The Consequence argument is an argument from plausible premises–our lack of causal power over the laws and past–to an implausible conclusion: that if determinism is true, we are equally powerless with respect to the future. What the compatibilist needs is a theory of counterfactuals that preserves the links between counterfactuals, causation, and the natural laws in a way that supports our commonsense belief that we have the power to make a causal difference to the future but no such power with (...) respect to the past. Lewis’s critique of the Consequence argument was based on his theory of counterfactuals and his analysis of causation as a counterfactual relation between particular events. He argued that, at a world that is deterministic in the way that ours might be, counterfactuals are temporally asymmetric in a way that matches the contingent temporal asymmetry of cauation. So it is not surprising, but only to be expected, that the past is causally closed while the future is causally open. If this worked, it would be just what the compatibilist needs. But it doesn’t work. There is an argument, due to Tooley and recently endorsed by Wasserman, that a fundamental feature of Lewis’s theory of counterfactuals is inconsistent with the metaphysical possibility of time travel and backwards causation. If this is right, then Lewis’s response to the Consequence argument fails. I endorse this conclusion, but argue that there is a better theory of counterfactuals–a theory that leaves open the metaphysical possibility of time travel to the past and backwards causation. (shrink)

I have argued that even if time travel is metaphysically possible, there are some things a time traveler would not be able to do. I reply here to critics who have argued that my account entails fatalism about the past or entails that the time traveler is unfree or that she is bound by “strange shackles.” My argument does not entail any sort of fatalism. The time traveler is able to do many of the things that everyone else can do (...) and is as free as any non-time-traveler. The time traveler is constrained only as we all are by the laws of nature. My argument shows only how strangely those constraints must operate if those laws permit time travel. (shrink)

Most analyses of can and abilities accept what is known as the poss-ability principle (i.e. that an agent S is able to Φ only if it is possible for S to Φ). In this paper, I devise a new route to rejecting the poss-ability principle. I argue that the poss-ability principle is incompatible with some kind of agent, such as God; that the poss-ability principle has normatively unacceptable consequences (granted the existence of a certain kind of evil agent); and that (...) analyses of abilities or ‘can’ based on the poss-ability principle are conceptually flawed. (shrink)

According to the New Dispositionalist’s response to the Frankfurt Cases, Jones can do otherwise because Black merely masks (or finks), but does not deprive Jones of the relevant ability. This reasoning stands in the tradition of a line of thought according to which an informed view of the truth conditions of ability attributions allows for a compatibilist stance. The promise is that once we understand how abilities work, it turns out that the ability to do otherwise is compatible with determinism, (...) or with Black standing ready to intervene, or indeed both, as the New Dispositionalists hold. In this paper, I argue that this is mistaken. Understanding how abilities work gives us no reason to think that the ability to do otherwise relevant for free will is compatible with either Black’s presence or determinism. (shrink)

There is a very plausible principle linking abilities and possibilities: If S is able to Φ, then it is metaphysically possible that S Φ’s. Jack Spencer recently proposed a class of counterexamples to this principle involving the ability to know certain propositions. I renew an argument against these counterexamples based on the unknowability of Fitch propositions. In doing so, I provide a new argument for the unknowability of Fitch propositions and show that Spencer’s counterexamples are in tension with a principle (...) weaker than the one linking abilities and possibilities. (shrink)

P. van Inwagen famously offered three precise versions of the so-called Consequence Argument for incompatibilism. The third of these essentially employs the notion of an agent’s having a choice with respect to a proposition. In this paper, I offer two intuitively attractive accounts of this notion in terms of the explanatory connective ‘because’ and explore the prospects of the third argument once they are in play. Under either account, the argument fails.

