Puzzles for the Will 0802043267

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PUZZLES FOR THE WILL

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JORDAN HOWARD SOBEL

Puzzles for the Will:

Fatalism, Newcomb and Samarra, Determinism

and Omniscience

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1998 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-4326-7

Printed on acid-free paper Toronto Studies in Philosophy Editors: James R. Brown and Calvin Normore

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Sobel, Jordan Howard Puzzles for the will: fatalism, Newcomb and Samarra, determinism and omniscience (Toronto studies in philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN O-8O2O-4326-7

i. Free will and determinism. I. Title. II. Series. 3105.047562 1998

123

c98-93o678-x

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

FOR GRACE AND WILLA

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Contents

PREFACE ix

i LOGICAL FATALISMS 3 Che Sara Sard, minimal 'naive' fatalism 5 - An Idle Argument, 'It makes no difference what we do' 7 - Appendix: Other Fatalisms 45 2 PREDICTED CHOICES 51 First Day: Newcomb's Problem 52, and Appointments with Death 55 Second Day: discussion of The Samarra Problem 59, and Newcomb's Problem 62 / beyond predictions 69 / caused choices 71-Appendix: John O'Hara and The Appointment 74 / Oedipus Rex and another appointment 75 3 FREE WILL AND VARIETIES OF DETERMINISM 77 Forms of Determinism, causal 84, and block-universe 101 - Choices, Actions, and Free Will 107 - Modes of Determinism, necessary, fixedlaws, and fixed-past 114-Compatibilitiesand Incompatibilities 121with ancient causes 122, without ancient causes 146, with malleable pasts 158, and with miracles 159

4 NEWCOMB DENUO, OMNISCIENCE, AND 'CHOICELESS FREEDOM' 167 Newcomb's Problem and Rational Choice 169 - Divine Omniscience

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Contents

and the Past 176 - Fischer's Semi-Compatibilism 186 - Appendix: Three Arguments from Fischer for the Incompatibility of Determinism and Freedom of Choice 193 LOOKING BACK

REFERENCES INDEX

209

203

201

Preface

Who would these Fardles beare To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered Countrey, from whose Borne No Traveller relumes, Puzels the will ...? Hamlet, Act III, Scene I

It is not just dread of the undiscovered country that can puzzle the will. It can be challenged and stymied by philosophical thoughts. If, as a matter of logic or scientific fact, every action, as well as every thought and desire, is determined and necessary, then, it can seem, there are no choices properly so-called, no free choices - a potentially enervating thought. Also, knowledge that yet-to-bechosen actions have been predicted can sometimes boggle minds and seem to preclude fully reasoned choices. "Logical Fatalisms," the first of this book's four chapters, is about bogus threats to choices, threats to the very possibility of person's having and making choices. It offers, in detailed debunking analyses of two fatalistic arguments, substantiation for the thesis that as one cannot get blood from a stone, so one cannot get important and disturbing conclusions from only logical trivialities. An argument that would elaborate the theme (sometimes sung) that whatever will be, will be, is said to thrive on amphibolies of scope. An argument that would disparage precautions on the ground that if you will be killed then you will be killed whatever precautions you take, and if you will not be killed then you will be killed whatever precautions you do not take, is said to exploit an amphiboly of moods, indicative and subjunctive. The general thesis maintained,

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Preface

expressed in yet another way, is that 'logical fatalisms' cannot be successful and yield conclusions of proper human concern, practical not theoretical, because necessities are never properly matters of such concern. "Predicted Choices," the second chapter, is about threats, imagined as well as real, threats to possibilities in some cases of rational choices. This chapter is a discussion of issues raised by Newcomb's Problem and 'The Samarra Problem.' Opposing the one-box solution to the former decision-problem, I maintain that this would-be solution derives its charm from uncertainties of intent of such sentences as 'if you were to take only Box 2, you would be nearly certain of getting a $M.' Newcomb's Problem, it is argued, is not a case in which nothing is rational. But I contend that 'The Samarra Problem' is such a case. In this decision-problem in which I seek to avoid Death, who I am convinced has almost certainly predicted where I will be, no choice would be rational, because neither of my possible choices - to go to Bagdad or to Samarra - would be stable under ideal reflection. The chapter concludes with consideration of whether cases, including Newcomb and Samarra cases, involving beliefs in caused choices can be coherent. The third chapter, "Free Will and Varieties of Determinism," is about threats posed by determinisms for, if not choices simply, then choices that can matter. It is about whether determinism and free will are compatible. This depends on how these terms of art 'determinism,' and 'free will' are understood. In this chapter, several 'varieties' of determinism are distinguished. Each combines what I term a 'form' of determinism with what I term a 'mode' consisting of various counterfactual fixity-conditions concerning the form of determinism itself, as well as the laws of nature and the past as they figure in it. It is shown that one demanding variety of determinism is incompatible with 'free will' when this is taken to mean that sometimes agents have open to them 'choicesotherwise' that if taken would be effective and lead to 'actions-otherwise.' And it is shown that another, in some but not all ways more demanding variety of determinism, is compatible with 'free will' in that natural sense of these words. My arguments for the incompatibility of a certain determinism with free will or 'freedom of choice' are distinguished by the prominence in them of subjunctive conditionals, by the use they make of principles not only for unitary necessity and possibility operators, but also, and especially, of principles for a subjunctive conditional binary connective. These arguments are also distinguished from most by their not using a 'transfer principle' of any kind for any sort of necessity or impossibility. My argument for the compatibility of a certain determinism with free will exploits the possibility of 'fast-starting' beginningless, but of limited durations, series of causes.

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"Newcomb Denuo, Omniscience, and 'Choiceless Freedom,'" this book's fourth and last chapter, uses the occasion of critical comments on John Martin Fischer's The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control (1994) to supplement studies of, and to go into areas opened but not entered in, previous chapters. The issue whether divine omniscience is compatible with freedom of choice is raised in my first chapter. I argue in this last chapter that even the essentially everlasting omniscience of a necessary deity would be compatible with freedom of choice. From my second chapter 1 take the question whether it would change what is rational in Newcomb's Problem if it were supposed that the predictor was known to be not merely unerring but infallible. I argue in this last chapter that it would, but not in the manner Fischer supposes. That change would make a difference, I argue, because although taking two boxes is the rational choice in all other Newcomb problems, in a situation in which it was known that the predictor was absolutely infallible, whatever the agent was going to do - take two boxes, or take just one - would be the only thing he could do, and so would be rational by default. Lastly, from the third chapter I take the question whether a determinism robust enough to be incompatible with 'freedom of choice' might even so be compatible with a kind of 'choiceless freedom,' where this was a condition of control sufficient for our being responsible, and for our being proper objects of such 'reactive attitudes and behaviours of engagement' (so termed by Peter Strawson) as gratitude and resentment, and praise and blame. I argue that a determinism robust enough to exclude 'freedom of choice,' because this determinism required for all actions ancient causes that agents could do nothing about, would not be compatible with a kind 'choiceless freedom' that was sufficient for gratitude for benefactions received or pride in one's accomplishments. Appended to this chapter of mine are reconstructions and elaborations of several arguments produced by Fischer for the incompatibility of a kind of determinism with 'freedom of choice.' Two of these are touted for not making use of any form of 'transfer principle,' and so may be compared with the argument for incompatibility I run in my third chapter, which, as has been said, has that virtue. The first and third chapters develop notes written for introductory philosophy courses. The second chapter elaborates on scripts for lectures first given in philosophy in literature courses taught by Andre Gombay. Versions of all three were presented in a series of lectures at Uppsala University during September 1991. The last chapter adapts and expands a critical notice of Fischer's book written for the Canadian Philosophical Quarterly. I am indebted to John Baker, Robert Bright, Richmond Campbell, John Hunter, Bernard Katz, Gordon Nagel, Wlodzimierz Rabinowicz, Peter

xii Preface Ryman, John St James, David Sapire, Peter Schotch, William Seager, Krister Segerberg, Arnold Silverberg, Paul Weirich, and as always, before and after all, to Willa Freeman-Sobel. For their helpful criticisms and suggestions, I am most grateful. The following artful words from Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground (in Constance Garnett's translation revised by Avraham Yarmolinsky), for which my own rather didactic declamations may serve as foils, are offered to start in an enjoyable manner several of our hares. VII... how do these wiseacres know that man wants a normal, a virtuous choice? What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally advantageous choice? What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice ... VIII "Ha! ha! ha! But you know there is no such thing as choice in reality, say what you like," you interpose with a chuckle. "Science has succeeded in so far analysing man that we know already that choice and what is called freedom of will is nothing else than —" Stay, gentleman, I meant to begin with that myself. I confess, I was rather frightened. I was just going to say that the devil only knows what choice depends on, and that perhaps that was a very good thing, but I remembered the teaching of science ... and pulled myself up. And here you have begun upon it. Indeed, if there really is some day discovered a formula for all our desires and caprices - that is, an explanation of what they depend upon, by what laws they arise, how they develop, what they are aiming at in one case and in another and so on, that is, a real mathematical formula - then, most likely, man will at once cease to feel desire, indeed, he will be certain to. For who would want to choose by rule? Besides, he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ-stop or something of the sort; for what is a man without desires, without free will and without choice, if not a stop in an organ? What do you think? Let us reckon the chance - can such a thing happen or not? ... "H'm!" you decide. "Our choice is usually mistaken... we sometimes choose absolute nonsense ... But when all that is explained and worked out on paper (which is perfectly possible, for it is contemptible and senseless to suppose that some laws of nature man will never understand), then certainly so-called desires will no longer exist... And, in fact, we ought unwearyingly to repeat to ourselves that at such and such a time and in such and such circumstances nature does not ask our leave; that we have got to take her as she is and not fashion her to suit our fancy, and if we really aspire to formulas and tables of rules, and well, even ... to the chemical retort, there's no help for it, we must accept the retort too, or else it will be accepted without our consent..." Yes, but here I come to a stop! Gentleman, you must excuse me for being overphilosophical: it's the result of forty years underground!... It is just his fantastic dreams,

Preface

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his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself- as though that were so necessary - that men still are men and not the keys of a piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar. And that is not all: even if man really were nothing but a piano-key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of simple ingratitude, simply to gain his point... that he is a man and not a piano-key! If you say that all this, too, can be calculated and tabulated-chaos and darkness and curses, so that the mere possibility of calculating it all beforehand would stop it all, and reason would reassert itself, then man would purposely go mad in order to be rid of reason and gain his point! I believe in it, I answer for it, for the whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key! ... You will scream at me (that is, if you condescend to do so) that no one is touching my free will, that all they are concerned with is that my will should of itself, of its own free will, coincide with my own normal interest, with the laws of nature and arithmetic. Good Heavens, gentlemen, what sort of free will is left when we come to tabulation and arithmetic, when it will all be a case of twice two makes four? Twice two makes four without my will. As if free will meant that!

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PUZZLES FOR THE WILL

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1

Logical Fatalisms

Introduction

i.i Some people believe that absolutely every event and state is determined by causes. They think that every human action has a cause, and that this is true also of every thought and desire. Some people who believe these things think that because every event and state is determined by causes, choice and free will are illusions. They think that since every event is causally determined, people must act as they do, and cannot possibly act otherwise. They think that all effort is futile and pointless, and that the only rational attitude is simply to relax and let one's life unfold as it causally must. Such people are fatalists because they believe that every event is causally determined, and one way of resisting their conclusions is to deny this premise, which even if true is not a logical truth. One way to resist conclusions pressed by causal fatalists is to deny their premise and say that not every event and state, and in particular that not every thought and desire, choice, and action, is causally determined. Other people - logical fatalists - while agreeing with the dismal conclusions that can seem to flow from causal determinism, insist that these conclusions obtain whether or not all events are fully determined by causes. These fatalists say that these conclusions obtain, as a matter of pure logic broadly understood. For example, a logical fatalist may say that all events and states of the world are necessary and if future absolutely unavoidable. This, they may say, is so even if they do not all have causes, and there are not, as it were, for all future events and states, 'wheels already turning' so that they are all in a real sense 'already going' to be. According to logical fatalists, of all events and states that will be it is true, it is already true, that they will be. That they will be, logical fatalists say, is necessary. There is nothing anyone can do about them. Since no one can make what is true not true, there is nothing anyone can do about anything. For

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another example, a logical fatalist may say that whatever happens will happen no matter what is done to prevent it, and no matter what is not done to promote it. Why? Because it is necessary that whatever will happen will happen. Or, a logical fatalist may say that the future will unfold as it will - that it always has and always will. Why? Because always what will be must be. The future is, fatalists say, though largely unknown, completely settled. There is nothing anyone can do about the future, any more than there is anything that anyone can do about the past - the past is certainly closed, and it is an illusion that the future is different, that it is at least at some points not only unknown, but incomplete and open. It never was, and never will be. Everything in time is and always has been settled, and it only seems that what will be, the future, is more open than what has been, the past. Fatalisms based on principles of causal determinism are founded on principles that could be false and that, before dramatic fatalistic conclusions are drawn from them, need to be explained and defended. Such fatalisms are based on reasons that can be denied. In contrast, fatalisms founded on logic alone broadly understood - logical fatalisms founded on absolutely necessary principles that hold for all possible worlds - are based on undeniable reasons. Based as they would be on grounds that, even if needing to be explained, once explained need not be further defended, they would be 'fatalisms on the cheap.' The mark of logical fatalisms is extreme economy and security, erected as they would be on premises that cannot fail to be true. But how, one wonders, is it possible to get so much - namely, all that fatalists claim in their conclusions - from so little - namely, the secure because logically necessary position maintained in their premises? How is it possible to reach dismal and disturbing and not at all trivial conclusions, from premises which when rightly viewed are trivial - for example, from the tautology that what will be will - by steps which because valid deliver only what is already implicitly maintained in their antecedents? The distinction I draw between logical and causal grounds for fatalistic conclusion, and between two kinds of fatalism, logical and causal, is for some philosophers marked by the labels 'fatalism' and 'hard determinism.' Thus, Peter van Inwagen explains that fatalism is 'the thesis that it is a logical or conceptual truth that no one is able to act otherwise than he in fact does; that the very idea of an agent to whom alternative courses of action are open is self-contradictory' (van Inwagen 1983, 23). That for me is logical fatalism. Hard determinism 'the conjunction of determinism and incompatibilism' (p. 13) - on the other hand, is the thesis that as a matter of fact no one can act otherwise than he in fact does, because, as another matter of fact, for all acts there have always been fully sufficient and inescapable causes. That for me is causal fatalism. Theolog-

Logical Fatalisms

5

ical fatalisms conjoin principles of divine determinism with incompatibilism: depending on the status claimed for divine determinism, they are or are not forms of logical fatalism. While I have spoken of people who are fatalists, it would be more accurate to speak of people who are at times fatalists. Few if any people are fatalists all the time: few are fatalists even when they are ordering from menus, when they are about to accept or reject job offers, when they are hesitating before entering cross-walks, and so on. Connectedly, few thinkers come readily to mind who even in moments of repose and reflection have given unqualified assent to fatalism. It is said that Diodorus Coronus (300 B.C.) was a logical fatalist, and Richard Taylor is, he has written, a fatalist of this stripe. Self-declared causal fatalists are, curiously, if anything rarer. Most causal determinists are 'compatibilists' who deny that determinism implies fatalism, and most 'incompatibilists' who say that determinism does imply fatalism are not determinists. The most notable exception here is Baron d'Holbach (1723-89). Others sometimes mentioned are Sigmund Freud and Clarence Darrow. Fatalisms, that is, scepticisms regarding choice and real alternatives, like scepticisms regarding other minds and the past, are far more often discussed than embraced. In this they contrast with scepticisms concerning objective values and gods. But fatalisms are often discussed, and are sometimes discussed at length to reveal their errors, from which one may gather that not a few people are somewhat inclined and perhaps threatened by arguments for fatalism. There is, when one thinks about it, some evidence in the unending discussion and perennial purported refutations of fatalisms that the few exponents of these remarkable doctrines just might be bravely on to something. 1.2 This chapter is about possible logical fatalisms. We come back to causal determinisms in chapters 3 and 4 below. Two logical fatalisms will be examined, two putative deductions of fatalistic principles from undeniable, because logically and necessarily true, principles. Criticisms of these confirm the suspicion that 'the thing cannot be done' - they confirm that fatalistic conclusions, which would surely be momentous, cannot be grounded in truths secure in the manner of tautologies. Consideration of shortcomings of the arguments to be discussed enforces the sense that fatalistic conclusions, even if true because of the causal structure of the world, or because of God's dominion over it, cannot be proved by logic alone. Che Sara Sara The future is not ours to change, any more than is the past. One may choose not (with Doris Day) to sing it, but there is no denying it. Efforts to avoid things

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that have happened have always failed, and they always will fail. For though 'the future is not ours to see,' it is plain that 'whatever will be,' most emphatically will be. 'Whatever will be,' will necessarily be. And that is an end to it. 2. AN ARTICULATION OF THIS 'NAIVE' FATALISTIC ARGUMENT

2. i To facilitate discussion, I propose to relate the line of this most popular and best known of fatalistic arguments to cases chosen by you and me. Consider therefore, as I will do, an agent A and an action X that you suppose A will be able to do or not as A chooses. Pick A and X so that neither you nor, you are sure, anyone else (leaving God out of this) knows whether or not A will do X. Pick A and X so that A has not decided whether or not to do X, and so that no one can even guess with any confidence whether or not A will do X. We want X to be a best possible example of an action that is open to choice by some person A, so that if this person A has no choice regarding action X, it will be fair to conclude that no one ever has a choice regarding anything. For defmiteness you should settle on some reading of 'A will do X' that fills this bill for you. I have in mind Albert for 'A,' ordering a Big Mac for 'X,' and thus, for 'A will do X,' the hardly grammatical 'Albert will do, ordering a Big Mac' - the latter 'sentence by philosophic license,' I understand in the sense of 'Albert will order a Big Mac.' I am thinking of a not unusual case in which Albert is wondering whether to order a Big Mac rather than a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. The case I have in mind is one of which only fatalists would say Alfred has no choice. With this case in mind (you may have another in mind), I proceed to elaborate an application to A and X of the fatalist's line that, since what will be will be, there is nothing anyone can do about anything. The application is conducted in sections 2.2 and 2.3 as if I believed in it, in every word and move in it. Doubts and criticism are postponed to section 3. 2.2 Premises for my application of the fatalist's general line are precisely the following three, the first of which makes explicit cases, a division of possibilities concerning A and X, to which the second two relate the fatalist's refrain that what will be will be. (i) Either A will do X, or A will not do X. (ii) If A will do X, then A will necessarily do X. (iii) If A will not do X, then A will necessarily not do X. The conclusion of the argument is that A has no choice regarding X.

Logical Fatalisms 7 There is, of course, no quarrelling with premise (i). It is a completely empty tautology. Premises (ii) and (iii) can also be trivial truths. Premise (ii) can be an emphatic expression of an instance to A and X of the generalized tautology that what will be will be, or equivalently an expression of the necessity of that instance, and premise (iii) can be a similar expression in which the generalized tautology that what will not be will not be is related to A and X. The three premises enter the spelled-out deduction of the conclusion provided below, not all at once, but only when it is time to use them. For prominence they will be presented in bold letters. Preliminary conclusions of these cases, for contrast, will be set out in upper-case letters. The argument's ultimate conclusion will be in upper-case bold letters. 2.3 A deduction of the argument's conclusion from its premises. To show that the conclusion that A has no choice regarding X - for me that Albert has no choice regarding ordering a Big Mac - follows from the argument's premises, I begin by entering the first of these premises. i. Either A will do X, or A will not do X. [A will do X v ~(A will do X)] This premise makes explicit the basis for the coming deduction's overall 'separation into cases' form. The deduction's first part is for the case in which A will do X. Its other part is for the case in which A will not do X. Each part culminates in the deduction of a material conditional proposition. From these conditionals and the disjunction (i) the argument's conclusion immediately follows. The proof procedure of each part of the case is that of conditional derivation in which first a sought conditional's antecedent is assumed for purposes of argument, and then, using a premise along with this assumption, the conditional's consequent is derived by easy steps. When the conditional sought is as here a standard material conditional, this procedure establishes that the conditional itself follows from the premise used. I Blocks and bold brackets here and elsewhere serve to set off material that can be skipped over without loss of continuity. Such material is often technical. Sometimes, as here, it labours elementary and simple ideas, and in its detailed explanations is of interest mainly to experienced readers. Non-technical material that can be skipped over without loss of continuity is on occasion also set off. By blocks and brackets, material that would for one reason or another otherwise be buried in notes is made both more accessible and easier to skip or skim. Now comes the first portion of such material.

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For sentences A has no choice with regard to X) I begin by assuming for argument the antecedent of this conditional I seek. 2. A will do X. Next for explicitness I recall premise (ii), which is that 3. If A will do X, then A will necessarily do X. Then, by the patently valid principle modus ponens, I infer from (2) and (3) that 4. A will necessarily do X. I Modus ponens, the principle that from a conditional (if O, then ¥) and its

io Puzzles for the Will antecedent 4>, one may infer its consequent *F, is valid for material conditionals. It is plainly impossible for (either it is not the case that O, or not only is it the case that O but it is also the case that H/) and 4> to express truths, though 4* does not express a truth. This principle of inference is valid for every kind of conditional. (A note to specialists: I use spaces instead of 'corners' in order not to bother others with the niceties of 'quasi-quotation.') I Observing that to say that A will necessarily do X is to say that A has to do X, and that this implies that A cannot do any action instead of X, I infer from (4) that 5. A has no choice with regard to X. For A has a choice regarding X, only if A does not have to do X, and can do some action instead of doing X. I note that doing something instead of X can consist in 'doing nothing' rather than doing X. Recalling the case I have in mind, doing nothing could consist in Albert's ordering nothing at all rather than ordering a Big Mac. (Compare: "[N]o one deliberates about the invariable ... but about [only] what is ... capable of being otherwise." Nicomachean Ethics Ii39ai3, H39b7, trans. W.D. Ross. "[N]o one deliberates about... things it is impossible for him to do... [or] about things that are of necessity... [T]hat which can be done is capable of being otherwise." 1140332—ii4obi. In Aristotle's view, choice and deliberation are exclusively of 'that which can be done': cf. H39b5-ii.) I now enter the preliminary conditional conclusion of this first case, for its consequent has been derived from its antecedent together with a premise. What has been established - see (2), our assumption, and (5), the proposition just inferred - is that 6. IF A WILL DO X, THEN A HAS NO CHOICE WITH REGARD TO X. (A will do X z> A has no choice with regard to X) This conclusion of the first case has been derived from premise (ii) alone by the procedure of conditional derivation.

Logical Fatalisms

11

(The Second Case) The second case, which culminates in the conditional that if A will not do X, then A has no choice with regard to X, proceeds similarly. 7. A will not do X. (assumption of the antecedent) 8. If A will not do X, then A will necessarily not do X. (premise (iii)) 9. A will necessarily not do X. (inference from 7 and 8) Observing here that if A will necessarily not do X, then it is not possible for A to do X, I infer that 10. A has no choice with regard to X.

(inference from 9)

For A has a choice with regard to X, only if it is not necessary that A not do X, that is, only if it is possible for A to do X. What has been established in this second case is that 11. IF A WILL NOT DO X, THEN A HAS NO CHOICE WITH REGARD TO X. [~(A will do x) D A has no choice with regard to X] This has been by a conditional proof shown to follow from premise (iii) alone. (The Conclusion) The argument's conclusion, 12. A HAS NO CHOICE WITH REGARD TO X, follows from (i), which makes explicit cases that it is sufficient to consider, together with (6) and (i i), the preliminary conclusions for these cases: (12) follows from (6) and (i i) by constructive dilemma. I Constructive dilemma is here the principle that, for any sentence O, T, and X, from (

(

12 Puzzles for the Will

and (

one may infer x

For the validity of this form of inference, suppose - to see that this is impossible - for an argument of its form that its conclusion, X, is false though its premises (O v 40, (O => X), and (¥ => X) are true. Then, for the truth of (O => X), since X is false, is also false: (O z> X) 'says' - see above - either it is not the case that , or not only is it the case that O but it is also the case that X. Similarly, for the truth of (4* z> X), 4* is false. So, since O and 4* are false, (O v 40 is false, which contradicts part of our supposition according to which part (O v 4*) is true. Our supposition entails its own falsity, which is to say that it is impossible. As it happens, constructive dilemma, in contrast with conditional derivation, and like modus ponens, is valid not only for material conditionals but for all conditionals. The final inference to (12) is clearly also of the valid form INDEX And the inference to (12) could have been simply from (6) and (i i), and of the patently valid simpler form, ( Premise (i) is stated only to make explicit that it is sufficient for the argument's demonstration to establish (6) and (i i). I Line (i), I recall, is premise (i), while (6) and (i i) are deduced from premises (ii) and (iii) respectively, and (12) is of course our argument's conclusion. So, as was its purpose, the deduction (i) through (12) details a way in which our argument's conclusion follows from its premises. 2.4 Summing up, the deduction explains (I am still using the voice of a believer) how either way — whether A will do X, or will not do X - A has no choice regarding X. Recalling now that A and X are to provide a best possible example of a case in which someone might have choice, and noting that no steps in the deduction depend on the exact identities of A and X, I conclude that no one ever has a choice with regard to anything. Whatever we do we must do, and whatever we do not do we cannot do. When,

Logical Fatalisms

13

as often, we think we have a choice, or think we had a choice, or think we will have a choice, we are mistaken. There is no choice. There never has been, and never will be. According to this argument - which I recall presents premises (ii) and (iii) as emphatic expressions of instances of generalized tautologies — its fatalistic conclusions are delivered by logic alone. Choice is not merely never real. It is impossible. Even if the future is not closed and settled by causes, it is by logic. Even if the future is not determined in every detail by causes already in place, it is determined in every detail as a matter of logic. What will be will be. Our futures are quite immutable, for they are the only futures that are possible, they are the only futures that are logically possible, for us. Wisdom, gentle fatalists say, consists in calm acceptance when our futures go badly, and in enjoying them when we are fortunate and our futures go well. "We shall say ... of whatever happens that it was going to be that way. And this is a comfort, both in fortune and in adversity" (Taylor 1992, p. 66). At least some of us may now hope that we shall say these things, and we may now take comfort in our fatalisms. However, as for whether we really shall say these things - as for whether this thing lies in our futures - that is, as is everything else about our destinies, not for us to say or to decide. It is for us always only to wait and see what will be. This goes, with changes in tense, even for our hoping that things will be, and for our being quiescent fatalists who take solace in our philosophy. I, to make a point that holds for everyone, may now hope that I will say these things, and I may now take solace in fatalistic philosophy if and only if I am hoping for these things and taking this solace. Since I am not, I cannot. 3. DISCUSSION 3. i What are we to make of this demonstration? To see we may concentrate on the first case. Comment on the second essentially parallel case will come in, but only late, and to supplement lengthier comments on the first case. My central contention is that the argument of the first case trades on an amphiboly or ambiguity of structure of (3) If A will do X, then A will necessarily do X in a manner that David Hunt makes definitive of 'Naive Fatalism' (Hunt 1997, 280). The case features two inferences. Here, now isolated, is the first inference of the case.

14 Puzzles for the Will (2) A will do X. (3) If A will do X, then A will necessarily do X. (4) A will necessarily do X. Taken one way, (3), that is, premise (ii), really is undeniable as it is supposed to be. Taken in another way, (3) is plainly sufficient to the use to which it is put in this inference to (4). But there seems no way of interpreting (3), not even if we allow artificial interpretations that combine these qualities of undeniability and plain sufficiency to the second inference of the case, which, now isolated, is (4) A will necessarily do X. (5) A has no choice with regard to X. Appearances to the contrary - appearances that these required virtues of undeniability and plain sufficiency are combined in (3) - arise, I think, entirely from failures to discriminate interpretations of (3) that can be conveyed by very different grammatical/logical forms of sentence. There are interpretations of (3) that can be conveyed by (33) It is necessary that, if A will do X, then A will do X. And there are other interpretations that can be conveyed by (3b) If A will do X, then it is necessary that A will do X. For brevity and perspicuity, let these sentences be symbolized thus:

(3a) NEC(P>p)(

3b) [P>NEC(P)] Here WEC" abbreviates 'it is necessary that.' 'P' abbreviates 'A will do X' for me it abbreviates 'Alfred will order a Big Mac.' And, as already stated, 'z>' abbreviates 'only if in its material sense, or equivalently ' ( - = > - ) ' stands in for '(if - then -)' in its material sense. Left open is the exact force of 'necessary,' and of W£C,' and in particular whether it is that of logical necessity or 'truth no matter what.' So rather than two interpretations, we have two families of interpretations of (3). But it is easy to see that all relevant (3a)-interpretations are undeniably true, and that all

Logical Fatalisms

15

(3b)-interpretations are clearly sufficient to the inference to (4). I contend, however, that no interpretation in either family not only combines these conditions, but combines them with an essential third condition. My contention is that no interpretation whatsoever of (3) not only combines those two conditions, but in addition - now comes the third condition - makes unproblematic the second inference in the case to (5). I attend in what follows, first and at length in section 3.2, exclusively to (33)interpretations. Then, in Section 3.3, I take up (3b)-interpretations; brevity is possible here since many points of section 3.2 are easily adapted to these interpretations. 3.2 All relevant (^-interpretations of (3) are undeniably true, but... 3.2.1 For every sentence O, the sentence it is necessary that if O then - in symbols,

Ne is true for every sense of 'necessary' that has to do with what is the case. It is true even if 'necessary' is taken, as it is here natural to do in contexts of fatalistic argumentation, in the sense of logical necessity. (3a)-interpretations thus have the virtue of undeniable truth. But none serve the two inferences in our first case and make them plainly valid. 3.2.2 (3a)-interpretations vary in the senses they specify for 'necessary.' They vary in the necessities they attribute. Beginning with the most demanding kind of necessity, I am sure that whatever the argument of its first case is for you, that is, whatever you make of 'A will do X,' if 'NEC' is taken to convey logical necessity, its first inference is for you not valid. I say this in the confidence that you are not a logical fatalist, at least not yet. Recalling what 'A will do X' abbreviates for you, I am sure that to your way of thinking taking 'NEC' to convey logical necessity makes (4),

N simply false. And this notwithstanding that (3a),

Ne

16

Puzzles for the Will

is certainly true, while (2), A will do X, is for all you know true. Reflecting on all that, you can see that to your way of thinking the inference from (2) and (3a) to (4) is not valid when W£C" conveys logical necessity. To your way of thinking it is certainly not impossible that (2) and (33) are true though (4) is false. You think that, on the contrary, that is plainly possible, since (2) itself is possible, and, as said, (4) is false. For myself, I am convinced that though it is certainly logically possible, it is definitely not logically necessary - not logically necessary! - that Albert will order a Big Mac. Since I see that (3a) is true no matter what, I am at present as confident as I can be of any modal logical point that the argument Albert will order a Big Mac. D (Albert will order a Big Mac z> Albert will order a Big Mac) D (Albert will order a Big Mac), in which ' D ' stands for 'it is logically necessary that,' is not valid. I am prepared to listen to speeches of logical fatalists to the contrary, speeches that would persuade that Albert will order a Big Mac only if it is logically necessary that he will do so. But no speech — no 'argument' — that takes this very strange proposition for granted can persuade me. 3.2.3 Taking 'NEC' in (3a) to convey logical necessity, the inference from (2) and (3a) to (4) is not undeniably valid. But it is not for us to rule on the sense of 'NEC' intended in this fatalistic argument. We must allow fatalists to 'call their shots' and to say what kind of necessities and impossibilities they have in mind. And we can expect subtle fatalists to say that it is not the logical modalities that enter into their deductions. Cf.: "The fatalist argument has nothing to do with impossibility in those senses familiar to logic. It has to do with unavoidability. It is, in other words, concerned with human abilities" (Taylor 1992, 65). Taylor continues: "The fact that a statement is true does not, to be sure, entail that it is necessary, nor do all false statements express impossibilities. Nonetheless, no one is able to avoid what is truly described, however contingently, in any statement, nor to bring about what is thus false described... It has never been done, and it never will be. It would be a conceit indeed for someone now to suggest that he, alone among men, might be able to accomplish this feat. This inability goes far beyond the obvious impossibility of making something both

