede that he will [starve to death]’, said Spinoza (1632-77), ‘I would seem to conceive an ass, or a statue of a man, not a man. But if I deny that he will, then he will determine himself, and consequently have the faculty of going where he wills and doing what he wills.’