The philosophy of time travel is a sub-field of metaphysics – the study of what there is and what things are like – that considers questions about the possibility of time travel and what a world in which time travel is possible looks like. These questions range from whether time travel is actually possible, to how time travellers can act in the past or future. This thesis delves into a particularly interesting, yet historically undertreated theme: the abilities of time travellers (...) and relatedly their freedom as well. The abilities and freedom of time travellers has been the source of a lot of recent discussion with some polarising views. The minority (which includes Lewis (1976), but also Ted Sider (2002)) argue for the affirmative – that time travellers are free and have the same (or perhaps more) abilities as non-time travellers. The majority (which includes Kadri Vihvelin (1996), Michael Rea (2005), Stephanie Rennick (2015), Alison Fernandes (2020), amongst others) argue for the negative, that time travellers do not have exactly the same freedoms and abilities as non-time travellers. I think that it is a mistake to be so pessimistic about the abilities and freedom of time travellers. I treat concerns about the freedom of time travellers and concerns about the abilities of time travellers as two sides of the same coin. Therefore, in what follows, I argue for two related conclusions. First, I argue that time travellers have all sorts of abilities. Second, I argue that time travellers are just as free as non-time travellers. In arguing for these conclusions, I first produce a novel analysis of ability which reveals important details about how abilities track inputs rather than outputs. Second, I use this new analysis of ability to present a new compatibilist account of free will. If I am right in arguing positively for the abilities and freedoms of time travellers, then this has large implications for both the current time travel discourse and the general debate surrounding freedom. Significantly, I am arguing against some prominent views about time travel and in suggesting that these views are mistaken, I am presenting new ideas about ability and freedom: specifically, that time travellers have the ability and are free to do impossible things. (shrink)

Suppose I am a leeway sceptic: I think that, whenever I face a choice between two courses of action, I lack true alternatives. Can my practical deliberation be rational? Call this the Deliberation Question. This paper has three aims in tackling it. Its constructive aim is to provide a unified account of practical deliberation. Its corrective aim is to amend the way that philosophers have recently framed the Deliberation Question. Finally, its disputative aim is to argue that leeway sceptics cannot (...) deliberate entirely rationally about what to do, because of the connection between deliberating and deciding. (shrink)

Nesta monografia, discutirei o Argumento Direto pelo incompatibilismo. Incompatibilismo ´e a tese de que responsabilidade moral ´e incompat´ıvel com o determinismo nomol´ogico. De ma- neira simplificada, o argumento ´e o seguinte: N´os n˜ao somos respons´aveis pelo passado e pelas leis da natureza. Se o determinismo for verdadeiro, nossas ac¸ ˜oes s˜ao consequˆencia do passado e das leis da natureza. Portanto, se o determinismo for verdadeiro, n˜ao somos respons´aveis por nossas ac¸ ˜oes. Defendo ao longo da monografia que o Argumento Direto (...) ´e nem prima facie uma ameac¸a ao compatibilismo – a posic¸ ˜ao oposta ao incompatibilismo –, j´a que os proponen- tes do argumento falham em motivar com sucesso o argumento. A monografia se divide em trˆes cap´ıtulos. No primeiro, apresento a formulac¸ ˜ao do Argumento Direto proposta por Peter van Inwagen (1983). Sua formulac¸ ˜ao se vale de um operador modal de n˜ao-responsabilidade, para o qual van Inwagen define duas regras dedutivas. Nos dois cap´ıtulos subsequentes, discuto algumas das cr´ıticas encontradas na literatura contra essas regras e apresento minhas pr´oprias cr´ıticas. Na conclus˜ao, considero alguns modos pelo qual o debate pode avanc¸ar. (shrink)

An influential version of the Consequence argument, the most famous argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism, goes as follows: For an agent to be able to do otherwise, there has to be a possible world with the same laws and the same past as her actual world in which she does otherwise. However, if the actual world is deterministic, there is no such world. Hence, no agent in a deterministic world can ever do otherwise. In this paper, (...) I discuss a recent version of this argument due to Christopher Franklin: the ‘No Opportunity argument’. I argue that the No Opportunity argument overgeneralizes. If its premises were true, things would be obstacles to doing otherwise that have nothing to do with determinism and that intuitively are not obstacles. (shrink)

I examine issues in the philosophy of religion at the intersection of what possibilities there are and what a God, as classically conceived in the theistic philosophical tradition, would be able to do. The discussion is centered around arguing for an incompatibility between theism and two principles about possibility and ability, and exploring what theists should say about these incompatibilities. -/- I argue that theism entails that certain kinds and amounts of evil are impossible. This puts theism in conflict with (...) popular principles of modal recombination. However, theists have plausible explanations for the violations of recombination that they posit, and can suitably amend these principles without giving up their usefulness in accounting for what possibilities there are. -/- I also argue that despite the impossibility of these evils, God is able to bring these evils about. This puts theism in conflict with the principle that no one is able to do the impossible. However, theists can give a plausible account of why God is unique in being able to do the impossible, and have distinctive resources to address the arguments in favor of the idea that no one is able to do the impossible. And by denying this principle, theists are able to resolve several otherwise difficult puzzles, including reconciling conflicts between the divine attributes. (shrink)