Editing Determinism (section)

==Structural==
Structural determinism is the philosophical view that actions, events, and processes are predicated on and determined by structural factors.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Proulx|first=J|date=2008|title=Structural determinism as hindrance to teachers' learning: Implications for teacher education|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337843839|journal=Proceedings of PME-33 and PME-NA-20|volume=4}}</ref> Given any particular structure or set of estimable components, it is a concept that emphasizes rational and predictable outcomes. Chilean biologists [[Humberto Maturana]] and [[Francisco Varela]] popularized the notion, writing that a living system's general order is maintained via a circular process of ongoing self-referral, and thus its organization and structure defines the changes it undergoes.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Leyland|first=M.L|date=1988|title=An introduction to some of the ideas of Humberto Maturana|journal=Journal of Family Therapy|volume=10|issue=4|pages=357–374|doi=10.1046/j..1988.00323.x|doi-access=free}}</ref> According to the authors, a system can undergo changes of state (alteration of structure without loss of identity) or disintegrations (alteration of structure with loss of identity). Such changes or disintegrations are not ascertained by the elements of the disturbing agent, as each disturbance will only trigger responses in the respective system, which in turn, are determined by each system's own structure.

On an [[Individualism|individualistic]] level, what this means is that human beings as free and independent entities are triggered to react by external stimuli or change in circumstance. However, their own internal state and existing physical and mental capacities determine their responses to those triggers. On a much broader societal level, structural determinists believe that larger issues in the society—especially those pertaining to minorities and subjugated communities—are predominantly assessed through existing structural conditions, making change of prevailing conditions difficult, and sometimes outright impossible. For example, the concept has been applied to the politics of race in the [[United States|United States of America]] and other Western countries such as the [[United Kingdom]] and [[Australia]], with structural determinists lamenting structural factors for the prevalence of racism in these countries.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Tate|first=W|date=1997|title=Critical Race Theory and Education: History, Theory, and Implications|url=https://thrive.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/Critical%20Race%20Theory%20and%20Education%20History%2C%20Theory%2C%20and%20Implications.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819194101/https://thrive.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/Critical%20Race%20Theory%20and%20Education%20History,%20Theory,%20and%20Implications.pdf |archive-date=2020-08-19 |url-status=live|journal=Review of Research in Education|volume=22|pages=195–247|doi=10.3102/0091732X022001195|s2cid=53626156}}</ref> Additionally, [[Marxism|Marxists]] have conceptualized the writings of [[Karl Marx]] within the context of structural determinism as well. For example, [[Louis Althusser]], a [[Structural Marxism|structural Marxist]], argued that the state, in its political, economic, and legal structures, reproduces the discourse of capitalism, in turn, allowing for the burgeoning of capitalistic structures.

Proponents of the notion highlight the usefulness of structural determinism to study complicated issues related to race and gender, as it highlights often gilded structural conditions that block meaningful change.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pleasants|first=N|date=2019|title=Free Will, Determinism and the 'Problem' of Structure and Agency in the Social Sciences|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0048393118814952|journal=Philosophy of the Social Sciences|volume=49|pages=3–30|doi=10.1177/0048393118814952|s2cid=149735710|hdl=10871/34537|hdl-access=free}}</ref> Critics call it too rigid, reductionist and inflexible. Additionally, they also criticize the notion for overemphasizing deterministic forces such as structure over the role of human agency and the ability of the people to act. These critics argue that politicians, academics, and social activists have the capability to bring about significant change despite stringent structural conditions.

