Third Scholarly Approach: Soft-Determinism

Another approach that scholars have taken to make sense of the Yoruba worldview through a metaphysical lens is soft-determinism. Hard determinism (or determinism) is the view that all events are completely determined by antecedent causes. This view holds that all things are in causal relations so that if we know sufficiently about a cause, we can know the future effect. It is commonly held that this view excludes freedom and that we cannot do other than we do. We are compelled to do what we do by factors beyond our control. Soft-determinism argues to the contrary. It maintains that determinism allows for freedom. Also known as compatibilism, soft determinism argues that determinism is compatible with freedom. The “freedom” in compatibilism is crucially different from what we normally mean by freedom. It is akin to the freedom of the example of armed robbers on Lagos streets discussed earlier.

First Scholastic Approach: Weakening the Reach of Ori

One attempt at making sense of the Yoruba worldview is to vitiate what the creation account appears to say Orí is, often by redefining it. In fairness to the scholars who take this approach, Yoruba literary corpus has instances that appear to weaken Ori as an unalterable, all-pervading force that governs humans’ lives. For instance, consider the following Yoruba saying:

A Pause for Philosophy

At face value, the Yoruba creation narrative seems to embrace pre-determinism, the view that all events that occur in an individual’s life have already been pre-ordained. Determinism is another view that will come up often in the following discussion. Determinism is the view that all events are inevitable consequences of antecedent sufficient causes. Rephrased, this view asserts that every event results from some prior causes, and if we were to know these causes, we can know the future with certainty. Determinism is best championed in the physical sciences, especially physics where everything is explained by causal relations. A philosophical problem resulting from these doctrines, pre-determinism and determinism, is the denial of free-will. If all events are rigidly pre-ordained, this implies that there is nothing individuals can do to change any detail of an event. If people cannot do something about life pre-ordained events, it would seem like they cannot be justly praised or blamed for anything. But the Yoruba worldview affirms, on the one hand, that people can be praised or blamed for what they do; it also seems to teach predestination. These two views are quite contradictory.