# Contested concept: determinism

_**What you are reading**: one contested-concept page in Deliberus's deliberation graph. Deliberus maps human reasoning — including claims that are contested, mistaken, or extreme — so that disagreement can be examined precisely. A claim's presence here is not an endorsement: the graph records that someone argued it, how it connects to other reasoning, and how far scrutiny has gotten. The metadata on this page describes the state of that scrutiny, not the truth of the claim._

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- **Contestedness**: semantic
- **Diagnosis**: Debates on whether determinism is true, and whether belief in it is harmful, shift between physical determinism, fatalism and theological predestination, so evidence for one is treated as bearing on another.
- **Canonical**: `/concept/determinism` (data: `/concept/determinism.json`)

## Senses in use
- **Physical or nomological determinism: the future is fixed by prior events and laws** — used in 4 claim(s)
- **All behavior is caused by prior behavior, in contrast to predeterminism, where conditions predate behavior (fate, God's will, instincts)** — used in 3 claim(s)
- **Biological, cultural or psychological determinism** — used in 3 claim(s)
- **Causality as a weak, psychologically grounded notion of necessity** — used in 3 claim(s)
- **Theological or logical determinism, as in predestination and divine foreknowledge** — used in 3 claim(s)
- **Confused with fatalism by experimental subjects** — used in 2 claim(s)

## Claims using this term
- [[The basic argument for theological fatalism in the case of weak theological determinism] is very often accepted as a basis for theological…](/claim/claim_05c6e24d70de.md) _(sense: Theological or logical determinism, as in predestination and divine foreknowledge)_
- ['causation' is on weak grounds](/claim/claim_179d9450e656.md) _(sense: Causality as a weak, psychologically grounded notion of necessity)_
- [It is not certain that environmental determination is any less threatening to free will than genetic determination.](/claim/claim_1d5632eac777.md) _(sense: Biological, cultural or psychological determinism)_
- [[God] predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to [God]self](/claim/claim_233c0c17a90d.md) _(sense: Theological or logical determinism, as in predestination and divine foreknowledge)_
- [[Among other forms of determinism relevant to free will], logical and theological determinism challenge metaphysical libertarianism with id…](/claim/claim_4321be9f3d65.md) _(sense: Theological or logical determinism, as in predestination and divine foreknowledge)_
- [Under determinism, only one course of events is possible.](/claim/claim_6791f9b80cc1.md) _(sense: Physical or nomological determinism: the future is fixed by prior events and laws)_
- ['A must bring about B' is tantamount merely to 'Due to their constant conjunction, we are psychologically certain that B will follow A'](/claim/claim_70af33784dc0.md) _(sense: Causality as a weak, psychologically grounded notion of necessity)_
- ["Predeterminism" is the position holding that all behavior is caused by conditions predating behavior altogether (such impersonal boundarie…](/claim/claim_771317059859.md) _(sense: All behavior is caused by prior behavior, in contrast to predeterminism, where conditions predate behavior (fate, God's will, instincts))_
- ["Determinism" is, in essence, the position holding that all behavior is caused by prior behavior.](/claim/claim_8c89c0ee6f2a.md) _(sense: All behavior is caused by prior behavior, in contrast to predeterminism, where conditions predate behavior (fate, God's will, instincts))_
- [Free will [in this article] is predominantly treated with respect to physical determinism in the strict sense of nomological determinism, a…](/claim/claim_8cf57f1f6506.md) _(sense: Physical or nomological determinism: the future is fixed by prior events and laws)_
- [Determinism suggests that the natural world is governed by cause-and-effect relationships.](/claim/claim_8f41cb878aa0.md) _(sense: Physical or nomological determinism: the future is fixed by prior events and laws)_
- [With physical determinism, the future is determined entirely by preceding events (cause and effect).](/claim/claim_9133be86de47.md) _(sense: Physical or nomological determinism: the future is fixed by prior events and laws)_
- [Leibniz presents a clear case of a philosopher who does not think that predeterminism requires universal causal determinism](/claim/claim_9f7aae70d18d.md) _(sense: All behavior is caused by prior behavior, in contrast to predeterminism, where conditions predate behavior (fate, God's will, instincts))_
- [[Among other forms of determinism relevant to free will], biological, cultural and psychological determinism feed the development of compat…](/claim/claim_a8b4e8015133.md) _(sense: Biological, cultural or psychological determinism)_
- [Experimental manipulations purporting to "provoke disbelief in free will" instead cause a belief in fatalism.](/claim/claim_c5060fb44dec.md) _(sense: Confused with fatalism by experimental subjects)_
- [many human behaviors can be explained in terms of humans' brains, genes, and evolutionary histories](/claim/claim_d64810051a3b.md) _(sense: Biological, cultural or psychological determinism)_
- [Once we realise that 'A must bring about B' is tantamount merely to 'Due to their constant conjunction, we are psychologically certain that…](/claim/claim_f176dd425682.md) _(sense: Causality as a weak, psychologically grounded notion of necessity)_
- [[In studies of provoked disbelief in free will,] subjects tend to confuse determinism with fatalism](/claim/claim_f3555900ea80.md) _(sense: Confused with fatalism by experimental subjects)_