Logical Fatalisms

17

true and false at once. No metaphysics turns on that simple point" (65). Perhaps, as he assures us, his argument really does have nothing to do with possibilities for confusion afforded by logical modalities. Perhaps, however, it does have to do with these confusions without, of course, his realizing that it does, for if it does he of course cannot know that it does. [Sections A3 and A4 of the appendix below contain additional comments on Taylor's chapter.] 3.2.4 There are necessities less demanding than logical that our discussion needs to consider. For example, there are broadly natural, and narrower physical and psychological, necessities, and there is that unavoidability of which Taylor speaks. Furthermore, since (3a) - NEC(P ID P) - is undeniably true even for logical necessity, the most demanding kind of necessity, we should allow that it is undeniably true for every possibly relevant necessity. So we may wonder whether there is a less demanding necessity for which the inference from (2) and (33) to (4) is valid? Let us suppose that there is. Suppose that there is at least an artificial and non-ordinary, but still theoretically defensible, sense of 'necessarily' that makes that inference valid. I now stress that before rejoicing we would want to check that this necessity is not only weak enough to make valid the inference from (2) and (3a) to (4), but strong enough for the second inference from (4) to (5). For presumably the necessity in (4) is to be the same kind as that in (3), and is somehow to 'come out' of (3) with the aid of (2). This is the problem for (3a)-interpretations of (3), namely, to find a kind of necessity that fills this 'not too strong/not too weak' bill. We cannot consider individually every kind of necessity. Perhaps, however, it will be sufficiently clarifying to survey the range of relevant kinds of necessity, and to comment on its extremes, and a couple of intermediates. Let a 'possible world' be a way things might have been, a comprehensive way that settles every issue, and let 'the actual world' be the comprehensive way things actually are. For a proposition to be necessary in some sense is for it to be true, if not no matter how things are, then at least no matter how things are subject to some qualification. In other words, for a proposition to be necessary in some sense is for it be true, if not at absolutely every possible world, then at least at every possible world that satisfies some condition. Furthermore, kinds of necessity of interest to us require truth at the actual world. Kinds of necessity of interest to us consist, that is, in truth at all worlds in a class of possible worlds that includes the actual world. This is a formula for alethic necessities, necessities that pertain to truth and

18

Puzzles for the Will

what is the case in contrast with what is supposed or demanded to be the case, and what ought to be the case. For every alethic necessity NEC, truth for NEC(P) requires truth of P at the actual world, so that NEC(P) entails P (thus the inclusion of the actual world in the class of worlds relevant to any alethic necessity), and truth of P at every world in a class of worlds which class, if restricted, is restricted to all worlds that are related to the actual world in some way or other. The range of currently relevant kinds of necessity is that of the formula for alethic necessities emphasized in the previous paragraph. Logical necessity, which is 'truth no matter what,' truth at every possible world, stands at one extreme of this range. Mere actuality, which is truth given the way things are, truth at every world in the singleton-class that contains the actual world and no other, stands at the other extreme of this range. (N.B.: 'mere actuality' is truth at every world in this singleton-class, but not necessarily at only or merely the world in this class. Logical necessity thus entails mere actuality.) Mere actuality recommends itself for present discussion-purposes as an artificial, bareminimum kind of necessity, rather than as a condition that lies just beyond minimum kinds of alethic necessity, fin between these extremes are two to be named and commented upon in section 3.2.6 below, as well, for example, as 'natural necessity' or truth at all worlds at which the natural laws of the actual world are true, and 'physical necessity' or truth at all worlds at which the physical laws of the actual world are true. There are other possible formulas for natural and physical necessity. To illustrate, natural necessity could be equated with truth at all worlds at which the laws of the actual world are both true and laws. The two accounts differ, if being a law is a world-dependent characteristic as it is if its attachment to a proposition at a world depends on whether this proposition is part of a best theory for that world. A third account of natural necessity would make it truth at all worlds at which the laws of the actual world are both true and the laws.] Necessities of the sort being considered do not form a single progression such that for any kinds of necessity, NEC and NEC,' the class of worlds relevant to NEC is a subset of the class of worlds relevant to NEC,' or vice versa. Even so, logical necessity, for which we have the symbol 'D', stands at one extreme. It is stronger, it is more demanding, than, and entails, every other necessity in this range: for every kind of necessity, NEC, every world relevant to NEC-necessity is relevant to D-necessity, since absolutely every world is relevant to D -necessity which is truth at absolutely every world. And mere actuality, for which I will use the symbol '((§>),' stands at the other extreme. It is weaker, it is less demanding, than, and entailed by, every other NEC-necessity, since for each of these every world relevant to (@)-necessity, of which there is

Logical Fatalisms

19

just one, the actual world, is relevant to N£C-necessity, while for each of these, other worlds are also relevant. lAlethic necessities have been contrasted above with, I now name them, deontic necessities, of which moral and social necessity are examples. One important difference is that deontic necessities do not entail mere actuality. To be morally necessary or socially necessary, for two examples, is not to be true at all worlds in some class that includes the actual world: that some state or action is morally or socially required is of course consistent with its not being the case. It is not for any deontic necessity a valid principle that OUGHT®).-. p We are concerned with precisely alethic necessities, and deontic necessities can be set aside. For one thing, it is clear that the necessity intended in premise (3) of our fatalist argument is alethic, not deontic. And for another thing, it is certain that no deontic necessity could fill the double-bill of the first case. Indeed, no deontic necessity can fill either part of this bill. Thinking of the first inference in the case, the premise used in it, it ought to be the case that if P then P, or for short,

Ou is problematic. There are two possibilities regarding this premise. According to one it is not merely strange but, for every sense of 'ought,' not true to say of what is logically necessary that it ought to be the case. If so, the overall fatalistic argument fails for want of true premises. The other possibility is that we should, for theoretical simplicity, say that this premise is necessarily true by the general principle that

Ne The problem with this ruling is that it makes the first inference in the case, P OUGHT(P>P) .: OUGHT(P), plainly not valid. For if it were valid, then - deleting its second premise, which the ruling says is logically necessary - the converse of the inference characteristic of alethic necessity,

2O

Puzzles for the Will P . . OUGHT(P)

would be valid, which all but fatalists would reject out of hand. All but fatalists, suppose that P (for me, the proposition that Albert will order a Big Mac - you should consider what it is for you) is contingent. Probably they will find that while P can be true, it is false that OUGHT(P): in the case I have had in mind there is no sense in which Albert ought to order a Big Mac. As for what would be the second inference of the case, OUGHT(A will do X).-. A has no choice with regard to X, it is certainly not plainly and unproblematically valid. For the conclusion of this inference is to have the force of a disjunction of alethic necessities, OUGHT(P).-. [NEC(P) v JV£C(~P)]. No one thinks that OUGHT(P) entails that NEC(~P) for any alethic necessity NEC: if it did it would entail that ~P. Nor does anyone think that it entails the disjunction [NEC(P) v NEC(~P)] without entailing either of its disjuncts. So, for the inference displayed in the paragraph to be valid in someone's view, he needs to think that OUGHT(P) entails NEC(P) for some alethic necessity NEC. However, only fatalists think that. Only they think that since ought implies can (in some alethic senses of 'can'), it follows that ought implies must in some alethic sense of 'must,' and thus that ought implies will/shall. I 3.2.5 The Extreme Alethic Necessities The most demanding alethic necessity, logical necessity, is, we have seen in Section 3.2.2, too strong for the inference from (2) and (33) to (4). Suppose we weaken the force in our argument of 'NEC' - that is, of 'it is necessary that,' or equivalently of 'it is necessarily the case that' - all the way to that of 'it is a fact that' or of 'it is actually the case that.' Then the inference to (4 from (2) and (33) is secure, since now (4), (@)(A will do X), says merely that it is actually the case that A will do X, and that is plainly equivalent to saying that A will do X, which is what (2) says. Taking 'NEC' in the sense of '@,' (4) follows from (2) alone, and so from (2) along with any proposition including (33). But the inference from (4) to (5) is now at best contentious. Indeed, this second inference of the first case now confronts the issue with which the

h whole first case is supposed to be concerned. The problem of the case is to explain how, from the mere fact that A will do X, it follows that A has no choice but to do X. With the force of 'necessarily' reduced throughout the case all the way to that of 'actually,' this problem of the whole case is posed quite undiminished by its second and final inference. In short, the maximumnecessity, 'D,' (3a)-interpretation is challenged by one inference in the first case, and the mmwiMm-necessity, '@,' (3a)-interpretation by the other. Logical necessity - D (2) A will do X. (33) Q (A will do X is A will do X)

Mere actuality - (@) (2) A will do X. (33) (@)(A will do X ID A will do X)

No! (4) D (A will do X)

(4) (@)(A will do X) Why!?

(5) A has no choice with regard to X.

(5) A has no choice with regard to X.

3.2.6 Intermediate Alethic Necessities For a (3a)-interpretation to work in our argument, its necessity needs to be of intermediate strength. It needs to be weaker than logical necessity to make unproblematically valid the inference from (2) and (33) to (4), and stronger than mere actuality to make unproblematically valid the inference from (4) to (5). Many kinds of intermediate necessity can be defined. Some of these fill one half of this bill, and some fill the other. Nevertheless there are, I think, no prospects of an intermediate necessity that fills both halves of this double bill. Of particular interest are temporal kinds of which I will consider two that I dub 'past necessity' and 'future necessity.' Let past necessity — for which we may have the symbol '()' — be truth at the actual world and at every world with the same past as the actual world. Importing this necessity into our case, its second inference, (),' (3a)-interpretations are challenged by one or another inference in the first case of our Che Sard Sard argument. Past necessity - ()

A will do X.

(2)

A will do X.

(3a) ( A will do X) Why!? (4)

( A will do X) to

A has no choice with regard to X.

24 Puzzles for the Will But I think that readers will find that that is the irresistible conclusion, and that (3a)-interpretations of (3) cannot serve the argument of the first case. And this, as will be explained, is so for reasons that, rearranged, say that ^^-interpretations can do no better. 3-3 (3b)-interpretations are plainly sufficient to the inference to (4), however ... The argument (2) A will do X (3b) A will do X D NEC(A will do X) (4)

NEC(A will do X)

is undeniably valid, and, we may note, its validity does not depend on 'z>' having its standard material sense. It is sufficient that 'z>' should bear an ordinary sense of 'only if,' any ordinary sense, since its form modus ponens,

( only if ), :., wherein we have as premises a conditional and its antecedent, and as conclusion the conditional's consequent, is valid for all ordinary senses of 'only if So the argument (2), (3b).-. (4) is certainly valid, whatever kind of necessity is intended in (3b) and (4). But is (3b) true? More to the point, is (3b) undeniably true as a premise in a fatalistic argument? This depends, of course, on the kind of necessity that 'NEC' lends to it. It has in effect been observed in section 3.2.2 above that (3b) is certainly not undeniably true if 'NEC' conveys logical necessity. For that version of (3b), A will do X ID D (A will do X) is undeniably true - that is, that version of (3b) is logically necessary - if and only if the argument A will do X .-. D (A will do X) is valid, and thus, since it is logically necessary that D (A will do X z> A will do X), if and only if the argument

Logical Fatalisms

25

A will do X. D(A will do X ID A will do X) .-. D(A will do X) is valid. It is explained in section 3.2.2 why this argument is at least not undeniably valid, why its premises are not, as required by the fatalistic argument we are discussing, clearly and non-question-beggingly sufficient for its conclusion. It may be useful to elaborate on the unsuitability of this version of (3b) to the fatalistic argument under discussion. I am sure that whatever 'A will do X' comes to for you, it does not express a proposition that you consider to be logically necessary. Recalling again my own stipulations, I am sure that though it may be true that Albert will order a Big Mac, it is not logically necessary that he should do so. Evidently, for us - who are not yet, if we shall ever be, convinced and consistent logical fatalists - NEC(A will do X) is simply and obviously false, if 'NEC' conveys logical necessity. But then if 'NEC' conveys logical necessity, (3b) - [A will do X z> NEC(A will do X)] - is for us false, if it is true that A will do X. Furthermore, recalling that the compound argument for (12) has a second case that is parallel to the first one we have been considering, we find that if we take 'NEC' in the sense of logical necessity, then the pivotal premise (8b) [~(A will do X)] ID W£C[~(A will do X)] of this second case is for us false, if it is not true that A will do X. For I am sure that for us it is as clear that it is false that NEC[~(A will do X)] as it is clear that NEC(A will do X) is false. (And, clearly, if it is not true that A will do X, then it is true that ~(A will do X).) So, if the necessity in our argument is taken to be logical necessity, then at one point or another - either at (3b) or (8b) - the argument uses for an inference a premise that to our way of thinking is simply false and so certainly not undeniably and uncontentiously true. In reaction to the evident inadequacy of logical necessity for admissible interpretations of (3b) and (8b), we may cast about for another kind of necessity for our argument. If we do, we meet here a problem, a problem very similar to the one encountered with (3a)-interpretations. The problem for interpretations of (3b) and (8b) is to find an alethic necessity that is both, (i), weak enough to make both (3b) and (8b) undeniably true, and, (ii), strong enough to provide uncontentious support for both the inference to (5) and that to (10), which is (5) renumbered. However, it seems that modes of necessity such as mere actuality and future necessity that are weak enough to satisfy condition (i) must all prove woefully inadequate in relation to condition (ii): focusing just on (3b) and (5), we have -

26 Puzzles for the Will (2)

A will do X.

A will do X.

(3b) [A will do X n (@)(A will do X)]

[A will do X D (@>)(A will do X)]

(@)(AwilldoX)

(@>)(A will do X)

(4)

19 Why!?

(5)

A has no choice with regard to X.

A has no choice with regard to X.

And it seems that modes of necessity such as logical necessity and past necessity that are strong enough to provide uncontentious support for those inferences must all prove woefully inadequate in relation to condition (i): (2)

(A will do X)

(A will do X)

(3b)[AwilldoXz>D(AwilldoX)] Why!? [A willdoXz)()( A will do X)

A has no choice with regard to X.

As forecasted, the apparently irresistible conclusion is that no interpretation of (3b) and (8b) can meet those two conditions and make our fatalistic Che Sard Sard argument good as a proof fit to change minds of those who are not logical fatalists. 4. SUMMING UP 4. i The situation for our argument is this. Premises (ii) and (iii), which come into the deduction as (3) and (8) respectively, are amphibolous. They are structurally ambiguous in ways that are not unusual for sentences that feature modal terms. Understood one way, wherein it is whole conditionals that are said to be necessary, (3) and (8) are trivial and undeniable truths. Understood another way, wherein it is only their consequents that are said to be necessary, (3) and

Logical Fatalisms

27

(8) are plainly sufficient to the inferences to (4) and (9) respectively. Structurally speaking, these are the only ways of understanding (3) and (8). However, there seems to be no sense of 'necessary,' not even an artificial one, that allows interpretations of either structure not only to combine these properties of undeniable truth and plain sufficiency to first inferences in cases, but also to combine them with the further properties of plain, non-question-begging sufficiency of what would be inferred, namely, (4) and (9), in their first inferences, to what would be inferred, (5) and (10), in their second inferences. 4.2 The minimalist fatalistic argument considered in this part, rests only, Richard Taylor might say, "on a 'confusion of modalities'" (Taylor 1992, 65). This argument rests largely, if not entirely, on confusions of possible scopes, wide and narrow, of the qualifier 'necessarily' in premises (ii) and (iii) of section 2.2 above. (Regarding Taylor's own arguments, which do not turn on these modal confusions, see arguments (3) and (4) in the appendix below.) By running the scope of necessity-qualifiers sometimes out of and sometimes into conditionals, it can be made to appear that since it is necessary that what is so is indeed so, from a proposition's merely being true it follows that its opposite is impossible. But, as Taylor observes, "the fact that something is true entails only that its denial is false [or equivalently, that its opposite is not so], not that its denial [or equivalently, its opposite] is impossible" (Taylor 1992,65). The mere fact that some person will act in a certain way, seems not to entail that it is impossible for this person to refrain from acting in that way in any ordinary sense of impossible. That mere fact, to all but logical fatalists, seems not to entail that this person has no choice but to act in that way, and seems not to entail that acting in that way is for this person unavoidable. Non-fatalists quite reasonably assume that fatalistic arguments that would sustain this entailment must be mistaken somehow, somewhere, and that with diligence their mistakes, which may be subtle and instructive, can be revealed and resisted. Similarly - to anticipate arguments in sections At and A2 of the appendix - for the mere fact that it is has been predicted, or that it is known that persons will do certain things, and for fatalistic arguments that would say that these preclude persons' having choices. A brief postscript. Our first fatalistic argument is ill served by certain modal confusions. A student, Susan Hillerby, suggests that it may also be abetted by a confusion of tenses. She observes that (6') if A will do X, then A will have no choice regarding X is undeniably true: if A will do X, then eventually, after A has done X, A has no choice regarding X. Similarly, (i I') if A will not do X, then A will have no choice regarding X

28 Puzzles for the Will is on a certain assumption undeniably true. The assumption is that there is a time for X after which it is no longer an option for A. (For me the assumption could be that Albert is in a McDonald's that is about to close for the day.) Hillerby suggests that there may be some tendency to shift back and forth in thought between the explicitly present-tensed consequents of (6) and (n) and the future-tensed surrogates featured in these just displayed sentences. An 'Idle' Argument Consider, for a second fatalistic argument, a case in which the only point of precautions would be that they might save your life. The argument to follow purports to show that taking precautions in any such case would be pointless. The argument purports to prove this from premises that are all not only true, but necessarily and logically true. It is only a short step from this argument's conclusion to the more general one that it is pointless to take precautions for other lesser reasons. And it will be evident that the argument could easily be made completely general so that it purported to show that it is always pointless to do anything whose sole point would be the furtherance of any end, great or small, beyond itself. The argument could be made to show not only that it sometimes 'makes no difference what we do,' but that it never does. 5. AN ARTICULATION OF THIS FATALISTIC LINE

5.1 In the deduction coming up, 'precautions' stands throughout for 'precautions whose whole point, if any, would lie in their life-saving potential.' The argument's premises are in bold type, as is its conclusion. Preliminary conclusions of cases of the deduction are italicized. Abbreviations used in symbolizations are as follows: K, you will be killed; KP, you will be killed whatever precautions you take; -K-P, you will not be killed whatever Precautions you do not take; F, it is pointless (that is, it is futile) to take precautions. Here is a premise that establishes cases sufficient for a deduction of the argument's conclusion. 1.

Either you will be killed or you will not be killed. (Kv~K)

(The First Case) 2. If you will be killed, then you will be killed whatever precautions you take.

Logical Fatalisms

29

(K 3 KP)

For (2) consider that if you will be killed, then this is so notwithstanding the precautions, if any, you are going to take. This is not merely true, but necessarily true. If, though you will be killed, you are going to take precautions, the precautions you are going to take are evidently - that is, they are of course - not going to do their intended work. 3.

If you will be killed whatever precautions you take, then it is pointless to take precautions. (KP •=> F)

For (3) consider that if you will be killed no matter what precautions you lake, then taking precautions whose whole point, if any, would lie in their life-saving potentials, would be pointless. This too is not merely true but logically necessary. 4.

IF YOU WILL BE KILLED, THEN IT IS POINTLESS TO TAKE PRECAUTIONS. (Kz>F) (from 2 and 3 by hypothetical syllogism)

(The Second Case) Similarly: 5.

If you will not be killed, then you will not be killed whatever precautions you do not take. (~K => -K-P)

6.

If you will not be killed whatever precautions you do not take, then it is pointless to take precautions.

(-K-P z> F) 7.

IF YOU WILL NOT BE KILLED, THEN IT IS POINTLESS TO TAKE PRECAUTIONS. (~K 3 F)

30 Puzzles for the Will (from 5 and 6 by hypothetical syllogism) (Conclusion) 8. IT IS POINTLESS TO TAKE PRECAUTIONS. (from i, 4, and 7 by constructive dilemma) I Hypothetical syllogism is here the principle that, for any sentences O and V, from (O D VF) and (¥ z> X) one may infer (O D X) . For the validity of this inference, suppose - in order to see that this is impossible - that, for an argument of this form, though (O i> X) is false, (O => *F) and (¥ z> X) are true. Consider the supposed falsity of (O z> X) , that is, of (either it is not the case that O, or it is not only the case that O but also the case that X). That is equivalent to the truth of (it is the case that O, and it is not the case that not only O but also X) , or, simplifying of (it is the case that O, and it is not the case that X). The supposed truth of (41 z> X) , coupled with the just emphasized negation of X, implies the negation of^V: consider what (4* z> X) 'says.' Similarly, the supposed truth of (O z> 4/) , given the recently emphasized negation of 4/, implies it is not the case that O. We have deduced a contradiction from our three-part supposition, which means that it cannot be realized. It has been shown that hypothetical syllogism is valid for material conditionals. So it works for our argument in which its applications are to such conditionals. It is noteworthy, however, that like conditional derivation, and unlike modus ponens and constructive dilemma, hypothetical syllogism is not valid for all conditionals. It is, for example, not valid for the subjunctive conditionals of section 6.3.2 below.l 5.2 The conclusion of the argument is that it is pointless for you to take precautions whose whole point if any would lie in their life-saving potential, and this no matter what your situation. But then if such measures would be pointless for you no matter what your situation, then - now comes the general fatalistic conclusion of this line of reasoning - it seems that every action that anyone would do for any purpose must be similarly pointless. Cf.: I here characterize fatalism as the view that there is an intrinsic absurdity in doing something in order that something else should subsequently happen; that any such action that is, any action done with a further purpose - is necessarily pointless. The standard form of the fatalist argument was very popular in London during the bombing. The siren sounds, and I set off for the air-raid shelter in order to avoid being killed by a bomb. The fatalist argues, "Either you are going to be killed by a bomb or you are not going to be. If you are, then any precautions you take will be ineffective. If you are not, all precautions

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you take are superfluous. Therefore it is pointless to take precautions." This belief extended even to particular bombs. If a bomb was going to kill me, then it "had my number on it," and there was no point in my attempting to take precautions against being killed by that bomb; if it did not have my number on it, then of course precautions were pointless too. (Dummett 1964, 345)

Michael Dummett's treatment of this argument is found wanting in Sobel 1966. The present discussion elaborates the treatment of that paper. The argument is essentially "the famous 'idle argument' of antiquity" (Weatherford 1995, 270), "considered, according to Cicero, by Chrysippus" (van Inwagen 1983, 22jn$). Here is yet another illustration of this fatalistic line: "If it is fated for you to recover from this illness, you will recover whether you call in a doctor or not; similarly, if it is fated for you not to recover from this illness, you will not recover whether you call in a doctor or not; and either your recovery or non-recovery is fated; therefore there is no point in calling in a doctor" (Weatherford 1995, 270) 6. DISCUSSION 6.1 We may concentrate on the argument of the first case, (2), (3) .-. (4). The argument of the second case, (5), (6).-. (7), is very similar, and encounters similar difficulties. Their difficulties are furthermore not intertwined as are those of cases for the previous fatalistic argument studied. Sentences (2) and (3) are amphibolous. Each can be read as through and through indicative in mood, or as at places indicative while at other places subjunctive in mood. The problem with the inference to (4) from premises expressed by these sentences is that there seems no way of interpreting its two premises so that, as the argument requires, both, (i), each is undeniably true, and, (ii), they are together sufficient to the validity of the inference to (4). The amphibolies of (2) and (3) that I stress are what one might term 'ambiguities of mood' in contrast with the 'ambiguities of scope' on which play 'naive fatalisms' so called in (Hunt 1997, 280). In a lapse, Hunt suggests that the fatalism now under discussion is a case of 'naive fatalism' (1997, 283). The lines of 'naive fatalisms' and of 'idle arguments' are in fact very different. They have in common little more than the fatalistic bent of their conclusions and the spirit in which they present their premises as not merely true but logically necessary. It is important to the deflation of logical fatalism that the lines dividing its principal generators not be blurred.

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6.2 Interpretations of (2) and (3) 6.2.1 Thoroughly Indicative Interpretations (2i) If you will be killed, then you will be killed notwithstanding the precautions (if any) you are actually going to take [that is, you will be killed despite the precautions if any you are actually going to take]. (K 13 KPi)

(3i) If you will be killed notwithstanding the precautions (if any) you are actually going to take, then it is pointless to take precautions.

(KPi D F) New abbreviation - KPi: you will be killed notwithstanding the precautions (if any) you are actually going to take. 6.2.2 Partly Subjunctive Interpretations Sentences (2i) and (3!) are indicative through and through. We now turn to interpretations that, while not through and through subjunctive, are subjunctive at points. (2s) If you will be killed, then you would be killed whatever precautions you were to take. (K ID KPs)

(35) If you would be killed whatever precautions you were to take, then it is pointless to take precautions.

(KPs => F) The additional abbreviation used here is - KPs: you would be killed whatever precautions you were to take. In contrast with (21) and (3i), (2s) and (3s) are partly subjunctive, (2s) in its consequent, and (38) in its antecedent. 6.2.3 It may be recalled that the sub-argument, (2), (3).-. (4), requires interpretations of (2) and (3) that at once make them express propositions, (i), that are undeniably true, that is - I now spell out the sense intended here for 'undeniably true' - that even persons yet to be converted to

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fatalism must concede for every case, regardless of its details; and, (ii), that are sufficient, when taken together, to the plain validity of the inference to (4). Interpretations of (2) and (3) will be examined with an eye first to their truthvalues, and then to their sufficiencies for that inference. 6.3 Truth-Values of Interpretations of Sentences (2) and (3) 6.3.1 Of each sentence (2i), (2s), (3!), and (35), the first question is whether is, in the required sense, undeniably true. Reflection reveals that (2i) is logically necessary, and thus quite undeniable: if you will be killed, then evidently the precautions (if any) you are actually going to take are not going to save you, and you will be killed despite them. Similarly, only a little reflection reveals that (35) is undeniably true. This should be evident when one recalls that 'precautions' is to be everywhere short for 'precautions whose whole point, if any, would lie in their life-saving potential.' It is necessary that if no such precautions would save your life, then taking any such precautions would be pointless. So both (2i) and (35) are, since logically necessary, undeniably true. In contrast, (2s) is not necessarily true. Nor is it, though not necessarily, still 'undeniably true.' No one who is not already a fatalist thinks that (2s) is true. To suppose otherwise in the context of an argument that purports to prove fatalism would be to beg part of the question addressed by the argument. Lastly, (3i) i not undeniably true. Again, only someone already persuaded of fatalism would concede (31) in every case regardless of its details. Most of us suppose that sometimes people are killed because they fail to take precautions that they could have taken and that, had they taken them, would have saved their lives. And no one thinks that taking such precautions would be pointless for anyone who is interested in living. So neither (2s) nor (3!) is undeniably true. Both will in many cases be denied by non-fatalists who think that often there are precautions that can be taken and that if taken would make a difference. 16.3.2 To illuminate these assessments of (2i), (2s), (y), and (3s), it may help (thanks to Krister Segerberg for suggesting this) to consider similar sentences in which indicative and subjunctive differences are spelled out and symbolizable. For this exercise I first introduce and comment on a connective for subjunctive conditionals. 6.3.2.1 Let, (OD-'y)

34 Puzzles for the Will abbreviate (if it were the case that 0, then it would be the case that VF), and understand the import of this formula to be not necessarily counterfactual. The counterfactual suggestion of the subjunctive of this sentence might be explicitly cancelled thus, (whether or not it is the case that 0, if it were, then it would be the case that ¥). Or, better, the intended sense of our subjunctive formula could be spelled out thus, (either [it is the case that 0 and it is the case that *F], or [it is not the case that 0, and (if it were the case that 0, then it would be the case that H/)]). To symbolize this formula, let '~>' be a necessarily counterfactual subjunctive conditional connective: ( ¥)

entails ~0.

The recently displayed formula for the intended sense of (O Q-> VF),

then has the symbolization ((0 & 40 v [~0 & (0 ~> ¥)]),

which is equivalent to [(O & ¥) v (0 ~> VF)].

Ruling that this disjunction is equivalent to (¥)

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35

we have that ( VF)

is in turn equivalent to

[~O & (O D-> ¥)]. The symbol 'EH' is due to David Lewis. He favours a theory in which the subjunctive conditional, (O D-> 40,

is true if and only if there is some O-world w such that 4* is true at every Oworld that is at least as close or similar to the actual world as is w. Lewis allows, in this rule, true cases in which no O-worlds are most similar, or 'nearest' to the actual world; these are cases in which no O-world is closer to the actual world than a certain distance, there are no O-worlds that are exactly that close, and for every O-world there is a O-world that is 'nearer' to the actual. When there are worlds that are most similar, or 'nearest,' to the actual world, the condition is that 4* be true at every 'nearest' to the actual world O-world. When there is a unique 'nearest' O-world, the condition is that 4* be true at it. Closeness and similarity of worlds are in respects relevant to the purpose of a conditional, the reason for supposing its antecedent. For cases of interest to us, antecedents are supposed for purposes of causal speculation, and conditionals purport to say what else would be the case either as a causal consequence or anyway, if their antecedents were the case. See (Lewis 1973, chap, i), and (Sobel 1970). 6.3.2.2 Assuming the abbreviation P: you are going to take precautions it can be seen that sentences (2i), (3!), (2s), and (35) are very similar in sense to the sentences (21)' K z> [(P => K) & (~P => K)] (31)'

[(PDK)&(~PIDK)]IDF

(2s)' K z> [(P D-» K) & (~P [H K)] (3s)' [(P EH K) & (~P D-> K)] z> F

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All four sentences are material conditionals. But sentences (21)' and (31)' also feature material conditionals either in their consequents or in their antecedents, whereas (2s)'and (35)'feature subjunctive conditionals in these places. To confirm the closeness in sense of these sentences to their unprimed counterparts, compare, for example, (2i) If you will be killed, then you will be killed notwithstanding the precautions (if any) you are actually going to take. and

(2i)'If you will be killed, then if you are going to take precautions, you will be killed, and if you are not going to take precautions you will be killed. For another example, compare (2s) If you will be killed, then you would be killed whatever precautions you were to take. and

(2s)' If you will be killed, then if it were the case that you are going to take precautions, it would be the case that you will be killed, and if it were the case that you are not going to take precautions, it would be the case that will be killed. or, idiomatically, If you will be killed, then you would be killed whether or not you were to take precautions. 6.3.2.3 Truth-values: Beginning with (2i)' and (3!)', it may be noted that since '[(P r> K) & (~P z> K)]' and 'K' are logically equivalent, sentences (2!)' and (3!)'are logically equivalent, respectively, to the simpler sentences (2i)" and

Kr>K

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37

(Si)" K = > F It is clear that sentences (2i)' and (2i)" are logical truths. Sentence (2i)" is a bare-faced tautology, and sentence (2i)'is an only slightly less obvious tautology. In contrast, sentences (3!)'and (3!)" are not tautologies. They are not logically true simply in virtue of their sentential forms. These sentences say that if you are going to be killed, K, then it is pointless to take precautions, F. A nonfatalist will, however, be pardoned if he asks why precautions are pointless for you if you are going to be killed. They are supposed to be pointless for you even if you are not going to take any, and, all but fatalists would say, you are going to be killed (for example, in a mid-speed automobile crash) because you are not going to take precautions, not even the simplest ones (for example, 'buckling up') that you would take were you to take any. But then (3!)' and equivalently (3i)" are not undeniable in the required sense. They are not suited for use as ungrounded premises in an argument for the pointlessness of precautions with which a fatalist might impress the not yet converted. So much for the indicative forms, (2i)' and (3i)'. Turning now to the subjunctive forms, (2s)' and (35)', we may begin by recalling that '[(P z> K) & (~P => K)]' and 'K' are logically equivalent: they are necessarily, and indeed tautologically, equivalent simply in virtue of their sentential forms. In contrast, '[(P EH K) & (~P Q-> K)]' and 'K' are not logically equivalent simply in virtue of their displayed forms, and no one with the possible exception of some fatalists would say they are logically equivalent in virtue of more detailed forms. All must agree that '[(P EH K) & (~P D-> K)]' does logically entail 'K,' and this simply in virtue of their displayed forms. [For confirmation, recall that, for any sentences O and NK, we have for the not necessarily counterfactual conditional, (K)&(~PChK)],

38 Puzzles for the Will we have the logically equivalent sentence, the conjunction [([P & K) v [~P & (P ~> K)]) & ([~P & K] v [~~P & (~P ~> K)])]. From this we can derive 'K' by separation of cases. For the first case, assume that P. We have, as the first conjunct of our long conjunction ([P & K] v [~P & (P ~> K)]).

From this and our assumption it follows that [P&K], and thus that K. So, as the conclusion of this first case we have, by the principle of conditional proof, the material conditional, (P => K).

