Abstract
Local miracle compatibilists claim that we are sometimes able to do otherwise than we actually do, even if causal determinism obtains. When we can do otherwise, it will often be true that if we were to do otherwise, then an actual law of nature would not have been a law of nature. Nevertheless, it is a compatibilist principle that we cannot do anything that would be or cause an event that violates the laws of nature. Carl Ginet challenges this nomological principle, arguing that it is not always capable of explaining our inability to do otherwise. In response to this challenge, I point out that this principle is part of a defense against the charge that local miracle compatibilists are committed to outlandish claims. Thus it is not surprising that the principle, by itself, will often fail to explain our inability to do otherwise. I then suggest that in many situations in which we are unable to do otherwise, this can be explained by the compatibilist’s analysis of ability, or his criteria for the truth of ability claims. Thus, the failure of his nomological principle to explain the falsity of certain ability claims is no strike against local miracle compatibilism.
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Notes
Another recent defense of local miracle compatibilism (written in response to a different and more recent complaint) can be found in Graham (2008).
Jonathan Bennett, for example, is a backtracking compatibilist (Bennett 1984). John Perry, in personal conversation, has also identified himself as a backtracking compatibilist.
It is possible, of course, to hold a more restrictive, or “pure,” version of local miracle compatibilism according to which only counterlegals are consistent with can-claims (and hence the truth of backtrackers would rule out freedom). Such a view seems to me unnecessary and implausible. Below I say more about the benefits of a “hybrid” view.
Thanks to Michael Nelson for this way of formulating the point.
This, at least, is the standard view about when the local miracle occurs. Vihvelin (2000) takes a different approach according to which the miracle occurs at the same time as the relevant choice.
These propositions are taken, though numbered differently, from Ginet (1990, 114).
There is a stronger claim that we could make here, namely that certain local miracle strategies, such as Lewis’s, require the truth of at least some backtrackers, because the lawbreaking event that makes some agent’s action possible will have to have occurred before the agent’s willing—which of course means that had the agent done otherwise, the past would have been different. For more on counterlegals and backtrackers, see Lewis (1979).
I have adopted this treatment of the conditional analysis (including its problems and possible revisions) from Fischer (2007, 49–53).
(CA′) arguably begs the question against the incompatibilist because the incompatibilist will no doubt insist that some action’s being entailed by the past and the laws is a “barrier” to an agent’s being able to refrain from that action. This point comes from Fischer (2007, 51–52).
Fischer (1979) offers a fuller treatment of Lehrer’s article, as well as an extended criticism.
For Lehrer, minimal difference is evaluated while holding fixed the laws of nature. But this is not an essential part of his view, and so could be dropped by the local miracle compatibilist, were he to adopt Lehrer’s analysis of ability. For examples of approaches to evaluating minimal difference between worlds that do not hold the laws fixed, see Audi (1978), Horgan (1977), and Horgan (1979).
Lehrer’s analysis, including his definition of an admissible advantage, can be found in Lehrer (1976, 256–257): “‘S could (at t i) have done A at t n’ is true in the actual world W if and only if there is a possible world w having the same laws as W and minimally different from W so that ‘S does A at t n’ is true in w in such a way that any advantage S has in w for doing A at t n which he lacks in W is admissible for S from W and t n is past. An advantage S lacks in W is admissible for S from W if and only if either (a) the advantage results from S doing something B at t j (t i ≤ t j ≤ t n) when he has no additional advantage for doing B at t j in w which he lacks in W or (b) the advantage results from S doing something C at t k (t i < t k ≤ t n) when S has no additional advantages for doing C at t k in w which he lacks in W except those advantages admissible to S from W resulting from what S does prior to t k.”
The airport example comes from Ginet (1990, 111). See note 18 for a discussion of his version.
See for example Fischer (1979).