===With free will===
{{Main|Free will}}Philosophers have debated both the truth of determinism, and the truth of free will. This creates the four possible positions in the figure. [[Compatibilism]] refers to the view that [[free will]] is, in some sense, compatible with determinism. The three [[Incompatibilism|incompatibilist]] positions deny this possibility. The [[Incompatibilism#Hard incompatibilism|hard incompatibilists]] hold that free will is incompatible with both determinism and indeterminism, the [[Libertarianism (metaphysics)|libertarians]] that determinism does not hold, and free will might exist, and the [[hard determinism|hard determinists]] that determinism does hold and free will does not exist. The Dutch philosopher [[Baruch Spinoza]] was a determinist thinker, and argued that human freedom can be achieved through knowledge of the causes that determine desire and affections. He defined human servitude as the state of bondage of anyone who is aware of their own desires, but ignorant of the causes that determined them. However, the free or virtuous person becomes capable, through reason and knowledge, to be genuinely free, even as they are being "determined". For the Dutch philosopher, acting out of one's own internal necessity is genuine [[freedom]] while being driven by exterior determinations is akin to bondage. Spinoza's thoughts on human servitude and liberty are respectively detailed in the fourth<ref>"Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage: for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse." – Ethics, Book IV, Preface</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=March 2025}} and fifth<ref>"At length I pass to the remaining portion of my Ethics, which is concerned with the way leading to freedom. I shall therefore treat therein of the power of the reason, showing how far the reason can control the emotions, and what is the nature of Mental Freedom or Blessedness; we shall then be able to see, how much more powerful the wise man is than the ignorant." Ethics, book V, Preface</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=March 2025}} volumes of his work ''[[Ethics (Spinoza book)|Ethics]]''.

The standard argument against free will, according to philosopher [[J. J. C. Smart]], focuses on the implications of determinism for free will.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smart |first=J. J. C. |date=July 1967 |title=Free-Will, Praise and Blame |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251619 |journal=Mind |volume=70 |issue=279 |pages=291–306 |issn=0026-4423 |jstor=2251619 |oclc=9964495257}}</ref> He suggests free will is denied whether determinism is true or not. He says that if determinism is true, all actions are predicted and no one is assumed to be free; however, if determinism is false, all actions are presumed to be random and as such no one seems free because they have no part in controlling what happens.

===With the soul===
Some determinists argue that [[materialism]] does not present a complete understanding of the universe, because while it can describe determinate interactions among material things, it ignores the [[mind]]s or [[soul]]s of conscious beings.

A number of positions can be delineated:

* Immaterial souls are all that exist ([[idealism]]).
* Immaterial souls exist and exert a non-deterministic causal influence on bodies (traditional free-will, [[Interactionism (philosophy of mind)|interactionist dualism]]).<ref>By "soul" is meant an autonomous immaterial agent that has the power to control the body but not to be controlled by the body (this theory of determinism thus conceives of conscious agents in [[mind–body dualism|dualistic]] terms). Therefore the soul stands to the activities of the individual agent's body as does the creator of the universe to the universe. The creator of the universe put in motion a deterministic system of material entities that would, if left to themselves, carry out the chain of events determined by ordinary causation. But the creator also provided for souls that could exert a causal force analogous to the primordial causal force and alter outcomes in the physical universe via the acts of their bodies. Thus, it emerges that no events in the physical universe are uncaused. Some are caused entirely by the original creative act and the way it plays itself out through time, and some are caused by the acts of created souls. But those created souls were not created by means of physical processes involving ordinary causation. They are another order of being entirely, gifted with the power to modify the original creation. However, determinism is not necessarily limited to matter; it can encompass energy as well. The question of how these immaterial entities can act upon material entities is deeply involved in what is generally known as the "[[mind–body problem]]". It is a significant problem which philosophers have not reached agreement about.</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=March 2025}}<ref>{{cite book| chapter-url = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/| title = Free Will (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)| chapter = Free Will| year = 2022| publisher = Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}</ref>
* Immaterial souls exist but are part of a deterministic framework.
* Immaterial souls exist, but exert no causal influence, free or determined ([[epiphenomenalism]], [[occasionalism]])
* Immaterial souls do not exist – there is no mind–body [[dichotomy]], and there is a [[Materialism|materialistic]] explanation for intuitions to the contrary.

===With ethics and morality===
Another topic of debate is the implication that determinism has on [[morality]].

Philosopher and incompatibilist [[Peter van Inwagen]] introduced this thesis, when arguments that free will is required for moral judgments, as such:<ref>{{cite book|last=van Inwagen|first=Peter|title=The Powers of Rational Beings: Freedom of the Will|publisher=Oxford|year=2009}}{{page needed|date=August 2021}}</ref>
# The moral judgment that ''X'' should not have been done implies that something else should have been done instead.
# That something else should have been done instead implies that there was something else to do.
# That there was something else to do, implies that something else could have been done.
# That something else could have been done implies that there is free will.
# If there is no free will to have done other than ''X'' we cannot make the moral judgment that ''X'' should not have been done.