For the second case, we assume that ~P, and, using the second conjunct of our long conjunction, ([~P&K]v[~~P&(~P~>K)])], proceed in a similar fashion to the material conditional, (HPiDK). It follows by constructive dilemma from (P v ~P) and the emphasized material conditionals that K.] However, 'K' does not logically entail '[(P D-> K) & (~P UK K)]' simply in virtue of their displayed forms. [To see that, y .-. [(O EH 40 & (~O D-> ¥)],

is not valid for every pair of sentences O and *F - that is, to show that it is not a valid argument scheme - we have the Lewis-style Ptolemaic model (Lewis 1973, 13-9):

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39

V

F-worlds are represented by points that lie on the left-curve, or above it. So the actual world which is represented by an asterisk is a H'-world. O-worlds are represented by points that lie on or beyond the right-curve. So the actual world is not a O-world. Worlds represented by points on the circle are at a certain 'distance' from the actual world. In this model there is a unique nearest-to-theactual-world O-world represented by the point in the figure at which the rightcurve contacts the circle. It can be seen that this nearest-to-the-actual-world Oworld is not a world at which 4V F' is true in the model: recall that H*-worlds are represented by points on or above the left-curve. This means that ( D-> VP) is false in the model. So the conjunction [(O Q-» 4/) & (~4> D-» ¥)], is false in this model.] Nor would anyone with the possible exception of some fatalists say that, for reasons deeper than relations between their displayed forms, 'K' logically entails '[(P D-» K) & (~P D-» K)].' Non-fatalists think that sometimes people are killed because they do not take precautions that if taken would have prevented their deaths, and that sometimes they take precautions that back-fire, and lead to their deaths, when not taking precautions would have led to their survivals. No one objects to (3s)'. Certainly if you will be killed, and would be whether or not you were to take precautions, then it is pointless to take precautions whose whole point, if any, would lie in their life-saving potential. But, for reasons implicit in the previous paragraph, only fatalists believe in the necessity of (2s)'. Everyone else thinks that sometimes people are killed because they take unnecessary risks, and because they fail to take precautions that, had they taken them, would have saved their lives. (2s)', which simply contradicts what they think, is not a possible premise of an argument that could, without trickery or confusion, change their minds.I

4O Puzzles for the Will 6.4 The Validity of Interpretations of the Sub-argument (2), (3).-. (4) Required, I recall, are interpretations of (2) and (3) that not only make them undeniably true, but that in addition make them jointly adequate, and plainly so, to the inference to (4). Our interpretations for (2) and (3) generate four interpretations for the sub-argument from these premises to (4). The following two of these four arguments are plainly valid in virtue of their displayed forms. ARC//. (2i) (Kz>KPi)

(2s)

(K^KPs)

(31) (KPi^F)

(3s)

(KPs^F)

(4)

(4)

(Kz>F)

(K=>F)

ARGss.

Each of these arguments is of the valid-for-material-conditionals form of hypothetical syllogism. However, neither of these arguments has premises both of which are undeniably true when fatalism is at issue: non-fatalists reject (3!) and (2S).

What about the other two interpretations for the sub-argument (2), (3) .-. (4)? ARGis. (2i) (K^KPi) (3s) (KPsiDF) (4)

(K=>F)

ARGsi. (2s) (3!) (4)

(K^KPs) (KPi^F) (Kz>F)

Of these arguments, neither of which is of the simple form of the first two, the second is valid. How and why? Because KPs entails KPi: certainly if you will be killed whatever precautions you were to take, you will be killed whether or not you take precautions. Given that entailment, it can be seen that, on the assumption that K, it follows from (2s) and (3!) that (F). So ARG.S/ is valid, but then it cannot advance the fatalist's case since, going the first two arguments 'one worse,' both of its premises are for non-fatalists certainly not undeniable. That leaves for consideration ARGis, which it may be observed is of the four arguments the only one of real interest, since only it has premises both of which are undeniably true. It is thus decisive for our discussion that this argument is not only, in contrast with the first two, not obviously valid, but that, as will be explained, every non-fatalist must on the least reflection be convinced that this argument is obviously invalid.

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The point here is really very simple. Everyone should agree that the premises of ARGis are undeniable and logically true. But non-fatalists, including all who are open-minded and prepared to listen to arguments to the contrary, are, until their minds are changed, convinced that (4) If you will be killed, then it is pointless to take precautions. is not logically true. They are convinced that, alas, it has been true of persons who have been killed that there were precautions these persons could have taken that would have saved their lives. And so non-fatalists are convinced that it can be true that someone will be killed, that someone is going to be killed, even though it is false that there is no point to this person's taking precautions. They think - but for the declarations of logical fatalists one would have thought that everyone thinks - that sometimes there have been, and that sometimes there will be, precautions that were not, or will not be, taken which, if taken, would have saved lives that were lost, or would save lives that will be lost. They think (no surprise here) that taking precautions in these cases was not, is not, or will not be pointless. Far from it. So non-fatalists think that even if, to your misfortune, (4) is true, it is not necessarily true, but true only because of special features of that case by which no precautions you can take would work. Non-fatalists have, therefore, a decisive reason for thinking that ARGw is invalid. For its premises (2i) and (3s) are not only true, but necessarily true, and this in the strictest logical sense, and non-fatalists just as anyone can be convinced of that. But non-fatalists are convinced - indeed even fatalists who are not logical fatalists are convinced - that the conclusion (4) of ARGw is not necessarily true in this strict sense. To complete the case against this argument's validity, (4) would be necessarily true if it did follow validly from (2i) and (3s), since it is a principle of logic that whatever follows logically from logical necessities alone must itself be a logical necessity. [The principle for two-premise arguments is that, for any sentences O, *¥, and X, if D O and D 4* are true, and the argument O. *¥ . . X is valid, then D X is true. For proof of this principle consider that if O and *F are both true at every world, and X is true at every world at which both O and *F are true, then X is true at every world.] Only fatalists - indeed, only logical fatalists - think that it is not only true but logically necessary that it is pointless to take precautions. Everyone else who hears said that this is logically necessary, and wishes to talk about the matter, will want to know why, for what reasons, this extraordinary claim is made. A responding logical fatalist who uses the inference from (2i) and (35) to (4), far from answering that question and explaining why it is logically necessary that it

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is pointless to take precautions, says - though certainly unwittingly and without realizing that his story comes to no more than this - 'It just is logically necessary, don't you see?!' Speaking for myself I must confess that I cannot detect the least bonafide glimmer of that necessity. With the words 'bonafide' I set aside apparitions momentarily experienced when, under sway of clever arguments for logical fatalism, my head is spinning. 6.5 To Summarize Premises (2) and (3) of our second fatalistic argument are at points ambiguous in grammatical mood. There are ways of interpreting them - in particular, there are ways of interpreting the consequent of (2) and the antecedent of (3) - that make (2) and (3) logically necessary and undeniable: (21) and (35) are logically necessary and undeniable. And there are ways of interpreting them that make the sub-argument from them to (4) uncontentiously valid: ARGii and ARGs,s are valid instances of hypothetical syllogism, and ARGs/ is valid because KPs entails KPi. But there seems to be no way of interpreting (2) and (3) that secures both their individual undeniabilities, and their unproblematic non-questionbegging joint sufficiency to the inference to (4). The appearance of soundness of the sub-argument (2), (3).-. (4) arises because we are ready to understand (2) and (3) in one way when they are introduced as premises, and in different ways when it is time to use them and to infer (4). We are apt at first to understand (2) and (3) in terms of (2i) and (35) so that they are both plainly true, and then, without noticing the switch, to understand them either in terms of (2i) and (3i), or in terms of (2s) and (35), so that the inference made from them should be plainly valid. The air of soundness of the sub-argument, (2), (3).-. (4), derives, I think, entirely from the ease and seductiveness of these patterns of equivocation. We are in general charitable in our interpretations and disposed to make the best of what we hear and read, as well as of what we say and think. This is essential for efficient communication, and a good habit in ordinary life. But making the best of what we read and hear can lead to shifts in interpretations as one entertains arguments. That charity which is a virtue in ordinary life needs to be exercised with restraint especially in philosophy, wherein paths of more or less subtle equivocation to startling conclusions are not uncommon. Concluding Remarks 7. i The moral of my discussions of two fatalistic arguments is that, as in life one rarely does, so in logic one never does, get something for nothing. It is impossible. If one starts with only logical necessities such as that what will be

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will be, and proceeds by only logically valid inferences, then one must end with logical necessities. One must end with propositions that, because strictly necessary and of features of our 'predicament' that could not be otherwise, should themselves be found on reflection to be as innocuous as the necessities with which one begins. 'In logic there can be surprises.' And conclusions, whether expected or not, just because they must relate conditions that could not conceivably be otherwise, cannot be just in themselves proper subjects for dismay or relief or any human attitude. Consider some proposition, any proposition, that you realize is logically and absolutely necessary, and ask yourself how you feel about it, and whether it makes you happy or sad that it is true. If you had a bet on the proposition that there are seven consecutive sevens in the decimal expansion of Pi, you would be happy to learn of its truth. But that would not be because of the fact you had learned, but because of your bet on it. It is rumoured that the discovery of the irrationality of the square root of two led to suicides, but if it did, that was not because of the substance of this discovery, but because of stakes, religious or quasi-religious, in views of mathematics that were compromised by that discovery. Similarly, Kurt Godel's discovery that there does not exist a complete theory of a certain sort for a significant fragment of mathematics may have dismayed some scholars who had organized their professional lives around a project of realizing and demonstrating that completeness. But again the dismay, in so far as it was reasonable, was not for the substance of that discovery. For one cannot reasonably deplore what one realizes could not possibly, could not conceivably, be otherwise. There is, I contend, a contradiction in the view that something that could not conceivably be otherwise even so matters and is a proper object of dismay or joy, or a proper source of solace. The logical fatalist's exclamations regarding their conclusions, whether they be of horror ("How awful!") or of appreciation ("How comforting!"), invite the querulous challenge, "But these propositions are not awful or comforting in contrast with their negations, if, as you insist, their negations are not merely not so in this poor world of ours, but are not so in any possible world. You say that your fatalistic conclusions are necessary and that their negations are absolutely impossible. But how can these conclusions of yours be horrible or wonderful if their negations are impossible?" • 7.2 Consonant with the challenge just made is a theory for rational or proper dismay, joy, and indifference, a good theory I think, that makes sense of these attitudes only when they are directed at contingent propositions, which is to say propositions that are neither necessary nor impossible. This theory is framed in terms of subjective welcomenesses or desirabilities of propositions, where the welcomeness for a person of a logically possible proposition (that is, a proposition that is not logically impossible) is measured

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by a weighted average of his values for the worlds in which it is true, the weight for the value of a given world being his probability for that world's being the world in which this proposition would be true. For a particular possible proposition p, let the measure of its welcomeness be its desirability, DES(p), so that DES(p) = XweW probability^ D-» w)-v0/we(w). [This measure of desirability is only "for the special case of agents who do not believe in objective chances" (Sobel 1989, 71-2). Lines for a more general theory are drawn in (Sobel 1986).] The theory of rational dismay and joy, a good theory I think, is that a contingent proposition p is, (i), a proper object of dismay if and only if DES(p) < DES(~p); (ii), a proper object of joy if and only if DES(p) > DES(~p); and, (iii), a proper object of indifference if and only if DES(p) = DES(~p). This theory makes no sense of dismay, joy, and 'positive indifference' for propositions that are not contingent, that is, for propositions that are either necessary or impossible. Why not? Why is it restricted to contingent propositions? Intuitively, since desirabilities of propositions would be weighted averages of the values of worlds at which they are true, impossible propositions, which are true at no worlds, do not have desirabilities. So if a proposition is not contingent, then either it lacks desirability and value, or its negation does, and either way there is no comparing its desirability with that of its negation, as applications of my formulas for rational dismay, joy, and positive indifference require. Formally, my theory makes no sense of dismay or joy or positive indifference for non-contingent propositions, because of a problem with what would be the probabilities of subjunctives with impossible antecedents. If -Op, then either, (i), every subjunctive conditional to the effect that if it were the case that p, then it would be the case that q, is neither true nor false, or, (ii), these conditionals are, for the convenience of a two-valued logical theory, all true. If (i), then for impossible p, probability(p D-» w) - which would sum the probabilities at which (p CH w) is true - is not defined for any world w, and as a consequence the DES of p is not defined: this accords with the intuitive account of desirability. If (ii), then for impossible p the probability^ EH w) is i for every world w, and the DES of p, (a), is not a 'weighted average' of the values of worlds at which p is true, (b), is the sum of the values of all worlds(!), and, (c), is the same as the DES of every other impossible proposition. In this case, though defined, the DES of impossible p is not usefully related to attitudes of dismay and joy. My theory makes no sense of rational dismay, joy, and positive indifference for impossible propositions, or for necessary propositions. It sets comparative

Logical Fatalisms

45

rationality conditions for these attitudes, conditions that are applicable neither to impossible propositions nor to necessary propositions because useful measures of welcomeness of impossible propositions, which are the negations of necessary propositions, do not exist for the required comparisons. I welcome these limitations of this theory, since, precisely because of the lack of comprehensible comparisons and contrasts, I can make no sense of rational dismay and joy and the like for either the impossible and unthinkable, or the necessary and in thought inescapable. I 7.3 If you are convinced that certain fatalistic propositions - for example, that we have no choices, that we are never in control, that there is never anything we can do about anything, that precautions are always pointless - are, if true, important, if you are convinced that these propositions relate to matters of proper human concern, then you have a reason for viewing with scepticism all offers of these propositions on the cheap. You have a reason for thinking that, if you examine with care offers made by logical fatalists, special care in the case of clever offers, you will be able to see how, and why, they are not genuine. For to reach conclusions which when proved can be humanly important, one needs premises not all of which are necessarily, and so to the logically perceptive, undeniably and unmomentously true. Appendix: Other Fatalisms Now come four additional fatalistic arguments in which modal confusions may be found to lurk. Bracketed after each argument are brief, certainly incomplete, critical comments. The first argument, Ai, would, at negligible cost, imply fatalism for parts of people's lives. It would imply large measures of fatalism at least for prominent politicians, athletes, and rock stars. The second, A2, would imply fatalism for all of everyone's life, but this at only the considerable cost of a familiar deniable theological premise. The third and fourth arguments, A3 and A4, would again imply fatalism for all of everyone's life. However, these arguments, in contrast with Ai and A2, proceed from scratch and without aid of theological or metaphysical premises of any sort. Arguments A3 and A4, like the two arguments discussed at length in the body of this chapter, purport to deliver fatalisms not merely cheaply, but quite free of charge. A I . THAT CORRECT PREDICTIONS CONSTRAIN

Suppose that a yet to be decided upon action of a well-known person has been the subject of diverse speculation. Some people say that he will resign. Other people say that he will not. Therefore, though not every prediction that has been

46

Puzzles for the Will

made regarding his decision is correct, some are. Either someone has predicted correctly that he will resign, or someone has predicted correctly that he will not resign. So it is settled. A correct prediction has already been made, and of course it is not possible to act contrary to a correct prediction. He must do whatever it has already been correctly predicted that he will do. He cannot do otherwise. He really has no choice in this matter. The sense that he does have a choice, that it is for him to decide, is an illusion in which he indulges himselfand, cynically, in which media-people indulge themselves, for money! Compare: "[I]f it is necessary, for every affirmation and negation ... that one of the opposites be true and the other false ... there would be no need to deliberate or to take trouble ... For there is nothing to prevent someone's having said ten thousand years beforehand that this would be the case, and another's having denied it; so that whichever of the [two] was true to say then, will be the case of necessity" (Aristotle, De Interpretations i8b26~35, trans. John Ackrill). Why? Because, Aristotle says, 'if it is true to say that it is white ... , it is necessary for it to be white' (18339—bi and i8bi 1-15), and so, supposing "it always was true to say of anything that has happened that it would be so, ... [everything that will be, therefore, happens necessarily." ["A correct prediction has been made, and of course it is not possible to act contrary to a correct prediction." And so ... ? And so what? Consider that while it is logically impossible that though an act has been correctly predicted it will not be performed, this is not to say that if an act has been correctly predicted then it is logically impossible that it will not be performed. Using natural abbreviations and letting 'O' symbolize 'it is logically possible,' while everyone must think that ~O[C7?(A) & ~A] and equivalently that D[C/?(A) n A], since these are vouchsafed by the meaning of 'correctly predicted,' no one but a logical fatalist thinks that [C/?(A) ID D A] or equivalently that [CR(A) ID ~O~A]. According to John Ackrill, Chapter 9 of De Interpretation "has provoked vigorous discussion ever since it was written" Ackrill 1963, 132. Beginning his own discussion, Ackrill cautions that, "First, we must recognize the possibility that he fails to distinguish between the 'necessarily' which modifies a proposition and the 'necessarily' which marks the necessary connexion between a protasis and apodosis (or between premises and conclusion). In his treatment of modal logic in Prior Analytics Aristotle seems to be reasonably clear about this distinction, although he uses modes of expression that are potentially misleading. It is perfectly possible that in the present chapter he is guilty of confusion on the point" (132-3). Amen. Aristotle was probably not the first, and was certainly not the last to be confused on the point. While Ackrill says that "[i]t is debatable whether Aristotle anywhere [in chapter 9] makes clear the flaw in this argument [at i8bu-i5] from truth to necessity" (137, bold emphasis

Logical Fatalisms

47

added), I disagree. It is I think clear that the flaw in question, which is running into a conditional a necessity operator that should be on it, was missed by Aristotle in chapter 9 of De Interpretatione.} A2.

THAT DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE WOULD CONSTRAIN

"[I]f God is really all-knowing ... [then] He already knows every detail of the whole future course of the world, and there is nothing left for you and me to do except watch things unfold, in the here or hereafter" (Taylor 1992, 54). For if it is known, if it is already known, that I will do some action, then it is quite impossible for my action not to agree with this knowledge. Consider that if, when the time came, I were not to do something that God knew that I was going to do, then God would not have known that I was going to do it. This is because He would still have believed I was going to do it. Since my acting otherwise could not change any past states, it could not change past states of His mind. So he would have not known I was going to do it, not if I were not to do it. He would therefore, in that case, have been mistaken. God, however, being God, always knows everything and is never mistaken. So I will do everything that I am going to do. Given that He knows that I will do these things, and knows that I will not do anything else, I must do these things, and can do nothing else. I have no choice. Since God has always known everything, I have never had, do not have, and never will have any choice regarding my actions. He knows what, like it or not, we shall see. This argument should, for everyone who believes in God, be compelling. In God, they should think, we must trust. [This argument takes as premises that, as matters of fact and not logical necessity, God exists, and that He always knows everything and is never mistaken. One way to resist its fatalistic conclusion is of course to deny one or another of its premises. But there may be other ways of resistance. For consider that to say that God always knows everything and is never mistaken, is not to say that He is incapable of being mistaken, that he can never be mistaken. And to say that He is not mistaken about what anyone will do, is not to say that He would not be mistaken no matter what anyone were to do. Other, more challenging arguments for theological fatalism would proceed from modalized premises. For example, it might be premised that God is not merely everlastingly omniscient and inerrant, but essentially so and infallible. One might premise that God exists, and is of this character in every world in which He exists. Searching for a way to resist this argument's conclusion without denying its premise, one might, after attending to the extraordinary character of an essentially everlastingly omniscient being, wonder whether such a being would have existed no matter what anyone were from now on to

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do. For another example, it might be premised not only that God exists and is essentially everlastingly omniscient, but that He exists necessarily, that is, that he exists in every world. Desperate for a way of resisting fatalistic conclusions while conceding even this argument's premises, one might wonder whether such an extraordinary, such a modally extraordinary being, would, no matter what anyone were to do in the future, have held the beliefs about the future that it has actually held. These ideas are spelled out in a discussion of possible tensions between divine omniscience and freedom of choice in section 3 of chapter 4 below.] A3- THAT THE FUTURE IS AS REAL AND UNCHANGEABLE AS THE PAST

"A fatalist ... thinks of the future in the way we all think of the past, for all men are fatalists as they look back on things ... He thinks of both past and future 'under the aspect of eternity,' the way God is supposed to view them. We all think of the past this way, as something settled and fixed, to be taken for what it is. We are never in the least tempted to try to modify it. It is not the least up to us what happened last year, yesterday, or even a moment ago, any more than are ... the political developments in Tibet ... [T]he consistent fatalist thinks of the future in the same way" (Taylor 1992, 55-6). This evenhandedness is the fatalist's consistency. He realizes that the world, the fourdimensional whole of spatial-temporal reality, is, sub specie aeternitatis, already 'there' in every detail. Richard Taylor tells a story about a book, The Life of Osmo, in which 'everything was expressed in the present tense' (58), for 'all that mattered was that the things referred to were real events' (62). The point is that, as a matter of logic, modern science, and sound philosophy, when one takes a properly objective view of reality that abstracts from one's particular personal spatio-temporal perspective, everything that is, is, as it were, at once. "What has happened cannot be undone. The mere fact that it has happened guarantees this. And so it is, by the same token, of the future of everything ... What will happen cannot be altered. The mere fact that it is going to happen guarantees this" (ibid., 63). Whatever will be will be, and this no matter what measures are taken to prevent it. Such efforts have always failed, and always will fail. Though many have tried, no one has ever changed one detail of reality, and no one, no matter what effort he expends, ever will. Nothing that has been, has been avoided or changed, and this has not been for want of trying. People have tried very hard to avoid things that have nevertheless happened. They have sometimes gone to really great lengths. Yet they have always failed. What better reason could one have for thinking that it is impossible

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not to do what one is going to do? The truth is that there is nothing anyone can ever do about anything, past or future. For everything - every future as well as every past and present event or state - is timelessly in place. Whoever thinks otherwise, and thinks that sometimes he has real choices, is mistaken. But then, just like everything else, there is nothing the mistaken can do about their mistakes. So, though badly mistaken, and sadly mistaken since they do not enjoy the solace of fatalistic resignation, they are not culpably mistaken. It is not their fault. [Certainly you have always done what you were going to do. Furthermore, there can be no doubt that you always will do what you are going to do! One might wonder, rhetorically, what better reasons than these one could have for thinking that it never has been and never will be possible for you not to do what you were or are going to do? But it is not easy to see how these 'facts' can be any reasons at all for thinking that, for these are 'necessary' facts, and 'that' one supposes is nothing necessary. There are, one suspects, contrary to Taylor's possible protestations (p. 65),"'confusion[s] of modalities'"at work here, and nothing more. There are, one suspects, only familiar ambiguities of scope at work that encourage slides such as, letting 'P' abbreviate 'always you have done what you were going to do and will do what you are going to do,' between Af£C(P => P), or equivalently ~POSS(P & ~P), and

P =) yV£C(P), or equivalently P ^ ~POSS(~P).] A4- THAT TRUTH IS ETERNAL AND UNALTERABLE

Of everything that has been, is, or will be, it is true that it has been, is, or will be. It always has been, and it always will be, true. "No one has ever rendered false a statement that was true, however hard some men have tried" (Taylor 1992, 65). And no one ever will. It is not possible to render false a statement

50 Puzzles for the Will that is true. And the same, with appropriate adjustments, holds of statements that are not true. No one, despite sometimes heroic efforts, has ever rendered true a single statement that was not true, and again it is plain and necessary that no one ever will. All truths and untruths, regardless of their tenses, are quite out of our hands. Which is to say that everything is quite out of our hands, since for everything there are statements that affirm and deny it. And plainly every proposition, and indeed everything, is either true or not true. "The fatalist thesis has nothing to do with cause and effect... [I]t emerges from the following straightforward reflection: In the case of every event that actually happens, including every action you perform, it is true forever after that it did happen, and it was true forever before that it was going to happen. But if it was always true that it was going to happen, how could it have been avoided?" (Taylor 1978, 136). Of course most statements are never asserted or even entertained, but there is no comfort in that. It is enough that statements, positive affirmations and negative denials, concerning all things exist, and that each one of them is either always true or never true, as the case may be. From that it follows that what will be is necessary and unavoidable, and that what will not be is impossible and unattainable. [That '[n]o one has ever rendered false a statement that was true' (Taylor 1992, 65), that "[i]t has never been done, and never will be" (ibid.), are versions of Taylor's 'bottom line.' Peter van Inwagen writes that Taylor "responded ... in conversation along these lines" (now comes van Inwagen's paraphrase of Taylor's response): "You say you have the ability to render false the proposition that you will shave tomorrow - that is, to make it the case that this proposition has always been false - even though this proposition is in fact true. And you say there are ever so many true propositions about the future that you have this sort of power over. Very well then, let us see you exercise this power that you claim: pick any true proposition about the future, and then so act that this proposition has always been false" (van Inwagen 1983, 42). It is impossible. Try it. Pick a true proposition and, if you can, so act that it has always beenfalsel Shades, van Inwagen in commenting on Taylor's 'bottom line' usefully suggests, of the bait Bishop Berkeley's Philonous dangled before Hylas: "I am content to put the whole upon this issue. If you can conceive it possible for ... any sensible object whatever to exist without the mind, then I grant it actually to be so." Hylas, it may be recalled, took that bait: "What more easy than to conceive a tree or house existing by itself, independent of, and unperceived by, any mind whatsoever?" (George Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous [Armstrong 1965], 163-4). I discuss Berkeley's trap in (Sobel 1991), and argue that it is strung with an ambiguity of scope similar to those at work in the Che Sard Sard argument of section i above.]

2 Predicted Choices

This chapter is a number-free introduction to topics in rational choice theory. It has its origin in lectures given on two days to members of a philosophy in literature class taught by Andre Gombay. They were reading Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Revised scripts for those lectures were published in the Dalhousie Review in 1985. First Day I. INTRODUCTION

It is sometimes said that there cannot be a predicted choice, that the very phrase, 'predicted choice,' is a contradiction in terms. An argument for this extreme thesis might go like this: Suppose - we will show that this is impossible - that I will make a choice that has been predicted. Then I cannot refrain from making it. If, as we are supposing, it has been predicted, truly predicted, then I must make it. Were I not to make it, it would not have been truly predicted, which is contrary to our supposition. For similar reasons, if a choice of mine has been truly predicted, it is not possible for me to make any other choice in its place. But a choice that I cannot refrain from making, a choice that I cannot supplant by making a different choice in its place, is a choice regarding which I have no choice - it is no choice properly so-called at all. So, contrary to our supposition, it cannot be that any choice of mine, that any choice properly so-called that I actually make, has been truly predicted. Of course if, though I do not know this, what I consider to be a choice has been truly predicted, I can make it thinking that it is a bona fide choice. That, how-

52

Puzzles for the Will ever, leaves undiminished the conclusion that there can be no such thing as a predicted choice.

This argument is somewhat like that of section Ai of the appendix to chapter i above. I shall in this chapter discuss neither the extreme thesis that there cannot be a predicted choice nor this argument that purports to establish it. I have stated them solely to set them and their like aside, and to facilitate resistance to intrusions of thoughts of logical fatalisms in what follows. The thesis to be discussed is in one way more circumscribed, and is in other ways more moderate, than the extreme thesis that would exclude as impossible predicted choices. I am for one thing interested here only in rational choices. For a second thing, in the cases with which I am concerned, it is not assumed that actions not yet chosen have been truly predicted, but only that agents involved think they have been truly predicted. In the cases that interest me the agent has what are in his view the best of reasons for thinking that his conduct has been truly predicted. He is not sure which action of several that seem open to him has been predicted, and he will not be sure of this until he acts. But he is sure, or nearly sure, in these cases that whatever he will do, it has already been predicted that he will do it. I am interested in the thesis that in at least some of these cases there is no way in which a fully rational choice to do one thing or another can be made. Two such cases in which rational choice can at least seem to be impossible will be considered at some length. Then, more briefly, I will consider a third case that has the same shape as the second one, but that differs from it in that it gets this shape from thoughts about not predictions but causes of actions. Two Cases 2. NEWCOMB'S PROBLEM 2.1 The situation There are two boxes on a table. Box i contains a thousand dollars, and Box 2 either a million dollars or no money at all. Possible choices. Take both boxes; take only Box 2. (What could be the problem?) The ringer, and the problem. Whether there is a million dollars or nothing in Box 2 depends on what a certain person has predicted that you will do. He put a $M in Box 2 if he predicted that you would take only this box; he put no money in this box, if he predicted that you would take both boxes. You have the best of

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53

reasons for thinking that he has truly predicted what you will do. You think that he knows you in ways relevant to this issue, at least as well as you know yourself, and that he can figure out, perhaps by putting himself imaginatively in your place, what you will figure out and decide. You are nearly certain that he has predicted the choice you will make and act on, whatever choice that is. And whatever choice you were to make and act upon, you would be nearly sure that he had predicted that you were going to make that choice and do that thing. Choosing and acting on either choice would be tantamount, or nearly so, to learning that that was the choice, and with it the action, that he had predicted. (To avoid distracting complications I assume that you are not sure but only nearly sure that your choice has been predicted, so that acting would be only nearly tantamount to learning for sure what had been predicted. Cases in which confidence in the predictor is complete - cases in which the agent is not only sure that he has been predicted, but sure that the predictor is unerring and never makes mistakes, or even infallible and so somehow incapable of making mistakes - are discussed in (Sobel 1988), and in section 2 of chapter 4 below.) Of course you know that this person has made his prediction and already acted on it, placing a $M in Box 2 or not. You know that he is now quite out of the picture. You are certain that he will never learn of your choice, and that it will have no effect on him of any kind. And you are certain that your choice can have no effect on the state of Box 2, and on what if anything will be in it when you take possession of it. That was settled finally and irrevocably yesterday. The shape of this problem: Possible contents of Box 2

Possible actions

take both take only Box 2

$O

$M

$1000

$1000 + $M

$0

$M

Arrows are designed to record the assumed bearings of possible actions on possible states of Box 2. For example, the arrow from taking only Box 2 to a $M's being in Box 2 serves to remind us that it is part of the case that if you made that choice you would be nearly certain of getting a $M. Let it be that you, the agent in the case, are interested mainly, even if not only, in the money. Your preferences are to order consequences of your actions in the two possible circumstances determined by the possible states of Box 2: they should order the four combinations of actions and circumstances according to the dollars that would in these circumstances be contained in the box or boxes you took. For example,

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you prefer taking only Box 2 in the circumstance that it contains a $M, to taking both boxes in the circumstance that Box 2 contains $o; because, were you to take only Box 2 in the circumstance in which it contains $M, the box you took would contain $M, whereas were you to take both boxes in the circumstance in which Box 2 contains $o, the boxes you took would contain $1000. So what should you do? What would it be rational to do? I proceed by elimination to the conclusion that there is nothing that you should do, that neither action, and thus neither possible choice, would be rational. (I assume throughout that a choice would be rational if and only if it would be for an action that would be rational.) 2.2 Analysis To begin, it would apparently not be rational to take both boxes. Why not? Here is a possible answer. "Because if you took both boxes you would be nearly certain that the predictor had predicted that and put nothing in Box 2; you would be nearly certain of getting a mere $1000. Whereas if you were to take only Box 2, you would be nearly certain of getting a $M. Your choice is between a near certainty of a $1000, and a near certainty of a $M. But anyone who cares mainly about money would rather be sure of getting a $M than a $1000. So it seems that there is no contest, and that it would be plainly irrational to take both boxes: for only by taking just one box, the second box, can you be sure of a $M." Perhaps so. Perhaps taking both boxes would be irrational. The problem is that if so it seems that taking only the second box would also be irrational. Now comes a possible argument for this. "You are sure that the prediction has been made, and the boxes set up with money according to the prediction that has been made. You are sure that you cannot by your choice or action affect the prediction or the contents of the boxes. So it seems that you should not take only Box 2. Why? Because whether or not the $M is in this box, you would come out ahead were you to take both boxes. It seems plain that it would be irrational to take only Box 2, and leave behind the $1000 that you know is there on the table for the taking!" Only two choices are possible, and there is against each of these an argument that seems to show that it would be an irrational choice. So, if these arguments are right, no rational choice is possible. The structure of the case - including most prominently your confidence in the correctness of the predictor's prediction of the choice on which you will act - seems to make rational choice in the case impossible.

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For a life-sized variant of Newcomb's Problem, one may begin by supposing that a life of misery and want is a sign of preordained and already settled, infinitely better things to come, and that comfort and fulfilment in this life are signs that disproportionately, that infinitely, worse things are in store for one in the next life. Such a variant, I call it 'Calvin's Problem,' is elaborated in (Sobel 1996, pp. 53-4). 3- APPOINTMENTS WITH DEATH

Death Speaks. There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra. (W. Somerset Maugham)

This story appears thus as front matter to John O'Hara's Appointment in Samarra: see section Ai of the appendix below. Lionel Trilling connects a similar tale with the story of Oedipus: see section A2 of the appendix below. 3. i The Samarra Problem Here is a related, but somewhat different, story. My enemy will kill me if he and I are in the same city tomorrow. He has predicted where I shall be and is on his way there now to get me. He has been on his way for some time. Nothing I do will alter his course. I am sure of all of this. My choices are limited. I am between Bagdad and Samarra, can be in either of these cities tomorrow, and must be in one of them then. As long as I avoid my enemy it doesn't matter to me which of these cities I am in tomorrow. I can sell my beans in either market. The problem is that I have the best of reasons for thinking that my enemy has correctly predicted where I will be. I know that he is a highly reliable predictor (I think he is the predictor of Newcomb's Problem fame). I also know that he is an especially good predictor when he is being wicked and plaguing me. So I am nearly certain

56 Puzzles for the Will that he has correctly predicted where I will be. Making a decision would not be tantamount or nearly so to learning of his prediction and destination, since having made a decision I might well wonder whether my decision was final. Still, whichever place I tentatively and subject to review decided to go, I would upon the decision think it more likely than not that that was the place I was going, and so the place that he had predicted that I was going. (While making a decision would not be, making a decision and acting on it would be, tantamount or nearly so to learning of my enemy's prediction and destination. Deciding for Samarra and actually going there, for example, would be tantamount or nearly so to learning that he had predicted this and was there too, somewhere, lurking and deadly. There are no differences on these scores between Newcomb's Problem and The Samarra Problem.) Here is the shape of my problem. Possible destinations of my enemy

Possible actions

Bagdad

Samarra

go to Bagdad

death

life

go to Samarra

life

death

Where shall I go? Which choice would be rational? Two analyses are possible, the first of which says of each choice that it would be rational, and the second of which says of each that it would not be rational. The second says that no rational choice is possible in this decision-problem - that it is not susceptible to rational resolution. 3.2 First Analysis It can seem that it does not matter where I go, or which choice I make, and therefore that each destination and choice would be rational. An argument for this might be: "It is nearly certain that if I were to go to Bagdad, my enemy would have predicted that I was going there, and would kill me there. Similarly, supposing I were to go to Samarra. So it doesn't matter from the life or death standpoint where I go. And since we have said that it doesn't matter from any other standpoint, it doesn't matter at all. But when it doesn't matter what I do, then whatever I do is reasonable, or at least not unreasonable. Neither an indifferent choice of Bagdad, nor one of Samarra, would go against reason and be for what I think is an inferior destination."