Thanks to Peter A. Graham for this way of formulating the point. Graham also points out (in personal correspondence) that the incompatibilist is not really in a better position than the compatibilist, at least when it comes to explaining why certain people are unable to do certain things in certain situations. To understand this point, recall that Ginet’s criticism is that the compatibilist cannot appeal to (4) to license an inference to the conclusion that S is unable to raise her arm. The incompatibilist is supposed to be in better shape with respect to this inference, since he can appeal to a principle about the inescapability of the laws (i.e., a principle which states that nobody can do anything such that were she to do it, a law would have been broken) to license the inference in question. But Graham provides a slightly modified case in which the inescapability of the laws cannot provide the inability verdict that seems intuitive. The modified case is simply an indeterministic variation on Ginet’s. Suppose that S takes the drug, which causes her to be unconscious for 30 s following t. Suppose also that while she is unconscious, a number of indeterministic events happen, one or two of which are such that had they gone the other way (a way that it was physically possible for them to go), S would have woken up and raised her arm. It seems intuitive that even in this modified case we would want to say that it is false that S is able to raise her arm at t + 5. Presumably the incompatibilist will agree that S is unable to raise her arm in this scenario. But what resources does the incompatibilist have here that will allow him to explain why S is unable to raise her arm? He cannot appeal to the inescapability of the laws, because there are a number of physically possible worlds in which she does raise her hand. What the incompatibilist needs is some principle—apart from the principle of the inescapability of the laws—that rules out these other physically possible worlds (in which S raises her arm) as accessible to the agent. Thus, the incompatibilist, contrary to what is implied by Ginet’s challenge, is not in a better position to explain why S, for example, is unable to raise her arm when intuitively it seems that she cannot.
As I have alluded to above, a local miracle compatibilist might even refrain from adopting any specific analysis of ‘can’ claims, but rather accept certain constraints on any plausible analysis—where those constraints ensure that the analysis will deliver the appropriate verdict in cases such as Ginet’s.
There is evidence that Ginet might be sensitive to the point that I am making here—for example, when he says the following:
The Local Miracle View can allow for exceptions …. For example, if it is true that Jones was at the faculty meeting at 10 minutes before noon and it is true that, if he had been in the airport at noon, then it would have to have been the case that he was not at the faculty meeting at 10 minutes before noon, then it must also be true that it was not open to Jones at any time during that 10 minutes to make it the case that he was in the airport at noon. (Ginet 1990, 111, my emphasis)
This case is structurally identical to the case in which S is unable to raise her arm, as evidenced by the fact that we can straightforwardly plug in the details from that case:
If it is true that S ingested a drug (at t) that quickly causes a period of complete unconsciousness that lasts for several hours and it is true that, if she had raised her arm at t + 5, then it would have to have been the case that she had not ingested the drug at t, then it must also be true that it was not open to S at any time between t and t + 5 to make it the case that she raised her arm at t + 5.
(For clarity of exposition, I have changed the time at which S ingested the drug from “some time before t” to t. In other words, I am assuming that the drug acts immediately.)
The modified example is somewhat convoluted, but the point is simple: if S took the drug at t, then she is not able to raise her arm at t + 5. Hence, if she does raise her arm at t + 5, then it must be that she did not take the drug at t. Moreover, there is nothing she can do between t and t + 5 that will enable her to raise her arm. The explanation for these facts, as we saw above, is that there is a barrier to S’s choosing to raise her arm at t + 5 (namely, her being unconscious at t). If she does raise her arm, then the barrier must not have been in place. Likewise, the explanation for Jones’s situation is that there is a barrier to his being at the airport at noon (namely, his being in the faculty meeting 10 min before noon). If he is at the airport at noon, then the barrier must not have been in place. If an “exception” is allowable in Jones’s case, then, given the parallel between his predicament and S’s predicament, it is hard to see why it is not allowable in S’s case.
More precisely, the principle of the inescapability of the laws says that “if p is deducible from the laws of nature, then it is never open to anyone to make it the case that not-p.” (Ginet 1990, 105) According to Ginet’s notion of making it the case that p, “S made it the case that p if and only if p and S caused (at least) the last thing needed for it to be the case that p.” (Ginet 1990, 100–101) Thus, the inescapability principle implicitly holds fixed certain aspects of the actual past—including the actual laws of nature. And if the laws must be held fixed in this way, then I am not able to do anything such that, were I to do it, an actual law would not have been a law.
Ginet then considers and dismisses the soft compatibilist line about there being a difference between necessitation as a result of manipulation and necessitation as a result of natural causes.
See Ginet (1990, chapter 5).
Moreover, the local miracle compatibilist might continue, this proliferation of principles is not ad hoc or otherwise unjustified, because any local miracle account is going to (1) need an analysis of ‘can’ and (2) want to evaluate the truth of various counterlegals and backtrackers in the most plausible way.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Tomas Bogardus, Joseph Keim Campbell, Randolph Clarke, Christopher Franklin, Carl Ginet, Peter A. Graham, Robert Kane, Michael Nelson, Neal Tognazzini, and the members of the UCR Agency Writing Workshop for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank John Martin Fischer, who has provided me with helpful comments on numerous drafts and invaluable guidance throughout the writing process.
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Pendergraft, G. The explanatory power of local miracle compatibilism. Philos Stud 156, 249–266 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9594-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9594-0