Fate
This theme runs through several big questions. Here are the ones where it plays out.
The questions that illuminate it
Facing the world, should we focus on what is up to us or strive to extend our mastery?
Is the only seat of our power within, in our judgements and desires, the course of the world wholly beyond us, or can we lay hold of that order and reshape it to our hand? To take a position is to say how far our real grip on things extends, and whether freedom is won within us or out in the world.
Are we genuinely free in our choices, or are they determined?
We deliberate as if the future were open, yet our choices have causes. If everything were settled in advance, what would remain of merit, fault, responsibility? Our whole relation to ourselves and to others is at stake.
Does human history follow a direction, or is it sheer contingency?
If history goes somewhere, our struggles add up and progress is real; if it is only a chain of chance events, nothing guarantees that tomorrow will be better than yesterday, and every gain can be lost. To take a position is to say whether political hope rests on the course of things or on us alone.
Is the world fundamentally good, or marked by the tragic?
The same existence can be read as a gift worthy of trust or as a struggle with no final reconciliation, and this background hue colours our joys and misfortunes in advance. To take a position is to say whether hope is lucidity or blindness.