Grice and Epicurus on chance and indeterminism as not aiding the moral philosopher

By JLS
for the GC

As Doyle notes, "One generation after Aristotle, Epicurus argued that as atoms moved through the void, there were occasions when they would "swerve" from their otherwise determined paths, thus initiating new causal chains - with a causa sui or uncaused cause."
"Epicurus wants to break the causal chain of physical determinism and deny claims that the future is logically necessary."

In this connection, it's best to see Grice's first stage in the conception of 'free' as being Democritean. Like Aristotle, and Kant afterwards, Grice wants to compromise the realm of 'determistic law' with freewill. And he succeeds.