Free will-I

Alexander of Aphrodisias. On fate.

Moreover the consequence, if all the things that come to be follow on some causes that have been laid down beforehand and are definite and exist beforehand, is that men deliberate in vain about the things that they have to do. And if deliberating were in vain, man would have the power of deliberation in vain. (And yet, if nature does nothing of what is primary in vain, and man’s being a living creature with the power of deliberation is a primary product of nature, and not something that merely accompanies and happens along with the primary products, the conclusion would be drawn that men do not have the power of deliberation in vain.)

That deliberating is in vain if everything comes to be of necessity can easily be realized by those who know the use of deliberating. It is agreed by everyone that man has this advantage from nature over the other living creatures, that he does not follow appearances in the same way as them, but has reason from her as a judge of the appearances that impinge on him concerning certain things as deserving to be chosen. Using this, if, when they are examined, the things that appeared are indeed as they initially appeared, he assents to the appearance and so goes in pursuit of them; but if they appear different or something else appears more deserving to be chosen, he choses that, leaving behind what initially appeared to him as deserving of choice. At any rate there are many things which, having seemed different to us in their first appearances from what they appeared to us subsequently, no longer remained as in our previous notion when reason put them to the test; and so, though they would have been done as far as concerned the appearance of them, on account of our deliberating about them they were not done – we being in control of the deliberating and of the choice of the things that resulted from the deliberation.

(…)

And choice, the peculiar activity of man, is concerned with the same things; for choice is the impulse with desire towards what has been preferred as a result of deliberation. And for this reason choice does not apply to the things that come to be necessarily, nor to those that do so not necessarily but not through us, not even in the case of all the things that do so through us; but in the case of those things that come to be through us over which we have control both to do and not to do them.