Predicted Choices 57 3.3 Second Analysis Could it be rational for me to go to Bagdad? It can be argued thus that it could not be: "If I were to decide for Bagdad, then I would, while in the grip of this decision, think that it was more likely than not that my enemy was going there. Reflecting on this, however, would reveal a reason for not persisting in that decision. I would discover a reason for changing my mind, and deciding instead to go to Samarra. For I would think that I had a less than even chance for survival if I were to go Bagdad, and a better than even chance if I were to go to Samarra. "Deciding to go to Bagdad is not necessarily irrational in this case in the sense of being worse in my current view than an alternative course. It is possible that I think that my enemy is going to Samarra, and if that is what I think then I think that Bagdad is my best course. However, though deciding to go to Bagdad is not necessarily irrational, it is necessarily not rational. For were I to make this decision or choice and think about it, I would in my quest for what is best unmake it. Were I to choose to go to Bagdad and reflect on this choice, I would come to think that my enemy was going to be there, and that therefore going to Samarra was my best course. Were I to choose to go to Bagdad, maintaining that choice would be irrational." It is obvious that it can be similarly argued that it would not be rational for me to choose to go to Samarra, since were I to make this choice it would be irrational for me to maintain it. Reason would demand that I take it back, and choose instead to go to Bagdad. Furthermore, if I were then to change my mind and choose to go to Bagdad, then I would discover a reason for going to Samarra instead, and so on. (I rely here on an assumption made explicit in the blocked-off elaboration below.) So neither choice would be rational. Neither is a choice that could be made in accordance with a full use of reason. No rational choice is possible in the case. "But couldn't you simply flip a coin? Couldn't you in that way make your destination unpredictable?" Let us say that this is a possibility. Elaborating the case, let it be that my options are not limited to going for sure to Samarra, and going for sure to Bagdad. Let it be that I have a coin, and the capacity to commit myself irrevocably to destinations tied to its sides, and that the outcome of its flip would not be predicted by my enemy even if the flip would be. Would this new third option be my rational choice? Not necessarily. It could be that choosing to flip a coin, having committed myself irrevocably to acting on the flip, would be the worst of my options. For this, suppose that if I flip, my enemy, while having only an even chance of getting me tomorrow, would catch up with me the following day and for my flippancy kill me slowly.

58

Puzzles for the Will Possible distinations of my enemy

Possible actions

go to Bagdad flip a coin go to Samarra

Bagdad

Samarra

death

life

a slow death

a slow death

life

death

As said, even when changed so that I can let my destination be determined by the flip of a coin, there may still be no rational choice in the case. The coin-flip can be my worst course regardless of where I expect my enemy to be. It can be flat irrational and quite out of the running, while the other two options remain challenged exactly as they are in The Samarra Problem itself. The general principle at work in this second analysis both for the original Samarra Problem and this three-option variant is that a choice or decision is rational for a person only if realizing that he had made it would not give him a sufficient reason for changing it. The principle is that a choice is rational only if it would prove stable on sober reflection given that one's object is always to make the best choice. This principle implies that the structure of The Samarra Problem - including again most prominently the agent's confidence in another's prediction of the choice on which he will act - makes rational choice impossible. 11 have relied on the stipulation for The Samarra Problem that its structure is robust during my deliberations. This means that whatever course my deliberations had taken, were I to make a decision and thereby, if this is not my first decision, reverse my most recent decision, I would immediately upon my making this decision think it more likely than not that the city chosen in it was where I was going, and so the place he had predicted that I was going. It is an implicit stipulation for the Problem, not only that 'pay-offs' are robust, but, most importantly, that potential evidential bearings for me of decisions of mine on my enemy's possible predictions are robust. I, as commentator on this Problem, report that its structure is robust in a manner that ensures that deliberation can get me, the agent in the Problem, nowhere. In order for this report to be true, however, though the Problem's structure is robust and decisions throughout my deliberations would give rise to expecta-

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tions on my part that led to their reversals, this cannot be apparent to me, the agent, at any stage at which there seems to me to be time for second thoughts. For suppose that I, the agent, realized at such a time that this structure was robust, and that any decision I then made or maintained was certain to be reversed. Then the decision I maintained or made at this time would not give rise to those expectations. How could it? According to our current supposition, I would realize that it was about to be reversed. So, on the supposition, that I realized at such a time that the structure was robust, the structure would not still be robust. In particular, potential evidential bearings for me of possible new decisions of mine on my enemy's possible destinations would not be robust. So it is necessary for the problem of this case that I never realize that I will have second thoughts and reverse a decision just made. If there is time before action is forced upon me for only a few vacillations, it is plausible that I will never realize that. I Second Day What Should We Make of These Cases? 4. DISCUSSION OF THE SAMARRA PROBLEM

4. i An Endorsement of the Second Analysis I think the second longer analysis of The Samarra Problem is correct. I think that where no fully reflected upon stable choice, no choice that could be ratified on reflection, is possible, then no fully rational choice, no choice informed by a full and unfettered use of reason, is possible. The view that rational choices, to be in accordance with reason, would not only be for the best but would be stable on ideally persistent reflection is defended in (Sobel 19903). This view takes a position on a matter of on-going controversy. The view that choices are rational only if stable on reflection is joined in that paper with the view that a choice is irrational and contrary to reason, if and only if it would eventually be set aside never to be retrieved in any ideally persistent effort to choose the best. Given that whatever his choice were to be in the original, two-option, Samarra problem, the agent would be nearly certain that his enemy had predicted that choice, no fully reflective choice could be stable in this case. So I buy its second analysis and count The Samarra Problem as a case in which no rational choice is possible. Now comes a discussion of faults in the first analysis, which I reject, according to which both choices would be rational, along

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with discussion of other arguments for saying that at least one of these choices would be rational. 4.2 Criticism of the First Analysis 4.2.1 The argument for its not mattering where I go, the argument that would show that neither choice would be unreasonable, is based on the following premises: It is nearly certain that if I were to go to Bagdad, my enemy would have predicted that I was going there, and would kill me there. It is nearly certain that if I were to go to Samarra, my enemy would have predicted that I was going there, and would kill me there. These premises were intended, and presumably were taken, to express subjective near-certainties of mine (the agent's). They were intended to express subjective actual near-certainties for conditionals concerned with possible consequences of my two actions, and not conditional subjective certainties. The first intended premise was I am nearly certain that (or it is in my view nearly certain that) if I were to go to Bagdad, my enemy would have predicted that I was going there, and would kill me there. rather than If I were to go to Bagdad, I would be nearly certain that (or it would in my view be nearly certain that) my enemy had predicted that I was going there, and was going to kill me there. To make intents of the premises clearer, in addition to making explicit their subjectivity with the words 'I am' and 'I would be.' rather than 'it is' and 'it would be,' one might insert before each occurrence of 'would' the phrase 'as a causal consequence of my action, or independently causally of it.' Understood as intended, these subjective near-certainties would establish that, from the standpoint of my preferences and credences, it didn't matter where I went. However, unless I (the agent of the story) am very confused, I am not possessed of both of these near-certainties: I am not nearly certain of both of these conditionals imbedded in them. For I realize that my enemy has made his

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prediction and is on his way to his destination, and that nothing I can do could change his prediction, or alter his course. Unless confused, I am sure that, if I were to go to Bagdad, he would kill me there, if and only if I am sure that he is going to Bagdad (not Samarra). Similarly, unless confused, I am sure that, if I were to go to Samarra, he would kill me there, if and only if I am sure that he is going Samarra (not Bagdad). So I can be sure of both of these subjunctively expressed conditionals, only with nearly as much confusion as would be involved in being sure of both of the stressed indicatively expressed unconditional assertorics, and so only if I am very confused. 4.2.2 There is another argument that would show that it does not matter where I go, and that an indifferent choice for either destination would be reasonable. There is the following better argument for this conclusion: At least at the start of my deliberations I should have no idea which choice I will make. I should have no idea where I will go, or where my enemy is going. I should have equal probabilities for his two destinations. But then, since all that matters to me is that I avoid my enemy, my 'expected utilities' for the two choices should be equal, each being simply the average of my 'utilities' for life and death. Therefore, since in general, a choice would be rational if and only if its expected utility is not exceeded by that of any choice that could be made in its place, each choice is rational. There is also an argument from weaker premises to the weaker conclusion that at least one of my choices is rational. According to this argument, when I begin to deliberate in the case, I may have any probabilities, and not just equal

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probabilities, for these choices, but should be sure that I will make one definite choice or the other, so that my probabilities for them sum to i. That premise would lead, by way of the recently displayed maximization principle, to the conclusion that either both choices are rational, or just one is rational, namely, the one that is initially less likely. That's right, less likely! There is nothing confused about these arguments. I reject them on substantive grounds, since I reject the simple maximizing principle on which they depend. I hold that a choice is rational in the sense at issue, which I take to be that of being fully in accordance with reason, if and only if, (i), this choice has maximum expected utility, and, (ii), it would prove stable on ideal reflection. My rejection of these arguments rests in part on a position I take on a point of controversy among decision theorists, some of whom endorse that simple maximizing principle of rationality. They see no challenges in any case to the possibility of rational choices. This is so, incidentally, whether they are 'causal' or 'evidential' decision theorists, for which distinction see section 5.8 below. (It is currently noteworthy, with regard to this distinction between kinds of decision theories, that while causal theories 'predict' instabilities of rational decision in The Samarra Problem, evidential theories do not: cf. Gibbard and Harper 1978, 158-9. That difference favours simple maximizing causal theories, since '[i]n the case ... rational decision [if possible] does seem to be unstable' [ibid.].)

5. DISCUSSION OF NEWCOMB'S PROBLEM 5.1 I maintain that the second analysis of The Samarra Problem is correct and that no rational choice is possible in this problem since no choice would be stable on uncurtailed reflection. In contrast, I think that the sole analysis given above of Newcomb's Problem is in part defective, and that this is not another case in which no rational choice is possible. In my view there is a uniquely rational choice in Newcomb's Problem, and it is to take both boxes. The argument for this choice and against taking only Box 2 is simple and flawless: You are sure that no matter what is in Box 2, you end up with a $1000 more if you take both boxes rather than just Box 2. You are sure that the $1000 is there, on the table for the taking in Box i, along with whatever is in Box 2. So you should take it. You should take both boxes. "But what about the argument against this choice, and for taking only Box 2? Even if there is nothing wrong with the argument for this choice, you have not solved your problem with the Problem until you have said what is wrong with the argument you reject. You must justify your rejection of it." I agree and say that the argument for taking only Box 2 manages to sound good by encouraging us to confuse and run together very different kinds of claims concerning what would be subjective and objective certainties or near-certainties in the Problem.

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5.2 Essential Distinctions The claim that, (la) If you were to take both boxes, you would be nearly certain that you were getting only a $1000. which concerns a subjective near-certainty that you are in a position to bring about, is apt to be confused with the claim that (ib) You are nearly certain that if you were to take both boxes, you would get only a $1000. which concerns your purported confidence in your ability to bring something about for sure, an objective certainty. The claims that (2a) If you were to take only Box 2, you would be nearly certain that you were getting a $M. and that (2b) You are nearly certain that if you were to take only Box 2, you would get a $M. are similarly confusable. To make the intended senses of these four claims quite clear, we could insert 'then, either as a causal consequence, or independently causally, of that,' in each, before the words 'you would.' The conditionals involved in these claims either by being identical with, or by being imbedded in, them are to be 'causal conditionals.' 5.3 Troublesome Words Confusions of the (a)- and (b)-claims are abetted by such sentences as 'if you were to take only Box 2, you would be nearly certain of getting a

$M;

which, while specific to (2a) and about a possible subjective near-certainty, is so similar to the sentence 'if you were to take only Box 2, you would be nearly certain to get a $M,'

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which sentence is much closer to the thing of which (2b) says you are certain, which is that if you were to take only Box 2, you would get a $M. The small difference here is that the sentence just displayed is about an objective conditional near-certainty, and says what you might with a chance approaching an objective certainty get, whereas the sentence imbedded in (2b) says what you would get and is about an objective conditional certainty. The second members of the displayed pairs of claims would be very relevant to what you ought to do. They concern important possible 'material' consequences of your actions, namely, money. In contrast, the first claims in these pairs concern 'immaterial' consequences. They concern what could prove to be only passing states of mind. Admittedly (2a) contemplates what would be a very pleasant state of mind. It would I suppose be nice, it would feel good, as you opened your box, to be nearly sure that there was a $M in it for you, to be nearly sure that you were to be rich. However, by the hypothesis that you are interested mainly in the money, that, not getting the money, but your confidence that you are getting it, is not an experience for which you would be willing to pay, or to give up, the $1000. One does not want to confuse a subjective nearcertainty of wealth with the real thing, wealth itself. What is awkward is that while, as we have seen, only the second claims in these pairs are very relevant to what you ought to do in Newcomb's Problem, only the first claims of these pairs can be unproblematically true together in this problem. The second claims of the pairs cannot both be true, they cannot both be true, in the Problem unless you, the agent in the Problem, do not understand the situation and are very confused. For in the Problem it is plain and you must be sure, that (i*) If you were to take both boxes, you would get exactly a $1000. is true if and only if it is false that (2*) If you were to take only Box 2, you would get a $M. In the Problem, since you are sure that your choice cannot affect what is in the boxes, either whatever you do you get at least a $M, or whatever you do you get at most a $1000 - see the columns of the Problem's structure - which means that you should be sure that (i*) and (2*) cannot both be true. So unless you, the agent in the Problem, are incredibly obtuse or very badly confused, you cannot be nearly certain of both (i*) and (2*), as (ib) and (2b) taken together say that you are. In contrast, (la) and (2a) are both true and available. They are both parts of the story of the problem. As we have seen, however, they are not very

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relevant given that you are interested at least mainly in the money, and either not at all or very little in the perhaps fleeting delights of various states of expectation. The argument against taking both boxes seems compelling only because it does not make these and other similar distinctions. Suppressing them it proceeds as if very relevant premises, for example, the b-claims, were identical with similar-sounding certainly true premises, in this example, the a-claims. 5.4 'Backtracking' versus Causal Conditionals The impression that the case harbours in claims (ib) and (2b) considerations decisive for the rationality of taking only Box 2 is promoted in no small part I think by 'ambiguities of intent' in the conditional sentences (Si*) 'if you were to take both boxes, you would get exactly a $1000' and

(82*) 'if you were to take only Box 2, you would get a $M' that are imbedded in my expressions of those claims (and that of course express the conditionals (i*) and (2*) above). As has been stressed, the senses of (Si*) and (82*) can be made plainer by inserting after their commas the words, 'then, either as a causal consequence, or independently causally, of that.' I now observe that, lacking these clarifying words, (Si*) and (82*) can be used to express claims which, unlike (i*) and (2*), can be and presumably are things of which you the agent in the problem are sure. These sentences can be used to express the explicitly 'backtracking conditionals' (i**) If you were to take both boxes, then, given what would have come before that choice, you would get only a $1000. and

(2**) If you were to take only Box 2, then, given what would have come before that choice, you would get a $M. You should be sure, or nearly sure of both (i**) and (2**), since you are sure that were you to take both boxes, then that would have been predicted and nothing would have been placed in Box 2, whereas were you to take only Box 2,

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that would have been predicted and a $M would have been placed in Box 2. But then these 'backtracking' conditionals are not the causal conditionals (i*) and (2*), confidence in which would point so clearly to taking only Box 2. Backtracking conditionals (i**) and (2**), when clearly distinguished from and contrasted with causal conditionals (i*) and (2*), have no obvious relevance to choice. (Cf. sections 2.1 and 2.2 of chapter 4 below.) Sentences (Si*) and (Si*) can express 'backtracking' conditionals that convey possible bearings of your actions not on the money you will get, but on what you should think you will get: they can express conditionals that convey not the possible bearings of your actions as causes operating in the world, but as signs which when noticed should operate in your mind. It is observed in (Sobel 1988, section IV) that Terence Horgan equates probabilities of these very 'backtracking' conditionals with corresponding conditional probabilities. It is a widely held view, a view elaborated in (Sobel 1997), that conditional probabilities convey bearings of conditions as signs and evidence, which they can be for things of which they are known not to be causes. (It is not essential to the dynamic of Newcomb's Problem that it occasions confusions of 'backtracking' conditionals, properly so-called, with look-alike causal conditionals. Essentially similar problems feature not predictors but 'post- and 'concurrent-dictors' who are causally insulated from your choice. The look-alike possibly confusing conditionals in these problems 'track' forward or 'sideways' but not causally.) I said in section i above that the arrows with which I adorned the structure of Newcomb's Problem represented 'bearings' of possible choices on the contents of the mystery box. I spoke as if there were no difference between bearings of these choices as possible signs of and evidence for possible contents of this box and their bearings as possible causes of these contents. But only sign-bearings are assumed in our cases. It is central to the Problem that a choice of just the second mystery box would provide excellent evidence for its being full to the brim with a $M, whereas a choice of both boxes would provide excellent evidence that the mystery box was quite empty: 'backtracking' conditionals correspond to parts of the Problem of which you the agent are sure. In contrast, causal bearings, far from being assumed to be present, are assumed to be absent. It is taken as certain that choices and actions on them cannot affect the contents of the mystery box. In the story of the case that was settled finally and irrevocably 'yesterday.' So the arrows do not convey, as they can look to do, information that is directly and unproblematically relevant to any moneylover's choice. The causal conditionals that these arrows might be taken to express are not both parts of the Problem: they cannot both be true in the Problem - one or the other of them is true in it, but not both.

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5.5 More Words That Can Make Newcomb's Problem Shimmer The following sentence, 'Your choice is between a near certainty of a $1000, and a near certainty of a$M.' is used in the argument against taking both boxes. This sentence is ambiguous in intent between 'Your choice is between being, in your mind, nearly certain that you are getting a $1000, and being nearly certain that you are getting a $M.' and

'Your choice is between making it nearly certain that you get a $1000, and making it nearly certain that you get a $M.' The words, 'only by taking just one box, the second box, can you be sure of a $M', which are also used in that argument, are similarly ambiguous in intent between words for subjective certainty, 'only by taking just one box, the second box, can you be sure in your mind ofa$M,' and words for objective certainty, 'only by taking just one box, the second box, can you make sure that you geta$M.' Another sentence used, 'But anyone would rather be sure of getting a $M.' if not ambiguous, can at least be 'stretched' in both subjective and objective directions.

68 Puzzles for the Will 5.6 An Asymmetry in the Literature of the One-Box/Two-Boxes Debate One-boxers and two-boxers are similarly burdened. Each needs to explain the theory of his own choice, and say what is wrong with arguments popular and outre for the other choice. But while two-boxers, at least as a group, labour both to make their case and to say what is wrong with the other side's case, oneboxers seek only to make their own case. One-boxers of course reject the dominance argument for two-boxing, but they never say what they find wrong with it other than its conclusion. They never explain how, in their views, it manages to misdirect while seeming so simple and compelling. They never say how, in their views, well-meaning twoboxers are taken in by their arguments. In contrast, two-boxers, in addition to defending and explaining the grounds for their choice, devote space and energy to reasoning with their well-meaning opponents, and attempting, while conceding the considerable prima facie force of arguments for the one-box choice, to explain it away. What accounts for this remarkable asymmetry in the literature on Newcomb's Problem? One explanation for it would be that there is nothing wrong with the plain and simple causal-dominance argument for two-boxing, and that there is nothing that with any plausibility can be said against it. I leave to others, and particularly to one-boxers, to suggest other explanations of the absence from the extensive literature on Newcomb's Problem of dissecting analytic criticism of two-box reasoning. 5.7 Partisans not Just of Different Choices, But of DifferentTheories Newcomb's Problem stages a conflict between two theories of rational choice. According to one, rational actions maximize evidential expected utility (see Jeffrey 1965), and according to the other they maximize causal expected utility. The evidential expected utility of an action is a weighted average of the values of ways the world could be given this action, wherein the weights are measures of the possible evidential bearings of this action on these ways for the world, or of its 'potencies as a sign of these ways.' The evidential expected utility of an action a uses as weights conditional probabilities, P(w/a). The causal expected utility of an action a is similar, but uses as weights measures of the likelihoods of these ways for the world obtaining given this action. The simplest causal theory is for agents who do not believe in objective chances other than o and I. This theory uses as weights probabilities of conditionals, P(a CH w), wherein the subjunctive conditionals are interpreted causally. These weights measure

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the likelihoods of the potencies of the action as a cause of these ways, that is, of probabilities of its causal bearings on these ways. In Newcomb's Problem, taking both boxes dominates taking only Box 2 under the two-way partition, there is a $M in Box 2, there is not a $M in Box 2. The consequences of taking both boxes are better in both columns. And it is certain that these possible states of Box 2 are causally independent of those actions. In addition, it is certain that it is not open to me both to take both boxes when there is a $M in Box 2 and to take both boxes when there is not a $M in Box 2, and similarly for taking only Box 2 when there is a $M in it and when there is not. It is demonstrable (see Sobel 1989, 76-9, and Sobel 1985^ 181-3) that if an action a dominates an action b under such a partition, then the causal expected utility of a exceeds that of b. Taking both boxes would maximize causal expected utility in Newcomb's Problem, whereas taking only Box 2 would maximize evidential expected utility. And a decision to take both boxes would be for me (causal maximizer that I am) stable on reflection: were I to reflect on that decision and expect to act on it, taking both boxes would still maximize causal expected utility. These two circumstances - that taking two boxes would maximize causal expected utility, and that a decision to take two boxes would be for me stable on reflection make taking both boxes exclusively reasonable for me in Newcomb's Problem. In defence of its reasonableness for all right-thinking agents, I have appended to the intuitive dominance argument for that choice a discussion designed to explain away, by showing that it plays on ambiguities, the argument for taking only Box 2, and the temptations of evidential maximizing thinking. The intuitive reasonableness of the two-box option argues against the theory that says rational actions maximize evidential expected utility, since that option does not maximize evidential expected utility, and argues for theories that say that rational actions, for one thing, maximize causal expected utility. 6. BEYOND PREDICTIONS

6. i The 'Engine' of Our Problems - Signs That Would not Be Causes There are dilemmas in which no rational choice is possible. Some cases in which the agent is nearly certain that the choice he will make has been predicted are like this. The Samarra Problem is like this even if, as I think, Newcomb's Problem is not. But what is it that allows The Samarra Problem to 'work' as a case in which no rational choice is possible? And what is it that makes Newcomb's Problem seem to 'work' in this way?

70 Puzzles for the Will What these cases have in common, and the main thing that makes them 'work' to the extent that they do, is that in each case choices would be signs for the agent of choice-relevant factors, of which factors he would not consider them to be causes. That you had chosen only Box 2, for example, would be a sign that there was a $M in this box, though certainly not a cause of a $M's being in this box. Similarly, that I had just chosen to go to Samarra would be a sign that my enemy was going (that he was already going there too, that he had for some time been on his way), but plainly not a cause of that. As has been said, the arrows in 'figures' above stand for evidential or sign-relations, not causal ones. 6.2 The Disease Problem One way in which choices can be signs, even when it is clear that they are not causes, of choice-relevant factors, is by these factors being caused by reliable predictions of these choices. That is the way of our two cases. But there are other ways. For example, an agent can think that his or her choices would be caused by such factors. To illustrate, here is a case in which predictions (as well as 'post-' and 'concurrent-dictions') do not figure that is otherwise like The Samarra Problem. I am sure that I have either disease A, or disease B, and I am trying to decide whether to drink water. I am nearly sure of two related things: (i), that if I had disease A I would be strongly disposed - that is, my having disease A would strongly dispose me - possibly for what I took to be good reasons, to decide to drink, and consequently to drink; and, (ii), that if I had disease B I would be strongly disposed - that is, having disease B would strongly dispose me - deliberately not to drink. Furthermore, I am sure of two other related things: (iii), that if I have disease A I will recover and live if and only if I do not drink; and (iv), that, if I have disease B I will recover if and only if I do drink. Finally, my interest is in my health, and not at all in drinking or not drinking as such. Here is the shape of my problem:

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Possible diseases

Possible actions

drink abstain

A

B

death

life

life

death

Neither choice could, if fully reflected upon, be stable in the case. Choosing to drink would be a sign that I had disease A and thus, on reflection, a reason for choosing to abstain. Choosing to abstain, on the other hand, would be a sign that I had disease B, and so on reflection a reason for choosing to drink. The case is like The Samarra Problem in its 'structure' (and is to be like it in the robustness of its structure - see the blocked-off comment at the end of section 3.3 above). No views regarding predictions are involved. But choices would be signs, though I am sure they would not be causes of choice-relevant factors, here, of which disease I have. And, given the structure of these cases, this peculiar relation would work to undo any choice I made, as soon as I began to think about it and what it implied for my condition. [Though I do not, in the present case, view my choices as having been predicted, I do view them as caused in ways that make them in principle predictable. However, not even this is essential to cases that pose threats to rational choice. Going back to my enemy-problem, rather than suppose that I think that my enemy has made a prediction, we could suppose that I think that he sees me as an enemy, that just as I fear him, so he fears me, that he confronts a problem of what to do that looks to him just as mine looks to me, and that he thinks about it just as I think about mine(!). I could think we are "psychological twins' [who] ... will act alike' (Sobel IQ85C, 270). Such thoughts could lead to my choices being potential signs of like choices on his part, and this even if I think that any choices we made would be freely made, and neither caused nor predictable.] 7. CAUSED CHOICES

7. i The Disease Problem features choices that would be signs of choice-relevant factors, because they would be viewed as caused by these factors: I am nearly sure that having disease A would strongly dispose me to decide to drink, and similarly that having disease B would strongly dispose me deliberately not to drink. It is possible to include somewhat similar patterns in fuller statements

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of Newcomb's Problem and The Samarra Problem. In Newcomb's Problem, for example, my choices might be signs even though certainly not causes, of the state of Box 2, because I believe the predictor could see what deliberative processes I am disposed (causal notion) to employ, and what to-be-acted-upon choices these processes figure to produce (causal notion). My confidence in the predictor, and in my enemy in The Samarra Problem, might in this way include views on my part of my choices as things that are caused, views of my choices as things I will be caused to make that will in turn lead causally to certain actions on my part. My confidence in predictions in these problems might be based on an opinion that my actions and predictions of my actions have common causes that make them agree. See (Nozick 1969, 141), where such 'a causalized version of Newcomb's example' is sketched. Reflection on this aspect of at least some challenges to rational choice leads to this final question: Can a deliberating agent think that he will be caused by conditions already in place to act one way or the other? Can a deliberating agent view not only the actions but the very choices over which he is deliberating as things that will be caused by already in place conditions, rather than as uncaused generators of things in which he is interested? If the answer to this question is No, then although there are decision-problems possible for deliberating agents in which rational choices are not possible, perhaps there are fewer cases than might be thought. Perhaps, in particular, The Disease Problem is not such a case, because it is not, given causal beliefs specified in it, a decisionproblem possible for a deliberating agent. Fewer but, I stress, still some cases. For as stated above, a choice-problem can feature choices that are viewed as uncaused and even unpredictable, while still being a problem that is troublesome in the ways discussed in this chapter. That a choice would be for an agent a sign of something of which it is not in his view a cause is essential to these troubles. And that can happen without his viewing the choice as caused, and even though he considers it to be unpredictable. 7.2 The following reflections (that draw from Sobel I990b) suggest that the range of cases that would stymie deliberating agents includes versions of The Disease Problem despite causal-beliefs stipulated for it, and is indeed not significantly curtailed by restrictions on causal-beliefs of deliberating agents. A person can believe that he would, under certain circumstances that he thinks may already obtain (for example, his having some disease), be moved to do a certain thing, and, consistent with this belief, believe that even if he is going to be so moved, though he will be caused to do that thing and not another, he will not have to do it. He can believe that he still has a choice whether or not to do it. Even when he is sure that causes for his action are already in place, he can believe that he still has a choice, and that he can by choice do otherwise than he will be caused to do.

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There is, I think, no general difficulty here for ordinary thinking about causes and choices. Of course, some beliefs in causes for actions are not consistent with viewing caused actions as avoidable by choice. If, for example, an agent believes that some predictor 'hypnotically controls' his actions, this being what makes the predictor so reliable (Mackie 1977, 218), or that some predictor will 'intervene [if necessary] via telekinesis ... to make [him] choose the alternative she has 'predicted" (Talbott 1987, 421), then he cannot think that he has a choice in the matter, or that what he does is up to him. But not all beliefs in causes for actions are beliefs in such causes, or in causes that work in ways that exclude the agent's having any control. For example, beliefs in subliminal stimuli and in character- and disposition-shaping genes can be in these stimuli and genes as causes that an agent can, even if he rarely or never does, override and contravene. Some causes of actions are ordinarily viewed as contravenable. Furthermore, though not all philosophers approve of such ordinary views and provide explications for them, some do. These philosophers can, consistently with their technical philosophies, be in no-stable-choice decision-problems like The Disease Problem. This, as will be explained in section 8 of chapter 3 below, can be so even for a philosopher who is an uncompromising 'fixed pasts' and 'fixed laws' philosophic determinist. It will also be explained (this, in section 7 of that chapter) why other 'fixed-pasts' and 'fixed-laws' philosophical determinists cannot, consistent with their technical philosophies, think they have choices and be in decision-problems. 7.3 A deliberating agent who has yet to decide what to do can consistently think that whatever he does will be caused, but he cannot think that it would be caused quite regardless of his decision. An agent can deliberate only if he thinks that what he does can depend on his choice or decision. He must think there are at least two choices he can make, each of which, if made, would be efficacious for the action chosen. So it can seem that a deliberating agent who supposes that his action will be caused must think that its cause will operate by way of his decision or choice - it can seem that he cannot, if thinking clearly, think that it will operate directly. Suppose that the cause is his having a certain 'bad gene' and the action is his smoking. Then it can seem that '[i]f he takes the performance itself to be directly promoted by presence of the bad gene, there is no question of preferential choice: the performance is compulsive' (Jeffrey 1983, 25). In my view, however, what are excluded are not, as Jeffrey suggests, beliefs in direct, rather than by-way-of-choices, causation of actions, but only, as has already been said, beliefs in quite-regardless and uncontrovertible-by-choice causation. And, I maintain, to say that an action is caused directly is not in ordinary speech to say that it will take place quite regardless, and that the agent has

74 Puzzles for the Will no choice in its connection. Similarly, to say that some factor causes an action by way of a choice is not to say that the agent has no further choice in this factor's connection. For sometimes caused choices can be effectively nullified by changes of mind - sometimes they can be effectively withdrawn or changed. Consider that even if an action will be caused directly by some already in place condition, for example, a subliminal stimulus, it is possible that it will also be chosen. And if it will be, then it is possible for the in-place direct cause to be, given the choice that will be made, sufficient for the action, and conversely for the choice to be, given that cause, sufficient for the action. It is furthermore possible for an action to be counterfactually dependent on a directly operating cause, and also counterfactually dependent on its choice's not being supplanted by a choice-otherwise. It is possible that: if that cause were absent, then so would be the action, notwithstanding the continued presence when its time came of that choice; and, if that choice were not merely absent, but replaced by a choice-otherwise, then the action would be absent and indeed replaced by the chosen action-otherwise, and this notwithstanding the continued presence of that already in-place direct cause. And so deliberators can think that they will be caused to make the choices they will make. They can be in, and so be stymied in, The Disease Problem, notwithstanding causal beliefs stipulated in it. They can be in troublesome cases of several kinds, including cases that feature beliefs concerning the causes of choices and actions to come, and cases that do not. Appendix: The Appointment AI. JOHN O'HARA AND THE APPOINTMENT

A word about the title. One of my social activities [in the winter of 1933-4] was to have tea, literally tea, several afternoons a week with Dorothy Parker at her flat a few blocks from my hotel. I had written about 50,000 words of this novel, which I was calling The Infernal Grove, and one day Mrs. Parker handed me a copy of the play Sheppey [1933] by W. Somerset Maugham, with the book open at the Samarra legend [in Act III]. I read the thing and said: 'There's the title for my book.' "Where?" said Mrs. Parker. " 'Appointment in Samarra,'" I said. "Oh, I don't think so, Mr. O'Hara. Do you?" Dorothy didn't like the title, Alfred Harcourt didn't like the title, his editors didn't like it, nobody liked it but me. But I bulled it through. I tell this to make it clear that the novel is not based on the Samarra legend, and Maugham would be the first to tell you that

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he didn't invent the legend. It's thousands of years old. (John O'Hara, Appointment in Samarra [Modern Library Edition, 1953] Foreword) A2. OEDIPUS REX AND ANOTHER APPOINTMENT

[T]he story of Oedipus must certainly be called a tragedy of fate. Yet to say this is, after all, not to say much. Something of what must be added if we are to account for the peculiar power of Oedipus Rex is suggested by a comparison of the story of the play with a well-known tale of similar purport. In the city of Ispahan, in Persia, a certain man's servant came to him and said, "I was in the market place and there I saw Death and he made a threatening gesture to me." The man said, "Let us flee," and he and his servant set out posthaste for Samarra. No sooner had they entered that city than they encountered Death, to whom the man said, "Why did you threaten my servant in the market place in Ispahan?" Death replied, "My gesture was not one of threat but of surprise, for I had an appointment to meet you in Samarra, and I was surprised to learn, from seeing your servant, that you were still in Ispahan." In its barest outline, the story of Oedipus is no different from this - a man, fleeing his fate, encounters it. (Lionel Trilling, The Experience of Literature. A reader with commentaries [New York 1967] 43)

Death is here a 'he.' The place is not Bagdad but Ispahan. And the appointment is with the master, not his servant. So Trilling's final comment is a bit off for the story he tells. There is no one in his telling who in fleeing his fate encounters it. In his telling, the servant flees his fate but does not encounter it, and the master encounters his fate but does not flee it. It is in Maugham's telling, not Trilling's, that, as in the story of Oedipus, a man encounters a fate he has done his best to flee. Another version of the story, used by Allan Gibbard and William Harper, features Aleppo and Damascus. They cite O'Hara's use of Maugham's version and say, 'the story is undoubtedly much older' (Gibbard and Harper 1985, I58ni2). Certainly it is somewhat older. Edith Wharton writes that Jean Cocteau (when he was "nineteen or twenty," and thus in 1908 or 1909) told her a 'strangely beautiful story' which he said 'he had read somewhere, but which I have never been able to trace' (Wharton 1964, 285). That story is very similar to Maugham's, save that the scene is Damascus (not Bagdad), Death (who is male not female) has frightened a beautiful youth (not a servant) in the royal gardens (not the market place) who begs the Sultan (not a merchant) for his swiftest horse so that he can flee to Bagdad (not Samarra). The story may be "much older" than Maugham's, as Gibbard and Harper say. It may, as O'Hara avers, be "thousands of years old." But I do not know these things, and am still looking for independent evidence that relates Maugham's

76 Puzzles for the Will telling to an ancient tradition. Perhaps, though this is a 'stretch,' the following has some significance for the issue: "Says John the biscuit-maker one day to Thomas his brother, the sailmaker, 'Brother Tom, what will become of us? The plague grows hot in the city, and increases this way. What shall we do?'... [W]e can neither go away nor stay here. I am of the same mind with the lepers of Samaria: 'If we stay here we are sure to die,' I mean especially as you and I are stated, without a dwelling-house ... and if we go away we can but die [for no one will let us in]" (Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year [London: Penguin 1986], 137, 139; first published 1722). It is noteworthy that Trilling in 1967 describes the tale not as ancient, but merely as "well-known."

