profile Something that I’m noticing more and more every time I visit India are the problems caused by what my relatives call “Karma”. Karma there is not used in common parlance the same way a theologian might use, but it is a general term referring to someone’s destiny. The destiny in question is metaphysical such that it exists not as a proverb but as a real feature of reality. By this I mean that destiny or someone’s destiny is not just an idea or a theory about something, it is a feature of reality. I think there is a good argument to be made that we should not believe that destiny is real if we want an egalitarian, law abiding society. Let me be clear this is not an argument about whether destiny is actually a feature of reality, but whether we should believe that it is if we want our society to be egalitarian and generally law abiding.

First off let me make myself precise. When someone believes in destiny, it could mean one of two things. (1) They believe at any present moment, that their future is fixed and unchangeable, but that they will be the cause of that future no matter what. (2) They believe that their future is fixed and that no matter what they do between the present and any future time, that future will come about no matter what. It is the second type of belief that I am concerned about. It is a belief that what will happen in a future time is already fixed and that whatever one does between the present and that future time it is of no use. In all of this I take “fixed” or “metaphysically fixed” to mean that a future event will metaphysically necessarily occur. I do not make any claims as to whether these future events exist now or only in some objective present. All that “fixed” is meant to convey is the metaphysical necessity of an event occurring.

It is belief (2) I think that prevents a society from being egalitarian and law abiding. Of course no society is perfectly egalitarian or law abiding, but generally tries to balance the egalitarian value of equality with the liberal value of liberty. It is this balance that most liberal egalitarian democracies attempt to strike and an attempt that they believe makes them good societies. Nevertheless I will only be concerned with the effect that a belief in destiny has on the inequality of basic rights and socio-economic opportunities.

When an individual believes that destiny is real they believe that each and every person has fixed future events that they will be a part of no matter the causal connection between the person’s present actions and future actions. How does this belief prevent a society from being egalitarian? Well because it explains past, present and future inequalities of basic rights and opportunities in society as fixed types of states of affairs that cannot and could not be metaphysically different. By “types of states of affairs” I mean something like “Sheila falling ill”. This type of state of affairs is different from a specific “state of affairs” like “Sheila falling ill from the unmaintained sewage pipes that leak sewage into drinking water”. Sheila falling ill is a type of state of affairs that could be instantiated in many different ways. I am making this clear because I do not believe that individuals who believe in their destiny believe there are no causal connections between specific states of affairs, but just that there are no causal connections between types of states of affairs This means individuals cannot be held responsible for situations where individuals have unequal access to basic human rights because the types of states of affairs of a society at any given time could not have been different no matter the actions of the individuals. Therefore individuals have no causal powers to bring about future types of states of affairs. While they do have causal connections and are the cause of states of affairs like eating cereal instead of toast, they just don’t believe they have a causal connection or causal powers to influence whether they have breakfast or not. In this case “having breakfast” is a type of state of affairs.

At this point I should make it clear what counts as a type of state of affairs and what counts as a specific state of affairs. What counts as a state of affairs is an object that has certain properties at a certain time. An object here can be anything from an atom to a human being. And I am using properties in a very restricted sense. Properties are just the sparse physical features, such as an exact mass or an exact spatio-temporal location. A type of state of affairs is just the same thing without a specific object to which the properties are attached. “Something or someone having the property of carrying a Tuberculosis causing bacteria” is a type of state of affairs. This is not to say again that it is uncontroversial that states of affairs and types of states of affairs exist. It is just that it provides a way of making sense of what an individual believes about the world when they believe that destiny is a real feature of that world.

If individuals have no causal powers to bring about types of states of affairs then they cannot be held morally responsible for a causal link they have to future inequalities because that future unequal type of state of affairs is metaphysically fixed and unchangeable. By unequal states of affairs I just mean states of affairs where two individuals have an unequal access to socio-economic opportunities or their basic rights. The poor labourer, let us call her Sheila was always going to be a poor labourer not because society discriminates against her for being of a certain sex, gender, religion or race, but because it is metaphysically fixed and unchangeable that she was to be a poor labourer. This, while not a necessary explanation of Sheila’s situation from a belief in destiny, is a consistent explanation of Sheila’s situation. This explanation permits serious inequalities in society. The wealthy landlord, let us call him David, has no reason to treat Sheila as he would treat his friends namely in a non-discriminatory manner, because his and Sheila’s socio-economic status could not have been different.

Let us consider an example where the specific states of affairs are different. Sheila may have had the same socio-economic status as before, but now she is a disabled beggar and David is a middle class professional. It is the types of states of affairs, namely the socio-economic positions in an absolute or relative sense that could not have been different. So the contention is that the types of states of affairs, namely the socio-economic status of Sheila and David are the same in our second example as they were in the first example. In fact David can justify any future discrimination against Sheila as an unchangeable type of state of affairs that is metaphysically fixed such that even if he locks himself in a room Sheila will be discriminated against somehow by someone. As soon as arbitrary discrimination against individuals is justified and accepted by a society it ceases to be egalitarian.

Of course there is no real danger in a society ceasing to be egalitarian if only one or two individuals firmly believe in destiny, but it is dangerous when the majority in a society believe it. There is no rational reason to change or alter inequalities in society if a society believes that everyone and everything has a destiny. There is no point in people organising democratically because they can only be the cause of states of affairs instantiating fixed types of states of affairs. Since individuals have no causal links to types of states of affairs they cannot change future occurrences and so they need not bother trying to change something they metaphysically cannot change.

profile Now how does a belief in destiny make a society less law abiding? Well because law breaking itself is seen as a type of state of affairs, while “stealing a car” is a specific state of affairs instantiating law breaking. If law breaking is a type of state of affairs then individuals have no causal link to its occurrence because it is fixed whether it will occur or not. It is however not fixed and changeable by whom or what it will be instantiated by. It could be said that individuals would not break laws once they saw the punishment society gave for law breaking. A belief in destiny, at least in the way I have dealt with it, would override this deterrent because the act of law breaking and the punishment received is seen as a type of state of affairs that cannot be changed. While it is not fixed by any means how exactly this type of state of affairs will be instantiated it is fixed that someone, some how will break the law. Even the punishment received is a type of state of affairs because it is fixed whether the law breaker will be caught or not, and whether they will be punished. It is not fixed in what specific way they will be caught and punished.

So if a society wants to be an egalitarian and law abiding society then I think there is good reason for the individuals in that society not to believe that destiny is real. None of this is to say whether destiny is real or whether equality or law abiding citizens are things that society should be promoting. Society could well be focused just on increasing the liberty of individuals and do nothing for the inequality of individuals accessing their basic rights or socio-economic opportunities. If this was the case there could potentially be no undesirable consequences with a belief in destiny.