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free agents. Cicero explains why the swerve was introduced: since otherwise "we would have no freedom"
and "nothing would be in our power."[12] Philodemus says cautiously that the swerve must be shown to be
consistent with experience we must not just accept it "because of chance and of things depending on
us."[13] And Diogenes of Oenoanda hails the swerve as grounds for confidence that we are free agents and
are justified in our practices of praise, blame, and so on:
If someone makes use of the theory of Democritus, saying that there is no free movement for the atoms because of their
collisions with one another, from which it is clear that all things are moved by necessity, we shall say to him, "Do you not know,
whoever you may be, that there is a kind of free movement in the atoms, which Democritus did not discover but which Epicurus
brought to light, an inherent swerve, as he shows from the phenomena? The most important point is this: if destiny is believed
in, all admonition and rebuke is done away with. (Frag. 32)[14]
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Undeniable as it is that the swerve is in some way to explain free action, it is extremely puzzling how it
could do so. Firstly, we have already seen that Epicurus can adequately defend our belief that we are free
agents, and responsible for what we do, by arguing that a theory that denies this is untenable.[15] There
seems no need for anything like the swerve. Further, it is not clear how a commonsense belief can be
supported in the way that Epicurus needs by a controversial philosophical thesis. The whole thrust of
arguments like Epicurus' refutation of determinism is that we are entitled to our folk psychology beliefs as
they are; they cannot be undermined by philosophical theories such as determinism. The swerve theory
seems
[12] Nihil liberum nobis esset (Fat. 22 23); nihil fore in nostra potestate (Nat. d. 1.69).
[13] To par' hemas (On Signs 36. 11 14). Note that things depend on us, rather than being up to us. See
chapter 6, section a, p. 129 above.
[14] Trans. Chilton.
[15] In chapter 6, section a.
183
to backtrack on this: the thought that our belief in our own free agency needs the swerve theory to support
it suggests that we are really not, after all, entitled to our ordinary beliefs as they are.
Epicurus may, of course, have changed his mind about the kind of support that our belief in our own
free agency demands. Or he may have thought that the refutation of determinism and the swerve theory
serve two distinct ends. The first merely shows that we have no real alternative to thinking of ourselves as
free agents; the second shows us not that, but how, this is possible: atomic theory can accommodate it. We
may still feel discomfort. Why does atomic theory have to be shown to accommodate free agency, unless
free agency is already thought to pose a philosophical problem? But the refutation argument proceeded on
the assumption that it is the philosophical arguments against free agency that pose a problem, not free
agency itself. By showing that atomic theory can be modified to accommodate free agency, the swerve
theory can only encourage the thought that the refutation argument rejects, that atomic theory threatens
free agency.
Apart from this, the swerve theory has internal problems. How can indeterminacy at the micro-level
explain free agency at the macro-level? How can random swerves among the atoms explain the behavior of
atomic compounds? The problem is worsened here by the point that what is to be explained is merely the
behavior of some atomic compounds, namely, human agents. Trees and stones are not taken to exhibit
results of swerves. But everything, inanimate as well as animate, is composed of atoms, and so the
indeterminacy produced by swerves among the atoms should have any effects it has at the macro-level
across the board. We need some intermediate stage to show how swerves at the atomic level produce
effects at the macro-level, and further, effects which are limited to free agency in humans.
We get no satisfactory account of such a stage or process. One of our most important sources suggests
one, but in a puzzling way. When Lucretius introduces the swerve in its cosmogonical role he then abruptly
ascribes to the swerve
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"that free impulse torn from fate, by which we progress wherever pleasure leads each person, and swerving
our motions not at a fixed time or in a fixed region of space, but where the mind itself has taken us."[16]
Our freedom to do one thing rather than another is compared, somewhat grotesquely, to the swerving of the
atoms. Lucretius goes on to give examples of free action, which introduce various considerations and are far
from perspicuous. The first is an example of animal action, horses at the starting barrier of a race. The
second is of a person being pushed and resisting the pressure, who is compared to someone moving without
opposition.[17] Lucretius concludes that there is a special kind of cause in the atoms: "That the mind itself
should not have necessity within it in all action, and should not be as it were conquered and compelled to
endure and suffer; this is brought about by the elements' tiny swerve, in no fixed region of space and at no
fixed time."[18]
Lucretius' passage suggests that swerves are responsible for free actions rather directly. Does he,
however, mean that an action is free because a swerve is part of the immediately preceding causal chain?
This interpretation, until recently indeed the orthodox interpretation, faces tremendous problems.[19] In his
later account of action (see pp. 175 76 above) Lucretius never mentions swerves, and there is no obvious
place to insert them in his account of how an action comes about. Further, since swerves are random, it is
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hard to see how they help to explain free action. We can scarcely expect
[16] 2. 256 60; the complete passage is 2. 250 93. In the portion quoted voluntas is an emendation for
voluptas, almost universally accepted; see Fowler (1983). The appearance of "free" here has unfortunately
encouraged the translation of voluntas as "will," and the importation of modern problems.
[17] Saunders (1984) argues that the crucial point about both examples is that they present particularly
effortful actions. This feature of the examples has frequently been overlooked.
[18] 2. 289 93; mens ("mind") is almost universally accepted here as an emendation for res . See Fowler
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