3

Free Will and Varieties of Determinism

Introduction i.i Is determinism compatible with free will? This is the main question of this chapter. The answer to it, I maintain, can be only, Yes and No. Everything depends upon what one means by 'determinism,' and by 'free will.' These are terms of art, and, within limits set by somewhat unsettled traditions, we make of them what we want. Perhaps there are absolutely best interpretations, though probably different interpretations recommend themselves for different theoretical purposes. Can we choose to do, and then do by choice, things other than the things we are caused to do — can we if determinism is true? Answers are again dependent on what we mean by 'determinism.' Answers here, however, clearly depend as well on what we mean by such words as 'choose to do,' 'do by choice,' and 'caused to do,' which are not terms of art. These are important ordinary phrases with well-settled traditions of use, and if we would not court misunderstanding and confusion it is not up to us to decide what to mean by them. For good answers to these questions it is necessary, and notwithstanding familiarity not easy, to get clear about and to make as precise as possible what we do mean by these ordinary words. In what follows I bring out the possibilities of affirmative and negative answers to our questions. It is not, however, claimed that any are based on best or most widely accepted understandings of determinism and free will, or on most faithful-to-ordinary-use explications of choice and cause. Elaborations provided may incline to simple answers - to unqualified Yes's or No's - but the answers actually given are qualified and mixed. Connectedly, elaborations provided, while sometimes relevant to merits of kinds of determinism and ideas of free will, are none of them intended as parts of implicit arguments, empirical or

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transcendental, for or against particular determinisms, or concepts and principles of free will. Various metaphysical bases for free will and kinds of fatalism will be presented for inspection and without endorsements. For the record, however, and though this is not relevant to anything to come, let me say that I am not a determinist of any kind, and so not one of any of the kinds to be distinguished. I do not think there is any sense in which everything is causally determined. On the other hand, I am a libertarian. I believe in what I shall term 'minimal free will,' and indeed in much more free will than that. Certain framework preliminaries are addressed in section 2, after which, in sections 3 and 4, 'forms,' as I term them, of determinism are distinguished and discussed. Section 5 is about choices and actions, and includes formulations of a minimal condition for free will. In section 6 several 'modes,' as I call them, of determinism that cut across forms are distinguished. Combining forms and modes yields what I term 'varieties' of determinism. In sections 7 through 9 answers, both affirmative and negative ones, to our questions, made specific to several varieties of determinism, are demonstrated and discussed. 1.2 Before getting down to the business just detailed, brief comments may be useful concerning what can seem to be epistemic ways to the conclusion that determinism leaves no room for choices and decisions, because choices and decisions would be unpredictable. Here is an argument that takes such a way: Choices and decisions would be by their natures events that were not predicted by their makers. Decisions would be "by definition" not predicted by their makers, which is to say that choices and decisions would be unpredictable by their makers, necessarily unpredictable. Determinism implies that for every event E there are events in its past and laws such that given knowledge of these past events and laws E can be predicted. These past events and laws would be public and knowable by everyone. So if determinism is true, then every event is predictable by everyone. From this and the result of the previous paragraph it follows that choices and decisions, and determinism are incompatible. If determinism is true, then what pass for choices and decisions, and are regularly termed "choices" and "decisions," are none of them what we take them to be. They are none of them "choices" or "decisions" properly so-called. (Cf. Ginet 1962) To set aside for the balance of this chapter considerations of predictions, I offer the following brief critical comments on this argument, which, among other

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things, purports to yoke 'being causally determined' and 'being in a certain manner predictable.' Suppose that choices and decisions would by definition not be predicted by their makers. I do not think that this is true of choices and decisions. I think that a person could know that he was going to make a choice before he made it. Think of a case in which a person does not know why, for what reasons, he would make a certain choice. That does not mean that he cannot know that he is going to make it, since if he is going to make it he could have the information that he is going to make it 'on the best authority.' So I do not say, but propose only that we suppose, that choices and decisions would by definition not be predicted by their makers. Then choices are decisions that are not causally predictable. Even so, they can be causally determined. Consistent with the supposition of the previous paragraph (I here anticipate the general account of causal determination spelled out in section 3 below), there can be, for a given choice or decision D by an agent A to do something X, past events and laws that entail that A is going to make decision D to do X. That supposition leaves open that there are past events and laws that entail two things about A: (i), that he is going to make up his mind (or better, his will) to do X; and, (ii), that he is not going to know, in advance of doing that, that he is going to do that. All that follows for choices and decisions from the supposition that they are by definition not predicted by their makers is that no one in advance of making a choice or decision properly so-called not only has knowledge of its causes and of the laws that relate them to it, but, putting the knowledge of these things together, actually deduces that he is going to make up his mind or will in the manner of this choice or decision. Determinism says that every event is causally determined, but leaves room for there being kinds of events that are not causally predictable - it of course leaves room for there being kinds of events that are by definition causally unpredicted and in this sense unpredictable. Consider 'absolute surprises,' where these are by definition events, for example, hurricanes that no one has predicted or so much as expected. Such events happen. And though they are necessarily not predicted, since no event that was predicted would be an absolute surprise, they can be causally determined. There can be causes for hurricanes, and there can be causes for some hurricanes not being predicted. So absolutesurprise hurricanes can be causally determined, notwithstanding that such hurricanes cannot be predicted in any manner by anyone. (Cf. Goldman 1970, 177.) That, but for infrequent passing mentions, is all that will be said in the present chapter of predictions and predictability. This chapter is about challenges to free will made by determinisms, where these are doctrines of universal causal determination, and not of universal causal predictability. Ways

8o Puzzles for the Will considered to incompatibilist and compatibilist conclusions will be purely metaphysical. Framework Preliminaries 2.1 Several forms of determinism will be distinguished in sections 3 and 4. For that work I set out stipulations for terms that will be used in special ways. The context of these stipulations, and indeed of this entire chapter, is that of the socalled classical world-picture according to which "the world is assumed to embody an absolute or observer-independent simultaneity; [and] 'the world-ata-given time' is ... an invariantly meaningful concept" (Barman 1986, 5). I take as a part of this picture that temporal and spatial dimensions of the world are independent of one another, and are 'measured out' in miles and years quite independently somehow of the things and happenings of the world. It is an important further part of this picture that time is continuous and infinitely divisible, so that between any instants there are infinitely many other instants, and so that there are not, for instants, next instants, or just previous instants. Of less importance is that time is taken to have neither a beginning nor an end, even if there are things in the world only for a finite period so that, as I shall say, 'history' has a beginning and an end. I work within this 'classical' pre-Einsteinian framework in the faith that the simplifications it affords do not seriously compromise issues of free will and determinism discussions of which continue conversations begun long before the advent of modern space-time frameworks. 2.2 States Let a possible state of the world be a durationless event - an event that takes place, or would take place, at an instant 'in nature.' For example, a planet's being in the position in its orbit that the earth is in now, or a finger moving as mine is now, are not only actual states now of the earth and my finger respectively, but possible states at any time of planets and fingers. Possible assemblies of atoms as they might be in their individual conditions and relations at an instant are possible states. An atomistic materialist would say that all actual states are identical with such states. Non-actual possible states do not have times. It is not part of a possible state that it would take place at some particular time. Every possible state could take place at any number of times. Actual states of course do have particular times: they take place at particular instants and have these instants as their times. Laws of nature in force at a time are not states, or parts of states, for this time, since states are 'durationless events.' Whatever laws of nature are, and even if

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they are relations between real universals, they are not durationless events or parts thereof. Also, what I term in section 5 'choices proper,' though they would be made at times, would, by stipulation, not be 'events in nature' or 'states of the world.' Similarly, but of considerably less importance for the present study, the 'particular volitions of the Deity' and 'interpositions in nature by invisible agents' that David Hume (speaking I think 'with the vulgar' - see section 9.2.5 below) says would be involved in 'miracles,' would not be 'events in nature' or 'states of the world.' The total state of the world at a time - its actual total state at this time - is to consist of every actual state of the world at this time. To illustrate, according to atomistic materialism, the total state of the world at a time is the assembly of then existing elementary particles as they are in themselves and in their relations to one another. One further stipulation needs noting regarding total states. I understand states in such a way that it is possible for the world to be, at a given time, in no state. I say that the world is in no state at a time if and only if there is, at this time, nothing, no stuff of any kind, material or nonmaterial, in the world. When there is nothing in the world, when there is no contingent stuff in it, rather than say as I do that the world is in no state, one might say it is in 'the null state.' I have settled on this way of speaking for expository convenience. A state-proposition says that a possible state of some kind, a state that answers to some description, is actual at a specified time. The description in a state-proposition will not go beyond the intrinsic properties of the state affirmed, and in particular will not have implications for states at other times than its own time. If the state is an assembly of elementary particles, the description will not go beyond conditions of the particles and relations among them at the specified time. It will not say how particles were related to one another at any earlier time. It will not imply even that there were particles at earlier times. Nor will it say how particles will be related to one another, or even that there will be particles, at later times. I understand state-propositions in such a way that state-propositions about different times are logically independent, neither entailing nor being incompatible with one another. The conjunction of a state-proposition and law of nature may of course entail things intrinsic to states at other times. But state-propositions for times are all by themselves not to entail anything about what is intrinsic to states of the world at other times, and, connectedly, states themselves are to be at least in this sense 'entirely loose and separate.' Compare: "Our concept of 'state' must be such that, given that the world is in a certain state at a certain time, nothing follows logically about its states at other times" (van Inwagen 1975, J86; cf., van Inwagen 1983, 59).

82 Puzzles for the Will • For a 'nice' account of state-propositions, I adapt ideas from (Zemach and Widerker 1989) and (Fischer 1989). Let £(0 be the proposition that 'something exists' at t. Let E(-t) be the proposition that something exists before time t, so that one might say that according to [~£(-t) & E(t)] 'the world begins to exist at t' or even, though not consistently with the classical framework, that 'time begins at t.' One might say these things, but I do not. For expository convenience, and in keeping with the classical framework, I allow a world to be times when 'nothing exists' in it. 'Something exists' is here short for 'something contingent exists,' and for 'something exists that does not exist in every possible world.' Similarly for 'nothing exists.' Let E(+t) be the proposition that something exists after time t, so that one might say that according to [£(t) & ~£(+t)] "the world ceases to exist after t" (Zemach and Widerker 1989, 113), or even (though not consistently with the classical framework) that "there are no times after t" (ibid.). Let a proposition be about a time t if and only if it entails, (i), E(t) and, (ii), either that a certain thing happens or obtains at t, or that a certain thing does not happen or obtain at t. (Cf. Fischer 1989, 36.) That the Earth, Sun, and Moon are exactly aligned now, that they are not exactly aligned now, that they are exactly aligned for the first time now, and that they are exactly aligned for the last time now are four propositions about now. Then, for a 'nice' account, we can say that a proposition p is a state proposition if only if there is a time t such that, (i), p is about t, (ii), p is compatible with both ~E(-t) and ~£(+t), and, (iii), p is compatible with every proposition that is about a time or times other than t, and about only times other than t. On this account, that the Earth, Sun, and Moon are exactly aligned now, and that they are not exactly aligned now, are state propositions about the present moment. But that they are exactly aligned for the first time now is not, for it is not compatible with the proposition that they were similarly aligned yesterday. Nor is the proposition that they are exactly aligned for the last time now a state-proposition. It can be seen that if p is a state-proposition then there is exactly one time t such that for p and t, both (i) and (ii) are true. We may therefore rule that a state-proposition p is about the time t such that for p and t, both (i) and (ii) are true. It is evident that a state-proposition p about time t cannot be about another time t'. (If p were about another time t', then p would entail E(t'). But by (ii) p is compatible with ~£(t'), which means that it cannot entail £(t').) Therefore, the account, as required, makes state-propositions about different times logically independent. State-propositions about different times are by (iii) compatible. And a state-proposition about a time t cannot entail a state-proposition about a different time t'. For if it did it would entail E(t'), which, as has been noted, by (ii) it cannot do.l

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State-propositions, true or false, are not necessarily complete for intrinsic characters of the states they would be about. In contrast, the total-state-proposition for a time is a true proposition that does say everything there is to say about the state of world at this time. The total-state-proposition for a time is to be the logically weakest proposition that entails every true state-proposition for this time. If the world is in no state at a time, then there is no true state-proposition for this time, and so no total-state-proposition for this time. 2.3 Processes and History Let a possible process be a temporally ordered series of possible states. No restrictions are intended. Every temporally ordered series of possible states is to be a possible 'process.' A possible process may, but need not, be compact, as are rational numbers, so that between any two states in it there would be an intervening state. For example, as a piece of physical speculation, I assume that states corresponding to all positions of the earth in its orbit during the last ten minutes made not merely a compact but continuous series, as do real numbers. I assume that time is continuous and that this process included a state for each time during the last ten minutes, for I assume that the earth existed continuously (and not 'frame by discrete frame') during this interval. 'Processes' can, however, be disjointed, and this not only temporally but causally. It is not part of the idea of a possible process that the states in it should be causally related, with at least some earlier states being causes of at least some later ones. Given this, one might say that possible processes need not be possible processes properly socalled, for one may feel that a process properly so-called would have an inner causal dynamic. One last point. A process, possible or actual, need not have an earliest member, or a latest one. For example, I assume that states corresponding to all positions of the earth in its orbit strictly between 5 and 6 o'clock yesterday made a process that had neither a first member, nor a last one. There was no first instant after 5 for a first state in this series to be at; nor was there a last instant before 6 at which a last state in this series could have been. An actual process X is to precede, or to be an antecedent of, an actual process Y if and only if every state in X precedes every state in Y. A process-proposition is a logically weakest proposition that entails every member of a consistent set of state-propositions. Process-propositions that are descriptive of finite series of possible states can be conjunctions of statepropositions descriptive of these states. Process-propositions descriptive of infinite processes, for example, process-propositions descriptive of compact and continuous series, are related analogously to state-propositions that are descriptive of states in their processes. In general, a process-proposition for a process

84 Puzzles for the Will is, for some set of state-propositions that includes exactly one proposition for each state in this process and no other propositions, the logically weakest proposition that entails each proposition in this set. A process-proposition will entail the temporal structure of states in the process it describes, since the statepropositions it entails will be for the times designated in them. By history will be meant, depending on the context, either the process of all the world's actual total states, or the weakest proposition that entails a true total-state proposition for every time at which the world has been, is, or will be in some state. If there are only finitely many actual total states of the world, so that the process of history has a first and last state and has not been continuous or even compact, then the proposition of history can be a conjunction of true total-state-propositions. Forms of Determinism Arguments for the compatibility or the incompatibility of free will with various determinisms will be addressed primarily to forms of 'causal determinism' explained in section 3, to which we now turn, and only secondarily to 'blockuniverse determinisms,' which are discussed more briefly in section 4. 3. CAUSAL DETERMINISMS

3.1.1 Causal Determinisms in General Causal determinisms are elaborations of 'the causal principle' that every event has an antecedent cause, or, somewhat more elaborately, that every event has a cause that is an event that takes place at some antecedent time or times. More precisely, and this time without explicit recourse to the term 'cause,' the general form intended for causal determinism is this: every true proposition (E at t) to the effect that an event of a kind E has taken place, is taking place, or will take place at some time t is related to some true proposition (C at t') to the effect that an event of some kind C takes place at some earlier 'time't', and to a true law of nature L, such that the conjunction of (C at t') and L entails (E at t):

Free Will and Varieties of Determinism 85 D[((Catt')&L)=)(Eatt)]. If the propositions (C at t') and D [((C at f) & L) => (E at t)] are true, then the event (C at t') will be said to be an antecedent causal determinant of (E at t). Using this convention, and equating causal determinants with causes (for causes throughout are to be 'deterministic causes'), one can work back from this precise formulation to the less formal and more succinct ones. 'Times' in this formulation can be individual times, or sets of individual times. I take a 'time't' to be earlier than a 'time't if and only if t', or every time in t', is earlier than t, or every time within t. A related not fully equivalent precise statement of the general form runs in terms of worlds rather than entailments. We could say that causal determinism in its general form is the doctrine that for any state or process E at time t in the actual world @, there is an earlier time t' such that, for any logically possible world w, if the laws of @ are true in w, and w and @ are in exactly similar states or processes at t', then w and @ are in exactly similar states or processes at t. 'Exactly similar states or processes' are alike in all universal (R.M. Hare would say 'U-type') respects, and may differ in the individuals of which they are states or processes. One difference between this possible-world characterization and the displayed entailment-characterization is that the possible-world formula yields, as 'causal determinants' of events (states or processes), only 'total world-events' (total states of the world, or sets of total states of the world). Another more significant difference is that this possible-world characterization of determinism assumes, problematically, that "the world-at-a-given-time is an in valiantly meaningful notion" (Barman 1986, 13) not merely in and for a world, but between it and other possible worlds. It is assumed that it makes sense to compare states of the actual world at a given time with states of at least some other worlds at that time, these other worlds being all those at which the laws of the actual world are true. Possible-world definitions of kinds of determinisms derive from what has been described as "Montague's brilliant pioneering work" (ibid., 21): see Montague 1962. For defmiteness, I always speak in terms of my first entailment-characterization of causal determinism. I take antecedent causal determinants to be antecedent causes, and take events of which they are causes to be effects. 'Antecedent causes' are thus, for me, antecedent events that are related to effects by laws. Effect-propositions are logically entailed by their cause-propositions conjoined with laws. Causality comes in not by the relation of ((C at t') & L) to (E at t), which relation is

86 Puzzles for the Will strictly logical, but by the character of L as a law of nature or causal law. However, nothing in arguments to come concerning free will and determinisms depends on this identification of causal determinants with causes. It is relevant only to relations between causes and free will, which relations make merely a subordinate subject in this chapter. Relations of causes to free will may look different from the perspective of other analyses of causation. They could look different from the perspective of analyses that would explain cause-effect relations in terms of counterfactual conditional dependence, without explicit recourse to laws. The terms and shape of cause-effect relations will be left somewhat open, since the main subject before us is determinisms and free will, not causes and free will. But what about the laws that figure in causal determinisms? What is it for some proposition to be a 'law of nature'? What is the form of a law of nature, or, as we are saying, of a 'causal law,' and what is the modality of such a law? No answers to these questions will be insisted upon. So, for one thing, I do not take as a foregone conclusion that if a proposition that is a law of a world W is true at a world W', it is a law of world W': compare (Barman 1986, 13 and 101). However, we are concerned with consequences for choice and free will of possible answers to these questions of form and modality. As will be seen, a great deal depends on whether laws of nature are understood in a manner that makes them in certain ways fixed and unchangeable. Kinds of fixedness, some ways in which laws might be 'necessary on certain conditions,' are explained in section 6 below. The relevance of differences on these points to relations between free will and determinism is demonstrated in sections 7 through 9. (It is usual not to survey, as I will do, a range of possible fixity conditions, but simply to assert particular ones. For example, Peter van Inwagen insists that "[n]o law of nature ... is such that anyone can render it false" (van Inwagen 1983,63). That is close to the condition explained in section 6.2 below of 'restricted weak fixed-law.') While distinguishing forms of determinism in this and the next section, only one assumption is made concerning the logic of laws: it is assumed, in order to avoid circumlocutions, that for any two laws, their conjunction is a law. The somewhat stronger stipulation that "the logical consequences of any set of laws are also laws" (van Inwagen 1983, 64) is made by van Inwagen to keep things simple. He worked earlier with the weak assumption I make, cast by him as not merely convenient but reasonable (van Inwagen 1975, 191). This assumption implies that if several statements of regularities or somehow necessary regularities are laws, then not all laws are statements of regularities, or of somehow necessary regularities. For conjunctions of statements of regularities or of necessary regularities are not themselves statements of regularities or necessary

Free Will and Varieties of Determinism 87 regularities. By this assumption, even if some laws are statements to the effect that whenever 'a C' then in due course 'an E,' or that it is in some sense necessary that whenever 'a C' then in due course 'an E,' not all laws are of this character. Still open, however, is that something along these regularity-lines is the form of 'basic laws,' and that every law is entailed by some set of basic laws, each member of which it entails. 3.1.2 Two Forms of Causal Determinism I begin with two forms of causal determinism, two articulations of the principle that every event has an antecedent cause that is an event. These forms differ in their specifications for 'events' that would be causes. Several observations concerning these forms will be made. Then a third form will be stated that differs from both of these in that it requires for every event not merely a cause at some antecedent time, but causes at all antecedent times. This third form strengthens an implication of most articulations of the idea that every event has a cause. It takes to its limit the idea that every event has causes at many antecedent times. Lastly several other forms of causal determinism will be numbered. Since the first three forms are frequently referenced in subsequent parts of the chapter, they alone are assigned mnemonic labels in addition to numbers. CD-i State-to-State Causal Determinism - CDSS. Every state has at some antecedent time a cause that is a state. CD-2 State-to-Process Causal Determinism - CDsp. Every properly circumscribed process or series of states has at some antecedent time a cause that is a state. These ideas can be made precise and explicit in manners similar to those displayed above for the general form of Causal Determinism. There are related forms that differ from these, for example, process-to-state forms (or, in a term I first heard used by Gustav Bergman, 'stretch-point' forms, which he suggested might be of particular relevance for psychology), and process-to-process forms. I concentrate, however, on the two forms displayed. Since I count states as themselves processes, shortest ones, these forms are related. Given that states are themselves processes, CDsp requires causes for states, and thus entails CDSS. 3.2 Observations concerning CD and CDsp 3.2.1 Beginnings and CDSS First, CDSS implies that there was no initial or earliest state of the world, a state

88 Puzzles for the Will that had no antecedent state. CDSS is not consistent with history's having a beginning in the sense of a first event. ('History' - see section 2.3 above - is here all of the world's total states, past, present, and future. It is the 'process' of these states. In my terms, 'history' is not necessarily coextensive with 'time,' since I allow - see section 2.2 above - that the world can be empty, and in no state, at a time.) Second, even so, note well that CDSS is consistent with the world's having a beginning in time. It is consistent with there having been a time before the times of all states of the world, and indeed a latest time before them - it is consistent with history's having a latest early bound. For example, CDSS is compatible with the world's having begun five minutes ago so that though nothing existed and the world was in no state at any time up to then, things did exist and the world was in some state at every subsequent time. Suppose that the world did begin five minutes ago in that sense. Was there time for all the causes that CDSS requires for all actual states of the world? Yes. Take any state of the world. By hypothesis it takes place at some time subsequent to five minutes ago. So there is a time, indeed there are infinitely many times, between this state's time and five minutes ago, and this no matter how near to that beginning this state's time is. Five minutes provides ample times for the state-causes required by CDSS for history's states up to now. (Cf. Lukasiewicz 1966.) This is so even though, assuming CDSS, they have taken place at infinitely many different times. An inessential note on infinite pasts without regard to causality. It has been said by Quentin Smith that if past events are infinitely numerous, then they form a set that is open on one end and closed on the other (the present event being the closure). They would correspond to the set of negative numbers: Past Events ... -4 -3 -2 -i

Present Event o

(Smith 1987,65).

Let me stress that if past events are infinitely numerous, then they would also correspond to the negative numbers 7 3 1 -"I ~ 4 "I

Times of past events, stated as units of time counting back from the present,

Free Will and Varieties of Determinism 89 could be given by this second series of negative numbers. Even infinitely numerous past events could have a beginning in time. Indeed, times of infinitely numerous past events could be given by the rationals 7 - 3 —21 ...-4: 1 -IT ... -§• 7

Even infinitely numerous past events could have a beginning in the sense of a first event, or first events. CDSS is consistent with the world's having begun in what John Hunter has dubbed 'fast-starting' series of states, very fast-starting, frighteningly fast-starting, beginningless series of states. This form of determinism is evidently consistent with the world's having begun exactly twelve billion years ago in a big bang, if one understands this hypothesis as saying that nothing happened at or before that time, though at every subsequent time there were many things, and that a great deal was happening, and happening very quickly, especially early on. One might speculate that 'in the beginning' there was a fast-starting beginningless causal sequence of total-states, with intervals between instantaneous effects and their causes making, as one goes back in time, a diminishing series. On some theories the intervals in that series would approach zero, as the always positive radius of the universe of matter and energy approached zero, and as the always finite temperature and the always finite density of matter approached infinity. CDSS combined with these big-bang theories requires that earlier and earlier propagations of 'causal signals' take less and less time. But then, according to these theories they cover shorter and shorter distances, so combinations of CDSS with these theories are consistent with there being a maximum speed for 'transmissions of causal signals.' It would be as if, per impossibile, these limits of zero and infinity were actually reached at an instant 'just before' a 'fast-starting beginningless' big bang when all hell broke loose, at which instant, however, no matter or energy existed. CDSS is consistent with the big bang's initial singularity's being a 'state of nothingness' (as William Lane Craig would have it be - Craig 1991). A 'state of nothingness' is not a 'state' in the sense that, according to CDSS, would mean that it needed an antecedent state-cause. But CDSS is not consistent with the big bang's initial singularity's being a state, albeit an extraordinary one, of something (as Quentin Smith [1991] would have it be). The physical-mathematical arguments for a big-bang singularity of course leave open its ontology. "That is a question for philosophical metaphysics" (Craig 1991, 497). I favour Craig's answer to this question, but am not offering consistency with CDSS as an argument for that answer. CD-2, that is, CDsp, processes and beginnings. While I trust they are of

9O Puzzles for the Will interest, CDsp determinisms do not figure in the main arguments of this chapter on incompatibilisms and compatibilisms in sections 7 and 8. This is why I 'block off the third and fourth, and then the sixth points below, which points are concerned with certain intricacies of state-process causal determinisms. Third, for its coherence it is necessary to restrict CD 's applications in one way or another to certain series or processes. This is anticipated in its statement, according to which it is only all properly circumscribed processes that need to have antecedent state-causes. It is not immediately clear exactly what restrictions should be made, and how best to characterize in more revealing terms processes that are properly circumscribed for purposes of this form of determinism. I take note in this comment of some necessary exclusions, and then, in the next comment, propose alternative general specifications for proper circumscription. Let a 'CD2-series' be a series to which CDsp applies, that is, a process that is, in this principle's terms, 'properly circumscribed.' Then, for example, the history of the world is not a CD2-series. Both CDSS and CDsp rule out history's being a single state. CDsp also rules out its being a properly circumscribed CD2series. For suppose that history were a CD2-series. Then this series, since it would be history, would include every state of the world. But this series, since a CD2-series, would, by CDsp, have an antecedent cause that was a state of the world. So there would be a state of the world - that cause of history - that since it was a state of the world and thus part of history, preceded itself. There would be a state whose time came before its own time, which is impossible. So history cannot be a CD2-series, if CD™ 5 is to be coherent. r To take another example, let 'the causes of a state' be the series of all of its causes. (Recall that for purposes of CDsp I count states as themselves series, shortest ones.) Then 'the causes of a state' cannot be a CD2-series. For suppose that the causes of a state E were a CD2-series S. S would include every cause of E. But, by CDsp, S would have a cause - let it be C. C, since a cause of S, would be a cause of each member of this series. [Why? Because there would be a law which in conjunction with C entailed a proposition for this series, a proposition that entailed each member of this series. So each member of this series would be entailed by this law in conjunction with C, and C would be a cause, that is, a 'causal determinant,' of each member of this series.] C would thus be a cause of a cause of E, since each member of this series is a cause of E. But then, since a cause of a cause of E, C would itself be a cause of

Free Will and Varieties of Determinism 91 E. The causal relation is on my entailment-account transitive, given that, as I assume, conjunctions of laws are themselves laws. [To spell out this point for the case before us: C would be a cause of some cause C' of E. So the conjunction of C and some law L would entail C', and the conjunction of C' and some law L' would entail E. However, the conjunction of any laws is, I assume, itself a law. Given this, there would be a law (L & L') such that C in conjunction with this law would entail E, which means, as said above, that C would itself be a cause of E.] But since C would be a cause of S - which, recall, is the series of the causes of E, all of them - C would be antecedent to every cause of E and so, per impossibile, antecedent to itself. For a last example, let 'initial causes of an event' be all causes of this event that take place not later than some designated time before the event. Then initial causes (by whatever designated time) of events cannot constitute a CD2-series. For suppose initial causes of an event E were a CD2-series, and, to be specific, consider the series S of all causes of E that take place not later than a certain time t antecedent to E. Then, by CDsp, S would have a cause C, which would be a cause of each member of S. So C would be a cause of a cause of E, and thus would be itself a cause of E. C would be a cause of E antecedent to t that was, per impossibile, antecedent to every cause of E that is antecedent to t. For C would be antecedent to S, and S is the series of all causes of E antecedent to t. It has been maintained by John Wisdom that "[i]f every event is determined then there is no finite period such that the totality of determinations did not occupy a longer period. This does not follow from the fact that the number of determinations is infinite, but from the fact that any set of events, the earlier of which determines the later, is itself an event" (Wisdom 1963, I3on3). He is saying, in my terms, that every series of states the earlier of which determine the later is a process properly so-called. However, while perhaps every series of states the earlier of which determine the later is a process properly so-called, not every such series can be a process that is properly circumscribed for purposes of CDsp. For example, the totalities of all determinations of total-world events, as well as all totalities of particular events' determinations, though sets of events the earlier of which determine the later, cannot be CD2-series. Wisdom's argument fails when interpreted in terms of CDsp. I doubt that there is an interpretation of his argument on which it goes through. (See Sobel 1975, 61920, for past doubts.) There is, however, a related argument (presented in the sixth comment below) from a version of CDsp (namely Liberal CDsp) to Wisdom's conclusion.

92 Puzzles for the Will 3.2.2 Beginnings and CDsp ^Fourth, it has been observed that while CDSS is not consistent with history's having a first event, it is consistent with history's having a beginning in time in the sense of a latest time antecedent to every state of the world. Since CDsp entails CDSS, CDsp is also not consistent with history's having a first event. A question is whether CDsp is consistent with history's having a beginning in this sense of a latest early bound, though there are better questions. One is whether CDsp series can be circumscribed in a way that makes CDsp consistent with history's having had a beginning in the sense of a 'latest early bound.' Another is whether CDsp series can be circumscribed in a way that makes CDsp not consistent with history's having had a beginning in the sense of a latest early bound. The answers to these questions are, Yes, Yes. It is possible to make CDsp consistent with latest early bounds for history. For this let a series of states be a CDsp series only if it has a first member. That is, specify CDsp to Conservative CD — Every process or series of states that has a first member has at some antecedent time a cause that is a state. Conservative CDsp is consistent with history's having latest early bound t. Here is one way. Let every first-membered series have a first member whose time is subsequent to t. Time t is then an early bound of history. It remains to show that it can be the latest early bound. For this we let every state be either a member of a first-membered series, or a member of the series of causes required by Conservative CDsp for a first-membered series (which series of causes cannot themselves be first-membered). Consider any first-membered series, S, and let its time, and the time of its first member, be t'. Let the cause of S required by Conservative CD be a state s whose time is [t + (t' - t)/2]. Let the cause required for s, and for the series (s,S), be a state s' whose time is (t + ([t + (t' -1)/2] -1)/ 2) = [t + (t' -1)/4]. Let the cause required for s', and for the series (s',s,S), be a state s' whose time is [t + (t' - t)/8]. And so on. The latest early bound of this series of causes of S is t, which time is the latest early bound of the series of causes of every first-membered series (for S is any such series). This time t is thus not only an early bound of history but the latest early bound. Is it also possible to make CDsp not consistent with latest early bounds for history? Can CDsp series be circumscribed in a manner sufficient to this effect? Yes. For CD series can be circumscribed precisely to series that have latest early bounds: the rule could be that each and only such series are CDsp series. Given its present importance, I now make fully explicit the idea of the latest early bound of a series of states, and contrast ways in which such times can relate to times of states in series that they bound. For the idea, we have that t is

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93

the latest early bound of a series of states if and only if, (i), t is earlier than the times of states in this series and, (ii), t is later than every other time that is earlier than the times of states in this series. Series that have first states all have latest early bounds: their latest early bounds are simply the times of their first and earliest states. Series that lack first or earliest states may or may not have latest early bounds: they do if and only if they have not been unfolding forever, and when they do their latest early bounds are times before times of their states, albeit only 'just before.' Our second specification for CDsp is Liberal CDsp. Every process or series of states that has a latest early bound has at some time antecedent to this series a cause that is a state. It is obvious that Liberal CDsp does not allow history to have a latest early bound or, in that sense, a beginning in time. For suppose history had a latest early bound. Then history would be a Liberal CDsp series, there would by Liberal CDsp be a state that was an antecedent cause of history, and so, per impossibile, a state that was antecedent to history. 3.2.3 Ancient Causes Fifth, CDSS does not imply ancient causes: that is, it does not imply a stateversion of the following principle. Ancient Causes. Every event has, for every time t, a cause that is an event that takes place at a time antecedent to t. CDSS does not imply Ancient Causes, since CDSS is consistent with history's having a beginning in time in the sense of a latest time antecedent to all world states, a latest time before which there was nothing and the world was in no state. CDSS does not imply even that every state has a cause at or before every past time at which there was a state. It is consistent with CDSS that an event E should have a cause Cl that has a cause C2 that has a cause C3, and so on, this whole, without-earliest-member series of causes, postdating a time merely two minutes, or one minute, or one millisecond, before E, even though that is not when history began. It is consistent with CDSS that the series of an event's causes should be bounded below, and this whether or not history is bounded below. The same is only slightly less obviously true of Conservative CDsp. David Sapire holds that while it is possible, it is not plausible, that the series of an event's causes should be, as CDSS and Conservative CDsp allow, bounded below. He holds explicitly that it is not plausible that the series of the totalstate-of-the-world causes of a total state of the world should be bounded below.

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Suppose that the determination relation is bounded below. And suppose that s(t) is the lower limit of causal or determinational sequences back in time from some state s(x). Then s(x) has no causal or determinational connections with any state s(z) where z is earlier than or the same as t. The result is a singularity in the causal or determinational structure of the universe at t. Indeed, if the determination relation is not only transitive but also contiguous, then the history of the universe splits into two causally or determinationally quite distinct parts. [This possibility for the causal or determinational structure of the universe is not even] remotely plausible. (Sapire 1989,481-2)

There are two difficulties with this argument. First, a series of causes of a state of the world at time x might have time t as its latest early bound, even though there is no state at or before t, because until then there is nothing in the world. If there is such a time t, then history began after t, 'just after' it, and t is a singularity to do with the historical structure of the universe sure enough, but not because it splits this structure into two parts. On this hypothesis the world, the historical and causal structure of the world, begins 'just after't. Rather than say the world is in no state when there is nothing in it, one can say (as noted in section 2.2 above) that when there is nothing in it, it is in the null state. One could then describe the case just set as one in which the world would have been in the null state at every time up to t, but not 'just after' t. Alternatively, departing somewhat from what I take to be the classical picture and supposing (as some do) that the initial singularity before the big bang was a real something (I have above taken it to be literally nothing), one might maintain that there is no time, that there can be no time, when the world is quite empty and in no state. The case before us according to some theories would be one in which every cause of the state at time x pre-dated x by an interval less than (x -1), with t being a time at which there was something extraordinary. At t there would be an infinitely dense and hot, radius-zero "state of lawlessness" with "no physical law ... that could connect [it] to later instants" (Smith 1991, 50). While changing words used to express the first difficulty for Sapire's argument, this difficulty would, however, not be diminished. Its magnitude for a person is proportional to the plausibility, for him, of big-bang speculations that feature singularities at and beyond which no causes exist. Second, suppose that history does not begin 'just after' Sapire's time t, and that part of history culminates in the total state of the world at t. Even so, that the series of total-state causes of a total state of the world at a later time x is bound below by t, does not entail that "the universe splits into two causally or determinationally quite distinct parts" (bold emphasis added) at t. For it is consistent with the total state of the world at x not having a total-state cause that

Free Will and Varieties of Determinism 95 takes place at or before t, that parts of the total state of the world at x should have such causes. Of course, notwithstanding these difficulties with his argument for the implausibility of beginningless and yet bounded-below series of causes, Sapire may still find the spectre of such series not even remotely plausible. He may for this reason favour Liberal CDsp, which banishes them, over CDSS and Conservative CDsp, which tolerate them. For my part - though I do not consider this of much public interest - while I find no sweeping hypotheses concerning the causal structure of the universe very plausible, I find many of them somewhat plausible. For example, I find CDSS and Conservative CDsp somewhat plausible even though they allow causes of states to make series that are bounded below: that they are consistent with popular big-bang hypotheses contributes somewhat to their present plausibilities. I am somewhat less drawn to Liberal CDsp, partly because it is not consistent with big-bang hypotheses, and partly for a reason that I come to in the seventh comment below. Sixth, while neither CDSS nor Conservative CDsp imply Ancient Causes, Liberal CDsp does. Consider any state s. According to Liberal CDsp, which entails CDSS, the causes of s, all of them, make a beginningless series S. S does not have a latest early bound. For suppose it did. Then, by Liberal CDsp, S would have an antecedent cause that was a state s'. This state s', since a cause of causes of s, would, by the transitivity of the causal relation, be a cause of s. So s' would be in the series S, which is to be a series of the causes, of all the causes, of s. But s' cannot be in S; since it is antecedent to S, it is earlier than every member of S. So Liberal CDsp entails that the causes of any state s make a beginningless series that does not have a latest early bound. This means that, as 'ACSS' - the state-state version of Ancient Causes - would have it, for every time there is a cause of s that is earlier than that time. Liberal CDsp entails that version of Ancient Causes, and, though I omit details, it entails as well a stateprocess version. Query: Is it a corollary of this comment that Liberal CDsp-series cannot be processes properly so-called "the earlier [states] of which [cause] the later" (Wisdom 1963, I30H3)? No. All that has been shown is that Liberal CDsp requires that such series must have antecedent state-causes, and thus that no such series can be "the totality of determinations" (ibid.) for any state or process. Even so this result provides, along lines different from those tried by Wisdom, a proof for his thesis interpreted in terms of Liberal CD : "If every event is determined [take this antecedent as short for Liberal CDsp] then there is no finite period such that the totality of determinations did not occupy a longer" (ibid.). The totality of determinations of a state or process cannot, according to Liberal CDsp, be a Liberal CDsp series. For if it were, then, by Liberal CDsp, it

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would itself have a determination. So (by a small argument that uses the transitivity of the determination relation) it would not be the totality of determinations for this state or process 3.2.4 Cleanthes' Challenge to Demea Seventh, there is a consideration of some interest that proponents of CDSS and Conservative CDsp might use to explain why one should not favour over them any form of CDsp such as Liberal CDsp that calls for causes for beginningless series whose members are all caused by earlier members. The idea, briefly stated, is that given that there are causes in a series for all of its members considered singly, given that a series is in this way causally self-sufficient, one already has all the cause one should want for its members taken together, or for the series as a whole. David Hume has Cleanthes express this thought as part of his opposition to Demea's Cosmological Argument for a First Cause or Reason. The argument... [said] Demea... is the common one. Whatever exists must have a cause ... In mounting up ... from effects to causes, we must either go on in tracing an infinite succession ... or must at last have recourse to some ultimate cause ... Now, that the first supposition is absurd may be thus proved. In the infinite chain or succession of causes and effects, each single effect is determined to exist by the power and efficacy of that cause which immediately preceded; but the whole eternal chain or succession, taken together, is not determined or caused by anything: And yet it is evident that it requires a cause or reason, as much as any particular object which begins to exist in time. (Hume 1980, 54-5: in Part IX of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) Robert Bright has in private communication suggested that my fast-starting without-first-members but with latest lower temporal bounds series "might more descriptively be termed 'self-starting' series, since they apparently spring into being of their own accord." Demea would say that these infinite chains would certainly require causes or reasons "as much as any particular object which begins to exist in time," for they would begin to exist in time. Challenging Demea's argument, Cleanthes said: "In such a ... succession ... each [object] ... is caused by that which preceded it... Where then is the difficulty? But the whole, you say, wants a cause ... Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable should you afterwards ask me what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts" (p. 56). Relating these thoughts to CDSS, Conservative CDsp, and Liberal

Free Will and Varieties of Determinism 97 CDsp, we see that, according to Cleanthes, in any beginningless sequence of state-causes in which each state is caused by an earlier state, there would be causes enough for the sequence. It makes no difference, Cleanthes implies, whether or not such a beginningless sequence of state-causes would have a beginning in the time in the sense of a latest early bound for its members. What is decisive, he implies, against the demand that Liberal CDsp makes for a cause is that such a sequence would contain within itself causes for all of its member states taking place at their appointed times - such a sequence would, indeed, contain state-causes for each of its first-membered sub-sequences. Such a sequence would be, he implies, causally self-sufficient not only by technical definition, but in the substantive sense that no more causes, that in particular no cause for the whole of it, would be needed. As an aside of relevance to discussion to come, it may be noted that it can seem that my 'fast-starting' series would as wholes need to 'spring into being of their own accords.' For these series would lack causes over and above the causes they contained for their member states and for all first-membered subseries. But it is not necessary that these series 'spring into being of their own accords.' Their defining description leaves open that they should be produced by 'out-of-the-world' agency if, as many philosophers and theologians have supposed, sense can be made of such agency. If sense can be made of such agency, there is then room for saying with Cleanthes that causally self-sufficient series, whether or not eternal, would not need further outside causes, that as far as causes went, it really would be enough that each member of a series should have a cause that is an earlier member of this series, and that these series would not only not need but would not have outside causes, while at the same time agreeing with Demea that even eternal causally self-sufficient series would still want grounds beyond themselves for themselves as wholes, and providing as the form for grounds of causally self-sufficient series, that there should be reasons that 'energize' agents who in or by their 'acts' would somehow 'give rise' to these series, both the ones that would be eternal and 'never starting,' and (what is somewhat more comprehensible) the ones that would be non-eternal and 'fast starting.'

98 Puzzles for the Will In this 'giving rise,' agents would be exercising their capacities for 'out of the world agency,' which is not to say that the agents in question, the agents with this capacity, would themselves be somehow 'out of the world.' One question is whether sense can be made of 'out of the world acausal agency.' Another is whether, if sense can be made of that, sense can be made of agents being capable of it though they are as much in this world as are you and I. 3.3 A Third Form of Causal Determinism For a state-state form of Causal Determinism that implies Ancient Causes, I offer Perpetual Causal Determinism, whose general form is, Every event has, for every antecedent time, a cause that is an event that takes place at that time. For ease of comparison, here is a reformulation of the general form of causal determinism of which perpetual determinism can be seen to make a strengthened subform: Every event has, for at least some antecedent time, a cause that is an event that takes place at that time. Here is a state-state version of Perpetual Causal Determinism: CD-3 Perpetual State-to-State Causal Determinism - CDpss. Every state has at every antecedent time a cause that is a state. Again there could be more explicit and precise statements expressed in terms of propositions and possible worlds, as in section 3.1. CDSS says that for every state there is some antecedent time at which there is a cause of that state that is itself a state, and this implies causes at many antecedent times. CDSS does not, however, imply, causes at all antecedent times, which CDpss explicitly affirms. CD-3 contrasts similarly with our two versions of CD-2. CD-3 is not entailed by any of these forms of determinism, though it does entail them. It is strictly stronger than each of them. It is sufficient to this point to see that CDpss entails Liberal CD , for that entails in turn both Conservative CDsp and CDSS. CDpss implies that for every process that has a latest early bound there is at every time antecedent to that bound a state-cause for every state in this process. So, for a state-cause at an antecedent time for all states in the process and thus for the process itself, one can combine state-causes at an antecedent time for the several states in this process.

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3.4 Causal Determinisms in Compatibilist and Incompatibilist Theses to Come The principal claims to be argued are two. The first is that a very demanding variety of determinism, in which CD-3 is joined with certain notions of the fixity of pasts and laws, is incompatible with free will. The second is that a determinism in which CD-i is joined with more stringent fixity-notions is compatible with free will. It will be seen that this difference between the cases depends on the fact that CDpss does, while CDSS does not, imply a version of Ancient Causes. Liberal CDsp is like CDpss in that it too implies Ancient Causes, so that a similar version of it is also incompatible with free will. Conservative CDsp is like CDSS in that it does not imply Ancient Causes, so that a similar version of it is also compatible with free will. Arguments are addressed to the state-state determinisms CDSS and CDpss, rather than to the state-process determinisms Conservative and Liberal CDsp, to avoid complexities of talk about processes. It can seem that CDpss recommends itself over Liberal CDsp also because it does not invite Cleanthes' objection. But this is not so, since CDpss entails Liberal CDsp. The truth is merely that CDpss does not so obviously invite Cleanthes' objection. 3.5 Compact and Continuous Causation Of interest, though of no importance for arguments to come, is that CDpss, in contrast with CDSS and our two versions of CDsp, implies that the world has always been in some state or other. Like these other principles, CDpss does not imply that history will continue forever, or even at all, but in contrast with them it does imply that history has forever continued. In further contrast with them it implies that as long as history lasts it will be gap-free. I note to continue this selective survey of forms of causal determinism, tha none of the forms considered rules out causation at unbridged temporal distances. None of them implies a version of Compact Causation. For any events E and C such that C is a cause of E, there is at some time between theirs an event C' such that C is a cause of C' and C' is a cause of E. None of them therefore implies a version of the stronger thesis of Continuous Causation. For any events E and C such that C is a cause of E, there is at every time between theirs an event C' such that C is a cause of C' and C' is a cause of E, and such that in the series of these intermediating

ioo Puzzles for the Will causes, every event is an effect of every earlier event, and a cause of every later one. For these negative points, it is sufficient that our forms of causal determinism are not exclusively total-world-event doctrines. To see that CDpss does not imply a state-version of even Compact Causation, suppose that C is a cause of E, and that t is a time between their times. CDpss does require a cause C' of E at t. However, it is consistent with CDpss that C and C' are independently sufficient causes of E, and it is consistent with CDpss that C and C' have nothing causally to do with one another. If E is the bursting of a balloon, C might be the launching of an arrow from a great distance, and C' the launching of another arrow from a lesser distance. While CDpss does not imply a state-version of either Compact Causation or Continuous Causation, it does entail Continuous Total-State-to-Total-State Causal Determinism. Every totalstate of the world has at every antecedent time the total-state of the world at this time as a cause. And so it can be seen that, unlike the others, CDpss entails Continuous Total-State Causation. For any total-states of the world E and C such that C is a cause of E, there is at every time between theirs a totalstate of the world C' such that C is a cause of C' and C' is a cause of E, and such that in the series of these intermediating total-state-causes, every total-stazte is an effect of every earlier total-state, and a cause of every later one. While CDpss is consistent with states having 'direct causes,' or 'causes without causal intermediaries,' and indeed with their having only such causes, CDpss is not consistent with total-states having any direct total-state causes. To conclude this survey of causal determinisms, we have two forms that are not consistent with states having only 'direct state-causes,' and then two related forms that are not consistent with their having any such causes. CD-4 Continuous State-to-State Determinism. For every state s, there is a series, S, that includes a state for each time in some interval of antecedent times the earliest later bound of which is the time of s, such that each state in S is both a cause of each subsequent state in S, and a cause of s. CD-5 Continuous Perpetual State-to-state Determinism. For every state s,

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there a series, S, that includes a state for each antecedent time, such that each state in S is both a cause of each subsequent state in S, and a cause of s. More succinctly, according to CD-4, every state is the continuation of a continuous causal process; and according to CD-5, every state is the continuation of a continuous causal process that has been running forever. It can be seen that CD-4 entails CDSS, and does not entail Ancient Causes, whereas CD-5 entails CDpss and Ancient Causes. For more demanding related forms of state-to-state causal determinism, we have conjunctions of CD-4 and CD-5 wim a state-version of Continuous Causation. CD-6 Exclusively Continuous State-to-State Determinism. For every state s, there is a series, S, that includes a state for each time in some interval of times the earliest later bound of which is the time of s, such that each state in S is both a cause of each subsequent state in S, and a cause of s; and, for each state s, if a state s' is an antecedent cause of s, then there is a series, S', of states that starts with s' and includes a state for each time intervening between the times of s' and s, such that each state in S' is both a cause of each subsequent state in S', and a cause of s. CD-7 Exclusively Continuous Perpetual State-to-State Determinism. For every state s, there a series, S, that includes a state for each antecedent time, such that each state in S is both a cause of each subsequent state in S, and a cause of s; and, for each state s, if a state s' is an antecedent cause of s, then there is a series, S', of states that starts with s' and includes a state for each time intervening between the times of s' and s, such that each state in s' is both a cause of each subsequent state in S', and a cause of s. 4. BLOCK-UNIVERSE DETERMINISMS

4.1 Causal determinisms are inspired by the idea that every event has an antecedent cause. Block-universe determinisms are diminutions of the idea that a difference anywhere in the universe would require differences everywhere.

IO2 Puzzles for the Will This is the idea that "[t]he whole is in each and every part, and welds it with the rest into an absolute unity, an iron block, in which there can be no equivocation or shadow of turning" (James 1948,41). Laplacean Determinism, which is explained below, says that a difference at any time would require differences at all times. 'Windowshade Determinism' is similar, but goes only one way: it says that a difference at any time would require differences at all earlier times. Stronger theses in this iron-block spirit might add spatial linkage to temporal ones and say that a difference at any place (point or region) would require concurrent differences at all places (similarly specified). Since arguments to come are addressed primarily to forms of Causal Determinism, comments below on two forms of block-universe determinism are brief and concentrate on similarities and differences with causal determinisms. 4.2 Earman, while conceding that "perhaps the most venerable of all philosophical definitions holds that the world is deterministic just in case every event has a cause" (Earman 1986, 3), sets this conception aside in following words: "The most immediate objection to this approach is that it seeks to explain a vague concept - determinism - in terms of a truly obscure one - causation. If we can achieve an analysis without explicit appeal to the notion of cause and effect, then that analysis is to be preferred to the one in question. A related objection concerns the lack of a perspicuous connection between the causation definition and James's sense of determinism" (ibid., 5). Barman's 'related objection' is of dubious substance. Certainly there are connections between causal determinisms and block-universe determinisms, sometimes close connections that I am tempted to say are 'perspicuous.' Furthermore, whatever its substance, this 'related objection' is symmetrical, and no more an objection to studies that would feature causal determinisms than to those that would instead feature block-universe determinisms. Regarding Barman's 'most immediate objection,' I note that none of the precise and explicit formulations of causal determinisms given in section 2 involve "explicit appeal to the notion of cause and effect" any more than Barman's own formulations of block-universe determinisms do. We each rely instead on explicit appeals only to "natural laws" (Earman 1986, 13) and laws of nature (a.k.a. 'causal laws'). The situation, I believe, is this. Two pictures inspire in thinking about determinism. One is the picture of a universe unfolding by causality, and the other is of a connected universe. It is unwise when discussing determinisms to set aside entirely either of these pictures and the determinisms it inspires, though it is likely that, for different purposes, determinisms responsive to one or the other of them may be more fruitful and relevant. It is likely, I think, that the blockuniverse picture is of greater relevance to Barman's interest in determinism in

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science. I believe that the causal picture - that "most venerable of all philosophical definitions" - is of greater relevance to perennial philosophical questions concerning free will. I believe, and in sections 7 through 9 below act on the belief, that these questions can be posed more naturally, and discussed more easily, in terms of causal determinisms. 4.3 Laplacean Determinism 4.3.1 Locus classicus All events, even those which on account of their insignificance do not seem to follow the great laws of nature, are a result of it just as necessarily as the revolutions of the sun. In ignorance of the ties which unite such events to the entire system of the universe, they have been made to depend upon final causes or upon hazard ...; but these imaginary causes ... disappear entirely before sound philosophy, which sees in them only the expression of our ignorance of the true causes. Present events are connected with preceding ones by a tie based upon the evident principle that a thing cannot occur without a cause which produces it. This axiom ... extends even to actions which are considered indifferent; the freest will is unable without a determinative motive to give them birth.... The contrary opinion is an illusion of the mind.... We ought then to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its anterior state and as the cause of the one which is to follow. Given for an instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings who compose it - an intelligence sufficiently vast to submit these data to analysis - it would embrace in the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the lightest atom; for it, nothing would be uncertain and the future, as the past, would be present to its eyes. The human mind offers, in the perfection which it has been able to give to astronomy, a feeble idea of this intelligence. Its discoveries in mechanics and geometry, added to that of universal gravity, have enabled it to comprehend in the same analytical expressions the past and future states of the system of the world. Applying the same method to some other objects of its knowledge, it has succeeded in referring to general laws observed phenomena and in foreseeing those which given circumstances ought to produce. All these efforts in the search for truth tend to lead it back continually to the vast intelligence which we have just mentioned, but from which it will always remain infinitely removed. This tendency, peculiar to the human race, is that which renders it superior to animals; and their progress in this respect distinguishes nations and ages and constitutes their true glory. (Laplace 1917, 3-4. These words are from a translation of the sixth edition of

104 Puzzles for the Will Theorie analytique des probabllites, which Laplace described as "the development of a lecture on probabilities which I delivered in 1795" [p. 2]. The passage whose translation is here quoted appeared for the first time in the second edition of 1814.) 4.3.2 'Laplacean Determinism' Abstracting from the imagery of a vast intelligence and of the possibility of knowledge, fore and after, one can extract from this passage the following form of block-universe determinism: For any total-state propositions S and S' that are respectively for times t andt', D[(S&L)DS'], where L is the laws of nature taken all together. The laws of nature taken all together stand in for Laplace's 'same formula.' Let the just displayed principle be 'Laplacean Determinism.' For van Inwagen, determinism entails Laplacean Determinism. Compare: "We shall apply ['determinism'] to the conjunction of these two theses [the second of which is 'Laplacean Determinism' in other words]: For every instant of time, there is a proposition that expresses the state of the world at that instant. If p and q are any propositions that express the state of the world at some instants, then the conjunction of p and the laws of nature entails q" (van Inwagen 1983, 65; slightly revised from van Inwagen 1975, 186). According to an alternative equivalent definition, 'Laplacean Determinism' is the doctrine that if the laws of the actual world are true at a possible world, then the total state of this possible world differs from that of the actual world at some time only if the total state of this possible world differs from that of the actual world at every time to which the history of either extends. (Cf. Lewis 1979, 61, and van Inwagen 1975,186.) 4.3.3 'Laplacean Determinism' is not a form of Causal Determinism. For one thing, 'Laplacean Determinism' says nothing about how the times of S and S' are related. In particular, it is not said that t is to precede t'. 'Laplacean Determinism' goes backwards as well as forwards. Also, 'Laplacean Determinism' is set as a total-state doctrine. This, however, is only a superficial difference. The total state of the world at a time is a state of the world that includes exactly the states of the world at its time, and is simply these states taken together. So, given our entailment-characterization of causes and effects, it can be seen that every actual state has a state-cause at every antecedent time at which there is a state, and has a state-effect at every subsequent

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time at which there is a state, if and only if every actual total-state has at every such antecedent time the total state of the world as a cause, and has at every such subsequent time the total state of the world as an effect. Another difference between 'Laplacean' and causal determinisms (as well as van Inwagen's determinism) is that, unlike Causal Determinism, 'Laplacean Determinism' is compatible with there having been first states for which there were not antecedent states. It is true that a first state could not have an antecedent cause, but 'Laplacean Determinism' does not entail that every state has a cause. 'Laplacean Determinism' implies only that every state that is not a first state has a cause. 'Laplacean Determinism' is compatible with history's beginning in an initial state, ending in a final state, and having gaps when there are no states. It may be recalled that in section 2.1 above it is said that there are no true 'state-propositions' for times, if there are any, when the world is in no state. Here is a thesis that contrasts with 'Laplacean Determinism' in that it presupposes what van Inwagen's 1975-determinism makes explicit, namely, that there is for every time a total-state proposition, and that history is without a beginning, an end, or gaps. For any times t and t', the total-state propositions S and S' that are respectively for these times are such that, D[(S&L)r>S'], where L is the laws of nature taken all together. It is possible, though Laplace's words above do not make this plain, that he would have favoured a doctrine such as this one, rather than one that accommodates beginning and end states, and gaps in history when there are no states. For further comparisons with causal determinisms - for contrasts with some, and similarities to others -1 observe that though 'Laplacean Determinism' does not imply that every state has an ancient cause, it does imply that every state has a cause at every past time at which the world was in some state. So, unlike CDSS and Conservative CDsp, but like Liberal CDsp and CDpss, 'Laplacean Determinism' implies that every state that is a constituent state of an action, thought, or desire of a person has a cause that pre-dates this person's birth and thus every one of his actions, thoughts, and desires, provided only that his birth did not coincide with the beginning of history. I note that this proviso is not required for Liberal CDsp or for CDpss. Those causal determinisms imply that his first action did not coincide with the beginning of history, for they require that his birth had an antecedent state-cause.

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4.3.4 Another Block-Universe Determinism 'Laplacean Determinism' interprets two-way block-universe ideas that Laplace seems to have viewed as consequences of a one-way causal determinism that presupposes that times for states of the world make a discrete series. Those block-universe ideas are expressed in a paragraph whose lead sentences is, "We ought then to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its anterior state and as the cause of the one which is to follow" (Laplace 1917, 3). Given its presupposition that historic times make a discrete series, this determinism is equivalent to Perpetual Total-State-to-Total-State Causal Determinism. Differences between this causal determinism of Laplace's and the block-universe determinism that I have dubbed 'Laplacean Determinism' include most prominently that that block-universe determinism 'goes both forward and backward,' while this causal determinism 'goes only forward' and is consistent with the present's having had a past different from its actual past. It is, I think, likely that Laplace did not notice this difference between the causal determinism of the first sentence of that paragraph and the block-universe determinism floated in its subsequent more florid sentences. 4.4 Windowshade Determinism "Determinism is the thesis that if time could be 'rolled back' to any past instant, and then allowed to 'go forward again,' then there is no question but what history would 'repeat' itself: we could be certain that things would happen 'again' just as they happened the 'first time'" (van Inwagen 1974, 9). One idea consistent with this picture is that of Windowshade Determinism, according to which For any total-state propositions S and S' that are respectively for times t and t', if t precedes t', then D [(S & L) D S'],

where L is the laws of nature, taken all together. For an alternative definition, we can say that Windowshade Determinism is the doctrine that if the laws of the actual world are true at a possible world, then the total state of this possible world differs from that of the actual world at some time, only if the total state of this possible world differs from that of the actual world at every earlier time to which both of their histories extend. (Perhaps consider the first theses of his 1975-determinism - van Inwagen's 1974-determinism presupposed that at every past time the world has been in some state or

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other, that is, that history is without a beginning or gaps, that it extends to all past times.) Most comments made about 'Laplacean Determinism' apply without modification to Windowshade Determinism. The doctrines differ only in that while Windowshade Determinism implies that just one future is compatible with any given present and the laws of nature, 'Laplacean Determinism1 adds that only one past is compatible with any given present and the laws. Both 'Laplacean' and Windowshade Determinisms imply that different total states need pasts that are different at all antecedent times at which there are states of the world. But only 'Laplacean Determinism' implies that they also must have futures that are different at all subsequent times at which there are states of the world. 'Laplacean Determinism' differs in this way not only from Windowshade Determinism, but from all forms of causal determinism. In contrast with all of these doctrines, it implies that a sufficiently vast intelligence that comprehended every detail of the present and all the laws of nature could not only predict every detail of the future, but could reconstruct the past down to the last detail. It can be seen that it is Windowshade, not 'Laplacean,' Determinism that is implied by the perpetual causal determinism of Laplace's commented upon above in section 4.3.4. ('Laplacean Determinism' says that if time could be 'rolled back' to any past instant which along with all previous instants were then changed, and then allowed to start up again, then history would not repeat itself, but would be at every instant different. 'Laplacean Determinism' leaves open, however, that the world is not a chaotic deterministic system, and that initial changes that were by suitable measures 'small' would be answered by only subsequent differences that similarly measured were also small.) Choices, Actions, and Free Will 5.1 Choices 5.1.1 Choices Proper Choices in this study would be 'acts of wills' — 'organizations or focusing of wills' - of agents. I think of choices as 'acts' that agents would 'make,' rather than 'do,' at times. For an agent to choose to do some action would be for this agent to make up his mind to do that action, or to set his mind to do this action. Choices, as understood here, that is, these acts of wills, would not themselves be states of the world or possible subjects of laws of nature: apart from nature, they would have neither natural causes nor natural effects. But choices as here understood, if there are any, are things that can in some sense 'be responsible' for and 'be reflected' in the states of the world. They would, I assume, typically

io8 Puzzles for the Will be acausally responsible for and reflected in certain sets of minds of agents that can lead causally to actions. In anticipation of this way of thinking about choices, I might have written earlier not of events, states, processes, histories, and causes, but always of natural events, natural states, and so on. It would then be somewhat less odd to say now that there may be more to a world than its history and laws. It is less odd to say that in addition to a world's natural states, and laws addressed to these states, there may be choices, 'states' of an order apart from this world's natural order, that are yet somehow responsible for, and reflected in, aspects of this natural order. Not every philosopher who believes in choices as things that, though not themselves states of nature, are yet somehow responsible for, and reflected in, states of nature, thinks of choices as things that take place at times. Immanuel Kant, for example, believed in acts of will as conditions - at least he believed in 'active reason' as a condition - "outside the series of appearances" whose effects are "series of events ... in the series of experience" (from Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith, A552-4/B58o-2: first, A-edition, 1781; second, B-edition, 1787). He maintained, however, that this "causality of reason ... does not, in producing an effect, arise or begin at a certain time" (A551/6579). He might have added that it does not arise at a certain place either. Kant could have explained that these interventions of 'active reason' — these choices in more or less my sense — though real (transcendentally real), strictly speaking neither 'take place,' nor 'happen': they neither take place nor happen in the real (phenomenally real) world of nature. It is essential to my main incompatibility-argument in Section 7.2.2 below that the choices with which Free Will is concerned would take place at times. 5.1.2 Natural Choices For arguments and points to come, it is not necessary to believe in choices in the sense of these extra-world acts of will. I distinguish between on the one hand choices proper, as I term these would-be extra-world (extra-natural) acts of will, and on the other hand 'sets of minds' to do things. These sets of minds are certain states of the world for which choices proper, if there are any, are typically responsible, and in which they are typically reflected. Let us term these 'sets of minds' - these states or series of states of agents, they could be series of states of agents' brains - 'choices in nature' or 'natural choices.' It is consistent with some (but not all, see section 7.5 below) varieties of determinism to be distinguished, that choices proper should 'supervene' on natural choices, so that individuals can differ in their choices proper in a world, only if they differ in their natural choices in it.

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There is a (Kantian) question, how one could have any grounds for believing in the reality of choices proper, one's own or someone else's. For it could be that one person should make a choice proper that was responsible for and reflected in a natural choice, while another person, though exhibiting the same natural choice, did so not by a choice proper. There are possible Humean/positivist challenges to the very idea of choices proper. Therefore, rather than distinguish natural choices, as I do, from acts of will and choices themselves, or choices proper, one might prefer to say that these natural choices are all the choices there are. One might prefer to say that for an agent to have a power to choose is for this agent to have the capacity to originate such series, such 'sets of mind,' and in this sense to 'make up his mind.' 5.1.3 Arguments to come for incompatibilities and compatibilities can all be readdressed to natural choices. At times I will do this to neutralize any suspicion that, in countenancing uncaused choices as all choices proper would be, I beg questions, and make findings that various determinisms are compatible with free will too easy. In contrast, the main argument for incompatibility will run only in terms of uncaused choices proper, to stress that countenancing them is not tantamount to endorsing meaningful free will. So that arguments should be readdressable to natural choices, it is necessary that natural choices should have times, and necessary that these times be identified. It is sufficient for this readdressing purpose that the times of natural choices, or states or series of states that are 'sets of minds to do a thing,' be taken to be their latest early temporal bounds. Implicit here is the assumption that natural choices would have latest early bounds, that none would have been going on forever: this is what the assumption that natural choices have times comes to for me. This feature of natural choices is essential to incompatibility arguments in the addenda to section 7.2 below. It is not required, but it simplifies things, to suppose that times of natural choices not only do not precede those of the choices proper, if any there be that are acausally responsible for them, but coincide with these times. 5.1.4 If arguments to come were addressed exclusively to natural choices, it would not be necessary to countenance choices proper with their mysterious relations to nature. Deep mysteries would remain, however, including ones concerning relations of natural choices to their agents. Perhaps these would be the main mysteries of choices proper in other terms. Natural choices, whether or not they are the only choices there are, are not to be things that merely happen to agents, like tics, or that agents merely experience or have, like headaches and beliefs and preferences. For they are to be choices, and agents, we suppose, make choices, and are somehow responsible for them. Agents, we suppose, are not merely the subjects, but the authors of their choices. It is not clear that these

110 Puzzles for the Will relations between agents and their natural choices, in which agents are cast as active vis-a-vis certain of their states, can be satisfactorily explicated in terms of relations, including causal relations, between natural states of agents, for example, between agents' beliefs and preferences and their 'sets of mind' to act. (Cf. Bishop 1986.) There lurks in a framework that features only natural choices the (Kantian) question, how to tell that a would-be natural choice of an agent was made by him, and so was a choice properly so-called and not merely an unsolicited elaborate twitch. A vendor of sneakers enjoins repeatedly, "Just do it!" It may be that with regard to choices - choices proper, if such there be, and natural choices otherwise - we do just 'do' them, and that there is no saying how or by what means we ensure that they take place. Compare (Ginet 1995), wherein it is said that there are actions, e.g., arm-raisings, that we just do, that we ensure by no means, albeit typically for reasons. And compare (Rowe 1995), wherein it is suggested that to improve Thomas Reid's theory, we should say that while prior acts of exertions of powers are needed to produce arm-raisings, "other actions such as acts of will are produced directly by the agent" (p. 163). It may be, with regard to choices, that there is no saying or understanding how we make them, and that there is here, at the centre of agency, a mystery that cannot be solved from which we can only turn away. 5.2 Actions 5.2. i I take actions - particular actions or doings, not generic actions or things done - to be natural states or processes of their agents' bodies and minds. (Left open is whether agents' minds are things distinct from their bodies.) The states and processes of actions are ones that in their physical, social, and legal contexts constitute (for actual actions), or would constitute (for merely possible actions), such things as my here and now depressing a key on a keyboard, drinking water from a glass, signing a cheque, entering into an agreement, telling a lie, and so on. For example, a person's drinking water from a glass on a particular occasion will be a series of states of his body, his hands and arms, lips, tongue, esophagus, and so on, even though these would not constitute his drinking water from a glass were there not a glass in his hand, water in the glass, and so on. Two connected thoughts lie behind this way of talking about actions. First, the issue for which we are preparing is whether, if one or another determinism is true, people can by choice control their actions. Second, in whatever way one speaks of actions, they must be related to agents' bodies and minds in a manner that ensures that people can control their actions only if they can, even if gener-

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ally only with other ends in view, control their bodies and minds. (To illustrate the 'other ends' qualification, when walking we of course do not think, "Now lift my left foot up, now swing my left foot forward,..." We think about where we are going.) If it is not invariably in their bodies and minds that people act, it is invariably and exclusively by or with their bodies and minds that people do things. This recommends, for definiteness and to avoid circumlocutions, that we identify agents' particular possible and actual actions with processes of their bodies and minds. Actions are actual or possible series of states, so their times are the latest early bounds of these series, or what would be their latest early bounds. 5.2.2 Choices, though acts of will, are, according to my conventions, not acts. They are not natural states or processes of agents. They are, however, typically reflected in states of agents. They are typically reflected in 'sets of minds,' and these 'natural choices' are actions, though not the actions chosen. A choice to drink water or to sign a cheque would typically be reflected in my setting my mind to drink water or to sign a cheque, and these are actions. They are actions suited, if circumstances are as I believe, to lead causally (perhaps directly and with little or no lapse of time) to the chosen overt actions. (In this paragraph, and always in what follows in this chapter, 'choice' when unqualified is short for 'choice proper,' and 'natural choices' are not strictly speaking choices at all, but sets of mind in which choices proper are typically reflected.) 5.3 Free Will 5.3.1 Free will is, I think, best understood as an agent's capacity to choose to do things and consequent to his choosing to do these things, where the things chosen are different from and incompatible with things he will in fact do. Someone who believes in free will, must, I think, believe at least the following: The Minimal Free-Will Thesis - for short, Free Will. It is sometimes true both that some person can choose to perform an action, though it is not an action he will do, and that this person would, were he to choose to do that action, do it instead of some action that he is going to do. Compare with Tomis Kapitan's 'efficacy' and 'contingency' conditions (Kapitan 1989, 31 and 32). His contingency condition concerns the possibility of acting otherwise: in contrast, mine explicitly concerns only the possibility of choosing to act otherwise. In Free Will, and in all that follows, modal constructions such as 'can choose' and subjunctive forms such as 'would do ... if he were to choose' are

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intended 'realistically,' and not 'epistemically' or 'doxastically.' (There lie here deeper differences between conditions in Free Will, and conditions in Kapitan 1989, 32-4.) These constructions and forms are intended to be concerned with reality (nature and more, if there is more than nature), and not only with our views or our evidential commitments. Thus 'can choose' is, for me, never short for 'will for all he knows choose' or for 'will for all we know choose.' Nor is it ever short for 'can, consistently with all he knows choose,' or for 'can consistently with all we know.' And 'would ... if he were to choose'-conditionals are never merely 'belief-revision' conditionals (if, contrary to Gibbard 1981, there are such conditional propositions, as distinct from expressions of high conditional credences). Subjunctive conditionals shall here be concerned not merely with how, while doing least violence to one's body of convictions, room can be made for pieces of possible new information. Nor is their 'would' short for something like 'would as far as I can tell.' 'Can' and 'would' are throughout intended in ways appropriate to contexts of deliberation and advice concerning what I (he/you) am (is/are) to do. (It is observed in section 2.3 of chapter i above that Aristotle knits together 'choice,' 'deliberation,' and 'that which can be done.') 5.3.2 Let possible actions A at t and B at t be incompatible, if and only if there are state-propositions, (A at t) and (B at t), descriptive of these actions, which propositions are logically incompatible: D[(Batt)^~(Aatt)]. These actions could be states of my body and mind that, given the right circumstances, would constitute my pressing just 'A' on a certain keyboard at t, or my pressing just 'B' on that keyboard at t. In this example, (A at t) might say not only that a finger of mine descends in a certain particular manner X, but also that no finger of mine descends in certain other manners. Similarly for (B at t). Each proposition might explicitly exclude the manners of the other. Relying on this account of incompatibility, for a more exact statement of Free Will I offer the following: There are times t and t', an agent x, and actions of x, A at t and B at t, such that: B at t is incompatible with A at t, A at t will take place, x can at t' choose B at t, and if x were at t' to choose B at t, then B at t would take place. For a full informal statement we have that

Free Will and Varieties of Determinism 113 sometimes people can choose to act otherwise than they are going to act, and would act otherwise if they were so to choose. Using some jargon, the idea more compactly is that effective 'choices-otherwise' are sometimes possible. 'Choices-otherwise,' it may be noted, are as I speak of them always doubly otherwise. They are choices other than those that are in fact made, for actions other than those that in fact take place. Finally, Free Will is conveyed most briefly and economically in the words 'Sometimes people have choices'! These words convey the intended idea when they are understood, as I think it is natural to understand them, as expressing what is made more explicit in the other formulas produced above. The proposal here for 'abilities to act by choice' is formally like the analysis of what I have termed 'real possibility' of an action, or an agent's having within his power to do some action (in Sobel 1970, 439-41). According to that analysis, a has the power to do x if and only if both, (i), it is possible, in the sense of being an entertainable hypothesis, that a (with all his might) try to do a, T(a,x), and, (ii), if a were (with all his might) to try to do x, then he would succeed in doing x, D(a,x): in the notation of that paper, OT(a,x) & [T(a,x) D-» D(a,x)]. In my current analysis of abilities to act by choice, I have replaced trying by choosing: in the notation of that paper, OCh(a,x) & [Ch(a,x) Q-» D(a,x)]. Regarding the notation of that paper, which is to this extent David Lewis's notation, and the notation used in previous chapters of the present book, (3> [H *P) abbreviates (if it were the case that $, then it would be the case that y). 5.3.3 This free-will thesis contrasts with theses around which van Inwagen has organized discussions of free will and determinism: for example, "the thesis that we are able to act otherwise than we do" (van Inwagen 1975,185), and "the minimal free-will thesis ... That ... some person had, has, or will have access to some possible world besides the actual world" (van Inwagen 1974, 17-8, repeated with slight changes in van Inwagen 1983, 91) - the thesis is that some person had, has, or will have the ability to bring about an event of a sort

114 Puzzles for the Will that happens only in worlds other than the actual world (cf. van Inwagen 1974, 16). One advantage of my minimal free-will thesis is that it includes explicit references to choices and thus to manifestations of the will: van Inwagen writes explicitly only of actions. (That is a mixed advantage, some may think, given the mysteries of choice, and of 'the will.') Another advantage relates to the greater complexity of my thesis. It requires not merely, (i), that 'actionsotherwise' be possible, but, (ii), that e/zo/ces-otherwise be possible, and indeed, (iii), that effective choices-otherwise be possible. (Conditions (i) and (ii) are independent. Condition (i) is entailed by but does not entail condition (iii), which of course also entails condition (ii).) The greater complexity of my thesis, the way it brings in both choices and actions, is recommended by our intuitive ideas of free will. It is furthermore an important philosophical dividend of the complexity of my thesis - of the way it brings in not only actions but choices - that it makes available relatively unproblematic principles concerning subjunctive conditionals for use in incompatibility arguments in place of sometimes more contentious principles for kinds of possibility and necessity. Modes of Determinism Our primary question, recall, is whether free will and determinism are compatible. Answers, I now stress, depend not only on how free will is characterized, and on distinctions of the kind made in sections 3 and 4 above among forms of determinism, but also on distinctions among modes, as I term them, of determinism. These modes consist of several possible views concerning determinism itself, and concerning laws of nature and the past as these figure in forms of determinism. The views to be considered concern how determinisms, and the laws and the past of which they speak, are or are not, counterfactually conditional (variable or unfixed) on possible states, processes, and choices. I cast these views as 'modes' of determinisms that when combined with their 'forms' of determinisms produce 'varieties.' (Cf. Kane 1995, I48nn: "The kind [I would say 'variety'] of determinism ... usually called 'causal determinism,' involves determination by 'hard facts' about the past.") Some would prefer to style these views simply as principles that determinists and non-determinists may or may not endorse for the evaluation of conditionals of kinds considered relevant for 'free will' that have counterfactual antecedents concerning choices, proper and natural, and concerning actions, and consequents concerning the over-all causal order, the laws of nature, and the past. (I assume that conditionals relevant to free will are the same as those that are suited to contexts of deliberation and advice.) The substantial point is that regardless of how these

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distinctions are cast, they are important to our questions, as important as the distinctions among forms made in sections 3 and 4 above. Every form of determinism distinguished above, as well as other forms related to these, can be joined with combinations of the meta-views now to be detailed. I will say that joining a form of determinism with one of these combinations generates a variety of determinism. The distinctions here are the same for every form, and so in this part differences between forms will be ignored. References to determinisms below are to any or all forms identified in sections 3 and 4 above. 6. i Necessary Determinisms According to Necessary Determinism, not only is every event in history determined, but also no matter what were to happen at a time - no matter what state obtained, process commenced, or choice were made - every event in what would then be history would be determined. If something that is not going to happen were to happen at a time, the world would be different. Of course. But according to Necessary Determinism, no matter what were to happen at a time, the world would not be so different that Determinism was no longer true of it. Perhaps its past would be different, perhaps its laws would be different, but it would still have laws. It would, according to Necessary Determinism, still have laws, comprehensive deterministic laws according to the particular form of determinism said to be necessary. Necessary Determinism does not maintain that determinism is logically necessary. It does not maintain that every possible world is determined. Necessary Determinism maintains only, one might say, that determinism is, for the actual world, 'necessary relative to, or conditional on, choices, and states and processes that commence at times.' The idea is that every possible world that is in certain ways accessible from the actual world is determined, where a possible world is 'accessible' in this way if and only if that possible world is a way things might be overall if something that can happen or commence at a time were then to happen or commence. This, I stress, is accessibility relative to all choices and states, and relative to many processes, but not relative to absolutely all processes. It is not accessibility relative even to processes that lack latest early bounds, and so it is not accessibility relative to all-encompassing alternative histories. Necessary Determinism leaves open the possibility of alternative histories that would be of worlds that are not determined according to particular kinds of determinism. It leaves open the possibility of non-deterministic worlds. Necessary Determinism makes determinism necessary relative to choices,

116 Puzzles for the Will states, and processes that begin in time. A restricted version that can seem particularly plausible would require only that determinism should be necessary relative to all choices, proper if any there be as well as natural. 6.2 Fixed-Laws Determinisms 6.2.1 Versions I distinguish three modes - fixed, weak fixed, and variable - that associate with determinisms progressively less stringent counterfactual conditions concerning laws of nature. According to Fixed-Laws Determinism, every event in history is determined, and no matter what were to happen at a time - no matter what choice, state, or process that is internally-consistent-with-the-laws were then to obtain or begin - the laws would remain the same. Fixed-Laws Determinism is stronger than Weak Fixed-Laws Determinism, according to which the laws would remain true, even if not all of them would still be laws, and even if there would be some new laws. According to some theories of laws (for example, the Ramsey-Lewis theory - see section 9.2.1 below), laws are true propositions of certain forms that relate to other true propositions in certain ways. Such theories leave open that as a consequence of certain counterfactual conditions, some laws would, while remaining true, cease to be laws. Weak Fixed-Laws (and thus Fixed-Laws) Determinism entails determinism and that, if L is a law, then, for any time t and choice, state, or internally-consistentwith-L process K, (K at t [H L).

This is the important content for arguments to come of Fixed-Laws Determinism, though I stress that there is more to it than these entailments which are all there is to Weak Fixed-Laws Determinism. 'Full-strength' Fixed-Laws Determinism says as well that no matter what were to happen at a time, a proposition L would be not only true but a law if and only if L is a law. Fixed-Laws Determinisms 'fix laws' conditional on not only choices, but all states and certain processes. In contrast, Restricted Fixed-Laws Determinisms fix laws conditional only on choices, and Variable-or-Unfixed-Laws Determinisms do not fix laws conditional on any of these things. They leave open that, on

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certain counterfactual conditions, some laws would no longer be laws, as well as that there would be some new laws. 6.2.2 Endorsements and Discussion Someone who holds "that no person has access to any world in which the laws of nature are different from what they are in the actual world ... [and that wjhat the laws of nature are does not depend upon human choice" (van Inwagen 1974, 18, emphasis omitted), or that "no one — no human being, certainly - has any choice about what the laws of nature are" (van Inwagen 1994, 190-1), holds that laws are fixed relative at least to all possible choices. A principle that would fix laws conditional on actions agents can do is formulated in (Fischer and Ravizza 1995, 244)- Since the conditional involved in our fixed-law principles is to be appropriate to contexts of deliberation and advice, the principle of restricted fixed-laws can seem unproblematic. For no one deliberates about, as distinct from wonders about, the world's causal order. But then even the unrestricted principle of fixed-laws should recommend itself to all except philosophers who espouse 'Humean views' of laws of nature, when these philosophers are being self-consciously consistent. Recall that, as said in section 5.3 above, the conditionals at issue are all realistic in intent. This makes it irrelevant that epistemic conditionals - if, contrary to (Gibbard 1981), such conditional propositions there be - sometimes 'go against actual laws,' as they backtrack to or through different pasts. Here is an example, said by a sceptic concerning astrology, who believes that it is a law of nature that causal signals cannot propagate faster than the speed of light: "If it were the case that the alignment of stars X, Y and Z in 1929 were responsible for the crash of 1929, it would have to be that causal signals propagated faster than the speed of light." (Stars X, Y, and Z are 48 light-years away. It is only last week that their alignment was observable. Lewis's distinction between "our usual sort of counterfactual reasoning" and 'backtracking reasoning' - Lewis T 979> 34 - is briefly addressed in section 2.1 of chapter 4 below.) Allan Gibbard and William L. Harper sketch a theory for conditionals of deliberation and advice in which laws are at least largely fixed conditional on choices-otherwise (see Gibbard and Harper 1985, 136). In that theory, the world would unfold after such choices in accordance with its actual laws. Left open by their sketch, however, is whether, given a choice-otherwise, the world's laws would still be 'good' for all times up to and including the time of this choice. Left open is whether, on the contrary, there would be a violation, a narrowly circumscribed violation, at or just before that time. A connected point that their sketch leaves open is whether it is intended that the actual world is somewhat less than fully determined, so that there is causal room without viola-

118 Puzzles for the Will tions of laws for natural choices-otherwise, ample room, and not just room for fast-starting beginningless natural choices. One expects a determinist who is a 'realist' concerning causal connections to be a Fixed-Laws Determinist. In contrast, it seems that someone who takes a Humean position on causal connections has no reason to view laws as even restrictedly fixed relative to choices. A Humean should not be in the least bothered by the possibility that everything is causally determined, which nonchalance was displayed and elaborated with extreme brilliance, and I think definitively, by Hume himself in An Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding, section 8, "Of Liberty and Necessity." Given a non-Humean view of causal connections as kinds of real necessary connections between causes and effects - given the view of causal connections that, according to Hume, is everyone's view almost always, and was even his view except on occasions of strenuous philosophic concentration - the fixity of laws relative at least to agents's choices can seem to go without saying. We do not deliberate about laws. When deliberating we assess, as best we can, the probabilities of possible consequences of choices. In that exercise we view the laws that determine effects as fixed, even if largely unknown. I make fixity of laws, relative at least to choices, explicit and stress it because it is for many if not "the root of the incompatibility of free will and [some varieties of] determinism" (van Inwagen 1975, r 93)> °ne of two roots, to the second of which I now proceed. 6.3 Fixed-Past Determinisms 6.3.1 Versions According to Fixed-Past Determinism, every event in history is determined, and for any time no matter what state, choice, or process were to take place or begin at this time, the past to this time would remain the same. Fixed-Past Determinism has, as its most important implication, Weak FixedPast Determinism, according to which, no matter what were to happen or begin at a time, all true propositions about past states of the world would remain true (that leaves room for more past states and truths thereof)- The fixity condition of Fixed-Past Determinism is, more exactly, that for any time t and state, choice, or process, K, that takes place or begins at t, if P is 'history to t' - that is, if P is the logically weakest proposition

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that entails every true state-proposition for every time antecedent to t then (K at t D-> P)].

'Full-strength' Fixed-Past Determinism says, in addition, that at any time no matter what were then to happen, P would be 'history to that time' if and only if P is 'history to that time' - no gaps, if there are any, in history would be filled in, nor, if history has a latest early bound, would it extend beyond it. Restricted Fixed-Past Determinism fixes pasts conditional only on choices, and Variable-or-Unfixed-Past Determinism does not fix pasts. It licenses changes, conditional on states and processes, and choices. 6.3.2 Endorsements and Discussion Agathon is right in saying - For this alone is lacking even to God, / To make undone things that have once been done. (Nicomachean Ethics 113959-10, trans. W.D. Ross) [E]very time I turn my attention to ... things I perceive with ... great clarity, I... spontaneously burst out... let him who can deceive me ... [not even He] will... one day make it true that I have never existed, because it is true now that I am (Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. D.A. Cress [Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1979], 24)

For the plausibility (to which I return in section 9.1 below) of at least Restricted Fixed-Past Determinism, it may again be recalled that throughout this study subjunctive forms are intended 'realistically' and not 'doxastically,' and as expressive of conditional propositions appropriate to contexts of deliberation and advice, and so one supposes conditional propositions that do not 'backtrack.' To contrast sensible investigative theoretical, with crazy deliberative practical, backtracking, compare the following: Exchange (i) - "Will he have soup?" "Well, were he to have soup, he would not have had a hearty breakfast (for he is on a diet). And as you know, he had a hearty breakfast. So ..." Exchange (2) - "Should he have soup?" "Well, were he to have soup, he would not have had a hearty breakfast. And he wishes that instead of the hearty breakfast he had, he were having soup. So ...?!" Someone who holds "that every world to which any person has access must be indistinguishable from the actual world at some point in time," and who thinks that "surely [worlds accessible to a person] must all be indistinguishable from the actual world ... at any time before [this person's birth]" (van Inwagen

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1974, 19), will think that determinisms must allow the past to the time of the birth of an agent to be fixed relative at least to his choices and actions. Restricted Fixed-Past Determinism fixes pasts relative to an agent's choices, and fixes them not only to the time of his birth, but all the way to the times of his choices. (A principle that would fix pasts relative to actions agents can do is formulated in Fischer and Ravizza 1995, 244.) It is of course very natural to suppose that, as Restricted Fixed-Past Determinisms say, pasts are fixed relative to possible choices and decisions. We do not deliberate about the past. Nor do we make plans for it. When making up our minds, when choosing and deciding, we (at least the sane among us) take the past as given, as part of that with which we must deal. Gibbard and Harper write that, when evaluating a conditional with a counterfactual antecedent that posits an action that "I might decide at time t to perform" (Gibbard and Harper 1985, 136), "[w]e consider only worlds in which the past [to t] is exactly like the actual past, for since the agent cannot now alter the past, those are the only worlds relevant to his decision" (ibid., I58n2). The time t of which Gibbard and Harper write is a time of decision, perhaps a decision that is the culmination of the process of deliberation, to do the counterfactually posited action at a time later than t. Gibbard and Harper do not say (they precisely do not say) that pasts of actions are for purposes of their assessments fixed. It can be seen, without getting into speculation concerning 'inner' antecedents of actions, that in contexts of deliberation and assessment pasts are routinely taken not to be fixed relative to actions under review, whether prospective or retrospective. When wondering, for example, whether it would be best for me, when a dignitary soon to arrive enters the room, to stand up from a certain chair to honour, or to sit down on that chair to dishonour, you will not take as fixed what will be the past to the time of that entry and these actions. For either that past includes my sitting on that chair 'just before' that time, or it includes my not then sitting on that chair, and either way it excludes as a matter of logic one of those actions. I cannot immediately upon a time when I am sitting on a chair, sit down on it, and I cannot, immediately upon a time when I am not sitting on a chair, stand up from it. But when wondering which of those performances would be best, each is considered in circumstances in which it is at least logically possible. So when wondering which would be best - which will include wondering how each would work out - you will not take as fixed what will be the past right up to the time of these actions. Which is consistent with the line taken by Gibbard and Harper, who imply that you will take as fixed only what will be the past right up to (beginnings) of choices or decisions for these actions. Wlodek Rabinowicz has observed that, on some views of laws, they are fixed

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in whatever ways pasts are fixed. If one thinks of causal connections affirmed by laws as real and 'in the world' and as necessarily the same for all times and at all times, then one will view the fixity of laws relative, for example, to human choices, as a consequence of the fixity of pasts relative to human choices. 6.4 A given form of determinism can be of any compound mode of these relatively simple modes reached by the following rule: for 'main compound modes' combine Necessary or not Necessary ['minor compound modes' feature variously restricted versions of these conditions] with either Fixed-Laws, Restricted Fixed-Laws, or Variable-or-Unfixed-Laws ['minor compound modes' feature weak versions of these conditions] and combine the result with either Fixed-Past, Restricted Fixed-Past, or Variable-or-Unfixed-Past ['minor compound modes' feature weak versions of these conditions]. Compatibilities and Incompatibilities Six main forms of determinism were distinguished in sections 3 and 4 - CD-i, Liberal and Conservative CD-2, CD-3, and 'Laplacean' and Windowshade Determinisms - along with several minor forms. Eighteen main compound modes have just been distinguished in section 6, along with numerous minor compound modes. Each of these forms comes in each of these modes so that ninety main and many more minor varieties of determinism have been distinguished. I will not discuss implications of each of these for free will and the possibility of acting by choice in a manner other than the way one will act. (But you knew that.) Rather I will consider at some length two demanding varieties of determinism, and then, more briefly, two less demanding ones - four varieties in all. It will be found that only the first of these determinisms, which is a certain mode of CD-3 (State-to-State Perpetual Causal Determinism), is incompatible with Free Will. Only this determinism, of the four varieties considered, makes it impossible to choose not to do, and consequent to this choice, not do, things that one will in fact do. Of the four, only this determinism makes acting otherwise by choice impossible. The second determinism, which is an

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even more demanding mode of the less demanding form, CD-i (State-to-State Causal Determinism), will be shown to be compatible with Free Will. The third and fourth determinisms are, like the first determinism, modes of the very demanding form, CD-3, but they are considerably less demanding modes of this form, and, in contrast with the first determinism, are obviously compatible with Free Will. Let me recall that I shall be arguing neither for nor against, but only about, two forms of determinisms combined with assumptions about subjunctive conditionals to make what I term varieties of determinism. Specifically, I shall be investigating implications of several varieties of determinism for Free Will. Certainly I will not be arguing inter alia for any form of determinisim, since I believe in none. As it happens, I am sympathetic to assumptions that fix pasts and laws for subjunctive conditionals involved in and of relevance to Free Will, but arguments to come concerning their implications when combined with forms of determinism do not, of course, depend on whether they are true. 7- THE INCOMPATIBILITY OF FREE WILL WITH A RELATIVELY UNDEMANDING MODE OF A DEMANDING FORM OF DETERMINISM

7.1 Introduction j.i.i Peter van Inwagen relates with approval the following simple argument for incompatibilism, the Consequence Argument: "If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it is not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore, the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us" (van Inwagen 1983, 56; bold emphasis added). Van Inwagen thinks this "is a good argument [b]ut... rather sketchy," and proceeds to "fill in ... details in three different ways" (p. 56). In this section I offer, in terms of the framework I have developed, a fourth way that fills in details while leaving some things out, and moving somewhat differently than do any of van Inwagen's ways to an incompatibility-conclusion. Left out are references to the remote past, and to times before any of us were born. Employed are principles of inference not for modalities such as that of 'what is not up to us,' but for conditionals that say 'what would happen if.' 7.1.2 For a variety of determinism that is incompatible with Free Will, I offer a mode of form CD-3, that is, CDpss, which form, recall, is State-to-state Perpetual Causal Determinism. Every state has at every antecedent time a cause that is a state.

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The variety to be considered is Restricted Weak Fixed-Laws, and Restricted Weak Fixed-Past CD-3. Let this be CD-j*, or, CDpss*. Restricted Weak FixedLaws determinisms fix, conditional on choices, the truth of all laws. Restricted Weak Fixed-Past determinisms fix, conditional on choices, the truth of all propositions about the past. CD * implies the following version of Ancient Causes: Every state has, for every time t, a cause that is a state that takes place at a time antecedent to t. [Consider state s at time t, and any time t' antecedent to t. By CDpss, s has a cause at t' that is a state. Let this state be s'. By CDpss again, s' has a cause that is a state at a time t" antecedent to t'. Let this state be s". By transitivity of causation (argued in the third point of section 3.2.1), s" is a cause of s. So for every time antecedent to its time, s has a cause that is a state at a time antecedent to that time. Which means that, as Ancient Causes would have it, for every time, s has a cause that is a state at a time antecedent to that time.] The involvement of Ancient Causes in CDpss* together with its restricted and weak fixed past and law aspects make CDpss* incompatible with Free Will, and with people being able ever to do, by choice, things they in fact do not do. There are, of course, much more demanding modes of CD , for example, there is the most demanding mode in our catalogue, Necessary, (without restriction, strongly) Fixed Law, and (without restriction, strongly) Fixed Past. I take up a relatively undemanding mode to make more interesting the incompatibility with Free Will to be demonstrated. We proceed in section 7.2.1 to a detailed proof of this incompatibility; in 7.2.2 and 7.2.3, to comments facilitated by its detailed character on this proof's very economical logical basis and that it features no principle for transferring any kind of necessity properly so-called; and, in addenda to section 7.2, to related proofs addressed to several other varieties of CDpss. A reprise of the main points of the proof, rearranged and more simply presented, is provided in section 7.3. That somewhat less formal proof should be sufficient for many readers's purposes who may wish (on first reading, as one says hopefully) to skip over all of section 7.2, which rather long section is accordingly ' blocked off.' 7.2 The Proof, Comments Thereon, and Related Proofs 7.2.1 To be proved: CDpss* is incompatible with Free Will, the thesis that It is sometimes true both that some person can choose to perform an

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Puzzles for the Will action, though it is not an action he will do, and that this person would, were he to choose to do that action, do it instead of some action that he is going to do.

For an indirect proof of this incompatibility suppose that CDpss* and Free Will are compatible, that is, suppose that they are both true of some possible world. To facilitate exposition, suppose that CDpss* and Free Will are true of this world of ours. For a concrete instance of Free Will, suppose that an action of mine, A at t*, will take place; that B at t* is an action of mine that is incompatible with A at t*; that I can at t choose to do B at t*; and that if I were to choose to do B at t* then I would do B at t*. A at t* is by supposition an actual action of mine, whereas B at t* is an only possible action of mine. In the sequel, 'A at t*' names a particular action of mine, and '(A at t*)' is a state-proposition descriptive of this action that says that this action takes place. Similarly for 'B at t*' and '(B at t*).' We have, as four parts of the just stated instance of Free will, (i) (ii) (iii)

(A at t*) D [(A at t*) is ~(B at t*)] Ent[Cht(E at t*)]

(iv)

C/zt(B at t*) D-> (B at t*)

and

Regarding (iii), we have supposed that I can at t choose to do B at t*, and this supposition entails, (iii), that the hypothesis that at 11 choose to do B at t* is at the very least entertainable for purposes of disciplined and coherent counterfactual speculation. Needed to complete our indirect proof of the incompatibility of CDpss* and Free Will is a contradiction. The contradiction to be reached opposes to (iv), above, its negation: ~[C/zt(B at t*) EH (B at t*)] We proceed to this result by cases: in the first case it is assumed that t is subsequent to t*; in the second case it is assumed that t is not subsequent to t*.

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First case. (v) t > t* I note that it follows from (i) and (ii) that

(vi)

~(B at t*)

From (v) and (vi) and CDpss*, which is part of our primary supposition, it follows that (vii)

C/zt(B at t*) EH ~(B at t*),

since CDpss* is Restricted Weak Fixed-Past. It follows from (iii) and (vii) by Conditional-Negation-Exportation for Entertainable Antecedents - rule Ri of section 7.2.3 below - that (viii)

~[C7zt(B at t*) D-> (B at t*)].

This completes the argument of this first case for its conditional conclusion. (ix)

(t > t*) =) ~[Cht(E at t*) D-> (B at t*)]

Second case. The temporal assumption for this, the more important of the two cases, is that the time of the posited effective choice otherwise, if not prior to, is at least (and of course, one is tempted to add) not subsequent to, the time of the chosen action. (x)

t < t*

Recall that, CD * implies, Ancient Causes, that every state has for every time a cause at an antecedent time that is a state. Thus, according to CDpss*, there is a law L, a time t-, and a state-proposition (C at t-) such that

(xi) t- < t, (xii) L & (C at t-), and

(xiii)

D ([(C at t-) & L] ID (A at t*)).

I note that t- is merely prior to 1.1 have not stipulated that it is long prior, and

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in the distant past. The argument does not need that stipulation, which, however, would have been supported by CD *. Also, according to CD *, (xiv) (xv)

C/zt(B at T*) D-> (C at t-) C/zt(B at T*) D-> L

(xiv) follows from (xi) and (xii), since CDpss* is Restricted Weak Fixed-Past, and (xv) follows from (xi) and (xii) since CDpss* is Restricted Weak FixedLaws. It follows from (xiv) and (xv) by Conjoining Consequents - rule R2 of section 7.2.3 below - that (xvi)

Cht(E at t*) CH [(C at t-) & L].

It follows from (xiii) and (xvi) by Entailment-Transference of Necessity-ona-Condition - rule R3 of section 7.2.3 below - that (xvii)

C/t,(B at T*) D-> (A at t*)

It follows again by the rule R3, from (xvii) and (ii), which I repeat for ready reference, (ii)

D[(Aatt*)=>~(Batt*)],

that (xviii)

C/it(B at T*) D-» ~(B at t*)

And it follows finally, this time by rule Ri, from (xviii) and (iii), which I repeat for reference, (iii)

£nf[C/J t (Batt*)],

that, (xix)

~[C/t,(B at T*) Eh (B at t*)].

That completes the argument of this second case for its conditional conclusion. (xx)

(t < t*) ID ~[C/zt(B at T*) D-> (B at t*)]

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It follows from (ix) and (xx) - the conditional conclusions of our two cases that (xxi)

~[C7zt(B at T*) Eh (B at t*)].

This contradicts, for it is the negation of, (iv), which contradiction completes our indirect proof of the incompatibility of CDpss* and Free Will. 7.2.2 Comments on this proof - that Transfer has nothing to do with it Capitalizing on the way in which my Minimal Free Will Thesis concerns choices as well as actions pursuant to them, the argument just produced turns on principles for conditionals that would relate choices and actions. It does not depend on principles for kinds of necessity that might be held to pass from an action's past and the laws of nature to the action itself, given that it is entailed by its past and the laws. My argument makes no use of vexed 'transfer of necessity' rules such as (see Vihvelin 1988, Kapitan 1991, and Chapter 2, "The Transfer Principle: Its Plausibility," in Fischer 1994) yV(p), D(p=>q)h/V(q) and

yV(p), JV(p^q)h/V(q). The argument I have given for the incompatibility of CDpss* and Free Will is not so much a modal argument as a conditional argument. It uses principles for subjunctive conditionals and their two-place modal connective, and no principles for special kinds of necessity and their one-place modal operators. Van Inwagen's 'modal argument' for determinism/free will incompatibility uses the following principles for the one-place operator 'N —' that abbreviates '—, and no one has, or ever had, any choice about whether —':

(a)

Dp h/Vp

((3)

Af(p=>q), Np h/Vq

(van Inwagen 1983, 93-4). 7.2.3 I have used precisely the following principles of inference for subjunctive conditionals: Ri: Conditional-negation-exportation for entertainable antecedents

128 Puzzles for the Will £nr(O), (O D-> ~*F) h ~(O EH VF) R2: Conjoining consequents (O r>» ¥), (OCKx) h t O E H C F & x ) ] R3: Entailment-transference of necessity-on-a-condition (O D-> 40, DO? ID x) I- ()¥, D (¥ => %) h (0>[HX as a principle for transferring this kind of necessity. This temptation is to be resisted, however, since (OQ->) stands for no kind of necessity. Certainly it does not stand for a kind of deontic necessity, and it is equally clear that it does not stand for any kind of alethic necessity. For the latter point we have that (OD-OH' does not entail ¥. Since 'conditional necessity' would be no kind of necessity, it is best to avoid this label, along with the notation that would provide an occasion for it. Also, even if R3 were equivalent to a transference principle for a kind of necessity, it would not be of the sort that has been disputed in recent literature. A principle of the form, R*. (OD->)¥, (OD-»)(¥ ID X) h (OCH)X, would be of that disputed sort. (As it happens, though R* does not transfer a kind of necessity, and though it plays no role in my argument, there is nothing wrong with this principle: propositions expressed by (O 0-» *F) and [O D-> (*¥ => %)] do together entail a proposition expressed by (O D-» X) .) Addenda to Section 7.2 (i) Let CD-3** be the mode of CD-3 that is necessary relative to natural choic'es, and that is weakly fixed-law and fixed-past relative again to natural choices. It may be recalled that CDpss*, hereafter CD-3*, is not necessary in any manner, and that it is weakly fixed-law and fixed-past relative to choices proper, but not necessarily relative also to natural choices. I have shown that CD-3* entails that either choices-otherwise, choices-

130 Puzzles for the Will proper-otherwise, are never possible even in the very weak sense of being entertainable or, though sometimes possible, they would never be effective. Furthermore, given that they have neither natural causes nor natural effects, choices-proper-otherwise are always entertainable. This is consistent with CD3* and with every other variety of causal determinism that is concerned with only natural states and processes. So the problem posed by CD-3* for choicesproper-otherwise is precisely that given CD-3* mev would never be effective. There is another line of argument for the incompatibility of CD-3** and Free Will readdressed specifically to natural choices. What can be shown to follow from CD-3** f°r natural choices is that they are always 'counterfactually impossible,' that they are never possible even in the weak sense of being entertainable. We have the definition Ent O =dr(3) Q-» 1), where '_!_' is a contradiction: Lewis 1973, 22. Being entertainable is here identified with being not counterfactually impossible. So being unentertainable is being counterfactually impossible. Consider a natural choice - either a single state or (more plausibly) a process or series of states - that will not take place. Let a proposition for it be C: this proposition is true if and only if that choice takes place, so it is false. Assume CD-3**. Let L be the actual laws taken together, that is, the logically weakest proposition that entails every actual law. Let P(C) be the actual past to what would be the time of C, which time, I have stipulated, is the latest early bound of C, its having been stipulated that natural choices all have latest early bounds (section 5.1.3 above). P(C) is to be the logically weakest proposition that entails every true state-proposition for times before what would be the time of C. We then have that (i) ~D([L&P(C)]z>C), for [L & P(C)] is true, while C is false. Indeed, we have (ii)

D~D([L&P(C)]iDC),

given that 'D' stands for logical necessity, which I take to be truth at every possible world. The logic for that necessity is 85. Consider now the counterfactual supposition that C. Here are several conditionals with that supposition as their antecedent. We have first that

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(iii)

131

(C CH ~[] ([L & P(Q] =) C)).

This comes from (ii) by another simple principle for 'D->' -conditionals: R4: Robustness of logical necessities

DT h ( O E H y ) We have in addition (iv) (CCHC), which is an instance of an axiom-rule for 'EH'-conditionals: R5: Repetition h (O D-> O)

Given that CD-3**, which is being assumed, is weakly fixed-law and fixed-past relative to nature choices, we also have that (v)

(C D-» [L & P(C)]).

Furthermore, since, in important contrast with CD-3*, CD-3** is necessary relative to natural choices, we have that (vi)

(C D-» CD-3**).

Finally, before putting things together, we have that

(vii)

(C D-» M),

where M is the meta-proposition that says that C is a true proposition descriptive of a process, that the actual laws taken together make L, and that P(C) is the past to the time of C. M records our initial stipulations regarding C, L, and P(C), while adding that C is true, which, as (iv) all but says, it of course would be if, as the antecedent of (vii) supposes, it were the case that C. From (vi) and (vii) it follows, by an application of R2, that (viii)

[CD-»(CD-3**&M)].

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Puzzles for the Will

Consider now that we have the strict implication that (ix)

D [(CD-3** & M) ID D ([L & P(Q] =5 C)].

Why? Because CD-3**, since a version of Perpetual State-State Determinism, says that every actual state has a state-cause at every antecedent time. That implies that every process that takes place has a cause at every antecedent time: for a cause at a given time for a process, 'combine' causes at this time for the various states in the process. It is easy to see that it follows from this that CD3** entails that every actual process is entailed by the actual laws taken together and the past of this process. But M says that C is an actual process, that L is the actual laws taken together, and that P(C) is history to the time of C. Thus the logical entailment affirmed by (ix). It follows from (viii) and (ix), by principle R3, that (x)

[CO->D([L&P(C)]=>C)].

Winding up, it follows from (iii) and (ix), by principle R2, that

(xi)

(C D-> [~D ([L & P(Q] 15 C) & D ([L & P(Q] ID C)]),

the consequent of which counterfactual is a contradiction. As was to be explained, given CD-3**, and that C is a natural choice that will not take place, the counterfactual supposition of C 'leads to' a contradiction. Supposing it, 'anything would go' (cf. Lewis 1973, 24), since from a contradiction, everything follows. The supposition of C would set no bounds on speculation, and so we say that it is not properly entertainable, that it is not possible even in the very weak sense of being entertainable for purposes of meaningful counterfactual speculation. The natural choice it describes is thus certainly not a choice that can be made in any sense of 'can' suited to Free Will. (2) The argument in (i) shows that CD-3** implies that if a natural choice will not be made, then it is not even entertainable. A considerably simpler argument shows that CD-3** implies that if a non-actual natural choice C whose time would be t is incompatible with an actual process $. whose time is t, then C is not even entertainable. (The word 'if may be stressed in the previous sentence. For it is not necessary that every non-actual natural choice is incompatible with an actual process. Not even every non-actual natural choice of an actual person is necessarily incompatible with an actual process. I did not five minutes ago make a natural choice to write a letter. Does this mean that my mind and body

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were then in states incompatible with that choice? Not necessarily. That natural choice could have consisted of states of neurons, which neurons did not then exist. It could have consisted of states of neurons for which there was room in my head, neurons which would have been mine. My making that natural choice could have involved inter alia my making, as if a little god, these neurons! The existence of such neurons is not incompatible - it is not logically incompatible - with the states of actual things that did exist five minutes ago.) Maintaining notational conventions established in Addendum (i), since CD3** is weakly fixed-law and fixed-past relative to natural choices, we have that CD->[L&P(C)]. Since t is the time of $!, we have, for reasons spelled out in Addendum (i), D([L&P(C)]z>0). And so, by R3, we have CD->0. From which it follows, by R5 and R2 above, that, C D-> [C & £],

which says that C is not entertainable, since by hypothesis C and are (£ incompatible. (This argument uses the stipulations that CD-3** is weakly fixed law, and fixed past conditional on natural choices, but not also the stipulation that it is necessary conditional on natural choices.) It is no surprise that, when one makes all references to choices references to natural choices, there are arguments that show that determinisms like CD-3* are not compatible with the possibility of natural choices-otherwise, and are for this reason not compatible with free will explained in terms of natural choices. Let me stress, therefore, that the principal argument of the present section shows incompatibility of CD-3* with free will when what are at issue throughout are choices themselves or 'choices proper.' That argument makes the point that though choices-proper-otherwise are, even given CD-3*, always possible, it is not consistent with CD-3* that choices-proper-otherwise should ever be effective. (3) Let CD-3*** be the very demanding Necessary, Weak Fixed-Laws, and

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Weak Fixed-Past mode of CD-3. It could be shown in the manner of Addendum (i) that it follows from CD-3*** not only that no non-actual natural choices, but that no non-actual processes of any kind that would take place at times, are possible even in the very weak sense of being entertainable for purposes of counterfactual speculation. (4) Let CD-3**** be the mode of CD-3 that fixes laws and pasts conditional on actions. One could show that van Inwagen's free-will thesis "that [sometimes] we are able to act otherwise than we do" (van Inwagen 1975, 185) is incompatible with CD-3****. It could be shown (in the manner of (2) above) that CD3**** implies that action-otherwise propositions are all 'counterfactually impossible' and not even entertainable. The argument would establish, using different principles from those employed by van Inwagen, incompatibility between CD-3**** and his free-will thesis that "we are able to act otherwise" (ibid.). These differences are related to differences in the ways we explain the ideas that the past to a time does "not depend upon human [actions]" at this time and that the laws do not depend on human actions (van Inwagen 1974, 18). I articulate these ideas in terms of counterfactual conditionals with actionantecedents. This makes relevant several principles of subjunctive conditional logic. My incompatibility argument for CD-3**** need use only the innocuous principles R2, R3, R4, and R$. 7.3 A Reprise of the Main Points of Proof in Section 7.2.7 Rearranged and More Simply Presented CDpss* is the restricted weak fixed past and law version of the thesis that every state has at every antecedent time a cause that is a state. And Free Will, that is, Minimal Free Will, is the thesis that it is sometimes true both that a person can choose to do a certain thing instead of something he will do, and that this person would do this thing instead of that thing, if he were so to choose to do it. The problem is to demonstrate that CDpss* and Free Will are incompatible. To say that CDpss* and Free Will are incompatible is to say that CDpss* entails the negation of Free Will. For an indirect demonstration ,of this entailment, taking CDpss* as our premise, we suppose for argument Free Will itself and deduce a contradiction. To facilitate reasoning we may proceed in terms of a particular representative instance of what Free Will says sometimes happens, in which instance someone - let it be me! - both can choose to act otherwise in a certain manner, and would act otherwise in this manner were he so to choose. For our representative instance, let A be an action I will do at t*, and B an action of mine for t* that is incompatible with A:

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135

D(AiD~B)

Consider now choices to do B. Choices, at times later than B's time, to do B at its time would clearly be too late, given CDpss* (which we have as a premise). For CDpss* is of the Restricted Weak Fixed-Past mode. (More space is given in the detailed proof of section 7.2.1 to the unpromising possibility of an 'after the act' choice to act otherwise.) We attend, therefore, to choices at times earlier than t*. Let C/z(B) say that at a particular earlier time (it does not matter which one) 11 choose B. Since CDpss* implies Ancient Causes - the thesis that every state has, for every time, a cause that is a state that takes place at a time antecedent to that time - there is a state C at a time t- earlier than t (which time t- need not for the argument be much earlier than t), and a true law L, such that (2) D [ ( L & C ) z > A ] . (I note that to simplify I am letting letters stand both for actions and states, and for propositions about actions and states.) Furthermore, since CDpss* is Restricted Weak Fixed-Laws, (3)

C/z(B) CH L,

and since CDpss* is Restricted Weak Fixed-Past, (4)

C7z(B) CH C.

But then (5)

C/z(B) CH (L & C).

(This inference is by principle R2 of section 7.2.3 above.) And it follows, from (5) and (2), that (6)

Cfc(B) CH A

(This inference is by principle R3 of section 7.2.3 above.) Recalling our first displayed proposition, (i)

D(Az)-B),

we see that it follows in a similar fashion from this and (6) that

136 Puzzles for the Will (7) CA(B)D-»~B, which proposition says that if I were to choose B, I would not do it. It is now only a few steps to the negation of Free Will. To begin these, assume for purposes of a short conditional derivation of a consequence of (7), that I can choose - that I really can choose - B, (8)

Can[Ch(B)].

It follows that it is possible that C/z(B) in the very weak sense that consists in its being at least entertainable for purposes of counterfactual speculation, (9)

Ent[Ch(E)].

From (9) together with (7), it follows that (10) ~[C/i(B) D-> B]. (This inference is by principle Ri of section 7.2.3 above.) Deriving (10) in this way on the strength of assumption (8), establishes by the principle of conditional derivation that the conditional (Can[Ch(E)] ID ~[Oz(B) [H B]), or equivalently the disjunction (11) (~Can[Ch(E)] v ~[C/z(B) Ch B]), follows from (7). Let us consider what (i i) 'says.' It says that either I cannot at t choose B, or (though I can choose B) it is not the case that if I were at t to choose B, then, when the time came, B would take place. One way or the other it is not true both that I can choose to do this action B other than the action A that I will do, and that I would do this action B /// were so to choose to do it. And since there is nothing special about me or these actions that has figured in our argument since this case of me and A and B has been handled in a way that makes it representative for purposes of the issue at hand of every case of Free Will - it follows that it never happens that anyone both can choose otherwise and would, were he so to choose, act otherwise. That, however, is the negation of Free Will, and thus makes a contradiction with the very assumption with which we began

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our indirect argument, which assumption was Free Will itself. This contradiction completes our indirect argument to show that CDpss* entails the negation of Free Will, or in other words for what was to be demonstrated, that CDpss* is incompatible with Free Will. 7.4 CD * is not compatible with Free Will. Similar modes of a liberal version of state-to-process causal determinism CD-2, and of continuous perpetual state-to-state causal determinisms CD-5 and CD-7, are by similar arguments incompatible with Free Will. And similar modes of 'Laplacean' and Windowshade Determinism can be shown by similar arguments to be incompatible with 'exercises of free will' at times other than times not later than the time of the first state of the world, supposing the world had a first state, which these blockuniverse determinisms allow that it could have had. 7.5 Let me stress that it has not been claimed that CDpss* is incompatible with a person's choosing-otherwise, that is, with a person's making a choice other than some choice that will be made. Indeed, far from claiming that CDpss* is incompatible with a person's choosing-otherwise, my argument for the incompatibility of CD * with Free Will allows one to insist that non-actual choices can always be made, that they are always possible. What is sufficient to CDpss*'s being incompatible with Free Will is that CDpss* entails that even if choices-otherwise are possible sometimes - indeed, even if they are possible always - invariably, were a choice-otherwise ever made, it would be futile and ineffective. Never, if someone made a choice-otherwise, would it 'be acted upon,' never would it issue in the action chosen. The thesis of Minimal Free Will entails not only that choices to do things other than those things that are done are sometimes possible, but that such choices are sometimes both possible and such that they would, if made, be effective, and not futile. It is precisely this second conditional thing that has been shown to be inconsistent with CD *. It is shown in the argument that even if a certain choice-otherwise is possible, it is not consistent with CDpss* that any such choice would ever make a difference to what one did, and lead to one's actually acting otherwise. There is a further sense in which CDpss* implies that choices not made would, if made, make no difference. CDpss* implies that choices-otherwise not only would make no difference to the chooser's actions, but that they would make no difference to any states of the world: were any such choice made, then for any given state, the laws and the past that according to CD * would entail it, would, again according to CDpss*, remain as they are. CDpss* implies that if some choice that is not going to be made were made it would be entirely separate from the world, and not 'responsible for' and 'reflected in' any states of the world or, specifically, any '(dynamic) set of mind' of the agent. While CD * does not imply the impossibility of choosing otherwise, it does imply that any

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choice other than those that will be made would be quite idle and completely irrelevant to the natural world. It is evident that, given CDpss*, choices, as I speak of them (see section 5. i above) - choices proper that are to be 'responsible for' and 'reflected in' natural choices - not only would not be states or processes in the natural world, but would not 'supervene' on states and processes of this world. CDpss* allows that agents that are 'naturally alike' and alike in their choices proper could make different ineffective choices-proper-otherwise, but it says that if they did they would remain 'naturally alike.' 7.6 Implications for Compatibilist Lines of G.E. Moore, Charles Stevenson, and Keith Lehrer 7.6. l G.E. Moore wrote: "There are certainly good reasons for thinking that we very often mean by 'could' merely 'would, if so and so had chosen.' And if so, then we have a sense of the word 'could' in which the fact that we often could have done what we did not do, is perfectly compatible with the principle that everything has a cause: for to say that, if I had performed a certain act of will, I should have done something which I did not do, in no way contradicts this principle" (Moore 1912, 131—2). Against this, I have shown that saying something very close to that conditional does contradict the principle that everything has a cause, if one understands this principle in the manner of CDpss*. What I have demonstrated is that a conjunction in which that conditional figures as a conjunct, namely, I could have performed a certain 'act of will' [i.e., made a certain choice, proper or natural] to do something I did not do, and if I had performed it [made it], I should have done that thing that I did not do. does contradict CD pss*. Varying my point against Moore, he takes Fatalism to be "the view that whatever we will, the result will always be the same; that it is, therefore, never any use to make one choice rather than another" (ibid., 132). And he claims that this view "certainly does not follow from the principle of causality" (p. 132). Against this claim, I have shown how essentially this fatalistic view certainly does follow from CDpss*. I have shown that CDpss* entails that no matter what we were to will in advance for some occasion, when that occasion arrived the result would be the same! We would do whatever it is that we are going to do on that occasion. CDpss* entails that if I am going to do an action A then, of actions I can will, whatever I were to will, I would still when the time came do A and, if the action I willed is incompatible with A, not that action. The view

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Moore calls fatalism follows from the principle of causality as long as this principle is understood in a manner that implies ancient causes for actions, and at least weak fixity of laws and the past relative to 'acts of will.' 7.6.2 Charles Stevenson held that the freedom we want is freedom from constraint, that we want free will in the sense of a kind of 'control' over our actions. He held that a person is free in this sense when his choice, whatever its causes, is itself a cause of which the action chosen in it is an effect. For in that case, he supposed, a different choice would have resulted in a different action. "Fatalism," he wrote, "is the doctrine that our choice does not control what happens": it is the doctrine that our choices make no difference to what happens. However, Stevenson maintained, "fatalism is not determinism." Ethics and common sense require only that "[i]n some cases a man's choice is effective - i.e., his choice of doing X instead of Y is what causes him to do X instead of Y. Hence we can say, in retrospect, 'If he had chosen otherwise he would have done otherwise'" (bold emphasis added). And all this, Stevenson held, is compatible with determinism, which "simply contends that our choice has causes." (The first two and the fourth quotations are from "Determinism and Freedom," notes distributed on 27 March 1956 at the University of Michigan in Philosophy 31, and first commercially published in Reason and Responsibility, 7th edition, ed. J. Feinberg [Belmont, 1989]. The third quotation is from a handout, "Supplement to Sheets on Determinism and Freedom," that was distributed on 10 April 1956. I was a teaching assistant that year in Stevenson's excellent course.) Determinisms all, however, contend for more than that our natural choices have causes. They all say as well that our actions have causes. And a form of determinism may, as CD3-determinisms do, contend that our actions all have causes that go back eventually to ancient causes. As Stevenson says, a variety of determinism can be compatible with actual natural choices being causes of actions, and so with actual natural choices being in a sense 'effective': CDpss* is a variety of determinism to this point. However, from a determinism's allowing actual natural choices to be causes of an action it does not, contrary to Stevenson's opinion, follow that it allows different non-actual natural choices to cause different actions. That is, a determinism such as CDpss* that is compatible with actual natural choices being causes of actions, can be, again as CDpss* is, incompatible with non-actual choices-otherwise being potentially effective for realizations of the different actions that would be chosen in them. A determinism such as CDpss* that is consistent with actual natural choices being causes of action, can thus be, as CDpss* is, incompatible with agents' being in control of their actions in any sense that requires that sometimes effective choicesotherwise on their parts are possible.

140 Puzzles for the Will 7.6.3 There are varieties of determinism - that is, there are conjunctions of forms of determinism and fixity-assumptions concerning the past and laws that imply fatalism precisely as that distressing doctrine is understood by Moore and Stevenson. Included here are almost certainly the very varieties of determinism that Moore and Stevenson had more or less explicitly in mind, some of the implications of which these philosophers seem simply to have missed. The problem posed for free will by CDpss* is not, as Moore might have expected (see Moore 1912, 135-7), that, or only that, it makes doubtful whether we can choose differently than we choose. CDpss* can concede the possibility of such choices-otherwise, while adding to its concession the words 'for what such choices would be worth.' For the problem posed by CDpss* is that such choices, even if possible, would invariably be worthless, since even if we were to make them, we would not act on them. We would be caused not to act on them by things over which no human beings have ever had any control, namely, the laws of nature and the ancient pre-human past. 7.6.4 Moore, it seems, thought that it was simply obvious and "quite certain ... that we often should have acted differently, if we had chosen to ... [is] quite consistent with the principle of causality" (ibid., 136-7). But it is certainly not obvious and quite certain that such counterfactual propositions are consistent with the principle of causality. How could it be? It is, after all, not obvious how the principle of causality, with its talk of 'causes' is to be understood, and so its implications for powers and abilities are not obvious. I have shown that on one interpretation of 'the principle of causality' - one interpretation that is in line with philosophical tradition and ordinary thinking about causes and the past far from its being quite certain that it is consistent with our acting differently were we to choose differently, it is quite certain and demonstrable that it is not consistent with that. 17.6.5 Evidently, propositions that are inconsistent need not be obviously inconsistent. A related point of relevance to an argument that can be found in (Lehrer 1966) is that it can happen that possible information would be highly relevant evidentially to some doubted proposition, and no evidence at all for or against some believed proposition, even when these propositions are in point of logical fact inconsistent. It can be (now comes a slightly different point) that some doubted proposition and some believed proposition are both highly plausible conditional on some piece of possible evidence, even when these propositions are inconsistent. After formal preliminaries I will present a case to these points. 7.6.5.1 Credences and conditional credences are numbers in the range o to I inclusive. A person's credences are to measure his degrees of confidence in propositions so that Cr(p) > Cr(q) if and only if his confidence in p exceeds his

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confidence in q, and his confidence in p is high only if Cr(p) > .5. A person's 'conditional credences' or 'credences on conditions' are to reflect in a certain manner what are in his view evidential bearings of propositions on one another. His conditional credences are to be such that the directed difference, if any, between his credence for a proposition q, and his credence for it on some condition p, Cr(q/p)-0(q), measures what is for him the positive or negative potential evidential bearing, if any, of p on q. This difference should measure the difference, if any, that learning p (and nothing else that is in his view of independent evidential relevance to q) would make to his confidence in q. (Cf. Sobel 1997.) For reasons developed below, it is not to be expected that persons' credences are 'probabilities': in particular, it is not to be expected that persons' credences for logical necessities and impossibilities are invariably i and o respectively. Credence-functions that need not be probability-functions figure in discussions of (Sobel 1987). 7.6.5.2 The promised case. Suppose that proposition W says about Moore G.E. Moore himself or a contemporary descendant - that, though Moore will not walk a mile in eight minutes on a certain day, he will on that day be able to choose to do so, and if he were on that day to choose to do so, then he would do what he had chosen to do, and walk a mile in eight minutes. Assume that Moore has almost no confidence in W: Cr(W) ~ o ('-' abbreviates 'is nearly'). A pace of a mile in eight minutes is, he is almost sure, beyond his present capacities. And he is almost sure it will forever remain beyond his capacities, and that he will forever remain of the opinion that this is so. So he thinks it will always be difficult at best for him to choose that pace, for he thinks he will always still think that it is beyond him. He thinks, furthermore, that even if he somehow managed to make that choice, he would not act on it: he thinks, he is almost sure, that no matter how hard he tried to act on that choice, he would not manage to sustain that pace over a mile. Let E be some possible evidence that once accepted would convince Moore that W is true. E might say that he will regularly walk miles at that pace on days leading up to the day in question. Moore of course has very little confidence in E. Presumably he has even less confidence in E than in W, since E would have him attain that pace not only more often but sooner than W would: O(E) < Cr(W). Even so, it is plausible (check this) that though Moore places very little confidence in E, his credence for W conditional on E is very high. Assume that this conditional credence is very high, O(W/E) = i, and that were he somehow,

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this very moment, to learn and to become certain that E (as he might do if he were told that E by someone who he is convinced knows his physical condition and capacities far better than he, Moore himself, does), he would then be very confident of W. Assume, that is, that to Moore's mind, E would be sufficient evidence to establish that W almost beyond a doubt, that to his mind E is highly relevant evidentially (positively of course) to W: Cr(W/E) - O(W) = i. Let CP be a causal principle that says that every event has a cause. Assume that Moore is a causal determinist and sure, or at least nearly sure, that CP is true: Cr(CP) ~ I. It is plausible that regardless of the exact character of CP, to Moore's mind the possible evidence that E is quite irrelevant to CP. It is plausible (check this) that even if CP implies Ancient Causes, and Moore takes for granted that the past and laws of nature are weakly fixed relative to choices, were he to come into the surprising evidence that E it would make no difference to his confidence in CP. It is plausible that this surprising information would neither enhance nor diminish his confidence in CP. Assume that this is so, and that his conditional credence for CP (whatever the exact character in his view of this principle) given E, though very high, is so merely because his simple credence for CP is that high. We are assuming that E is for Moore quite irrelevant evidentially to CP, so that learning E would make no difference to his confidence in CP. We are, in other words, assuming that there is no difference between his simple credence for CP and his credence for CP conditional on E: Cr(CP/E) - Cr(CP) = o. 7.6.5.3 Points made by this case. Does all this show that, at least as Moore understands CP, CP and W are not logically inconsistent? Is this shown in particular by the fact that Moore's conditional credences, O(W/E) and Cr(CP/E), are both very high? No, that circumstance shows only that Moore does not think that CP and W are logically inconsistent. Moore may not appreciate the implications of CP as he understands it. He may not appreciate all that it implies for him given his ordinary idea of 'cause,' and given what for him is implicit in CP for the causal structure of the world. CP may well be, for Moore, a Restricted Weak Fixed-Laws and Fixed-Past Determinism. (I am confident that it was for the historic Moore.) Furthermore, CP as he understands it may well imply Ancient Causes: this could be because he thinks there is a minimum duration for causes, or because he thinks that CP does not say for him merely that events have causes, but that they have causes reaching back into all epochs. If CP, as Moore understands it, is of such a compound character, then it is inconsistent with W, and, given the story we have told, this inconsistency is not obvious to Moore. This follows from the story, since if this inconsistency were obvious to Moore, then his credences and conditional credences would not be as they have been depicted: W and CP would not both be highly plausible for him condi-

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tional on E; and it would not be that for him E, though highly relevant evidentially to W, is quite irrelevant evidentially to CP. 7.6.5.4 Credences in the story are not probabilities. In the story we have that Cr(W/E) and Cr(CP/E) are both high. But if CP and W are logically inconsistent, then conditional probabilities for W on E, and for CP on E, cannot both be high. For it is theorem of probability that ~O(CP & W) ID ([/MW/E) > -5]) =5 ~([/V(CP/E) > .5]). For substantiation, assume that ~O(CP & W). Then, for any probability function Pr, (i)

Pr(E & W) + Pr(E & CP) < Pr(E).

(// it were also that D (W v CP) - which makes no sense in the story - then it would be that Pr(E & W) + Pr(E & CP) = Pr(E) for every probability function.) Given that Pr(E) > o, we have the identities (ii)

Pr(W/E) = Pr(E & W)/Pr(E)

and

(iii)

Pr(CP/E) = Pr(E & CP)/Pr(E).

It follows from (i), (ii), and (iii) that (iv)

[/V(W/E) > .5] ID ~[/V(CP/E) > .5].

To see this consider that it follows from (i) that if Pr(E & W) is more than half of /V(E), then Pr(E & CP) is not more than half of /V(E). (Standardly, conditional probabilities, fr(q/p), are defined for all and only pairs of propositions (q,p) such that Pr(p) > o. I favour, but am not assuming here, a non-standard approach that defines them for all pairs (q,p) such that O(p), and that makes the standard definition an axiom: Sobel 1997; in Sobel 1987 and I99oc I fail to make explicit the requirement that O(p).) Moore's conditional credences for W on E, and for CP on E, measured on a o-to-i scale, do not conform to this just substantiated theorem for conditional probabilities, as they would surely do if it were obvious to him that CP and W are logically inconsistent. So we may conclude that it is not obvious to Moore that CP and W are logically inconsistent, which of course is not to say that they

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are not logically inconsistent, since they may be logically inconsistent without this being obvious to Moore or to anyone. If they are not logically consistent, then, as we have seen, Moore's degrees of confidence and views of evidential bearings are not represented by a probability function - his credences are not probabilities. But then I am sure that no one's degrees of confidence and views of evidential bearings are represented by a probability function or, to accommodate unsettled and imprecise confidences and views, by a set of probability functions. A probability function assigns i to every necessarily true proposition, and o to every necessarily impossible one, and I am sure everyone is in doubt regarding at least some propositions that are either necessarily true or necessarily false. Most people are in doubt concerning, for example, whether or not there are seven consecutive sevens in the decimal expansion of pi, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Yet it is either necessary that there are, or necessary that there are not, seven consecutive sevens in this expansion. However, while it cannot be expected that a person's credences and conditional credences will conform with a probability function, they can be expected to conform at points and, under certain doxastic conditions, to probability-principles. In our case, as has been said, if it were obvious — if it were obvious — to Moore that W and CP are logically inconsistent, then, given his appreciation of the antecedent of the probability-principle ~O(CP & W) => ([/V(W/E) > .5]) => ~([/V(CP/E) > .5]), his credences would conform to it. If it were obvious to Moore that W and CP are logically inconsistent, then his conditional credences for W and CP on E, which in our story are both high, would not both be high. From which it follows only that it is not obvious to this Moore of our story that W and CP are logically inconsistent, even though it is plausible that his understanding of CP is such that it is logically inconsistent with W.I 7.7 On Control and Moral Responsibility I confine myself elsewhere in the present chapter mainly to the issue of whether determinism, variously specified, is compatible with what I term 'Minimal Free Will,' that is, with the possibility of effective choices-otherwise. I do not therefore go into issues concerning the analysis of control, and of agency. Also left out is every consideration of possible challenges of determinisms to moral responsibility, of which category I confess to not having a secure grasp (and indeed to having doubts). In the present section I venture briefly beyond my main issue. After producing in my own words a certain compatibilist line with

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which, as it happens, I am not in sympathy, I draw words of criticism of this line from authors recent and not so recent. 7.7.1 A compatibilist line concerning determinism, control, and moral responsibility. A philosopher might say: "Stevenson thinks that to be in control it is necessary that there be possible for a person effective choice-otherwise. In fact, however, whether someone is in control of his actions depends only on conditions such as that his actions are caused by his desires, reflected upon, approved of, and identified with (cf. Blumenfeld 1988). It is a mistake to suppose, as Stevenson does, that people are in control, as it is important to them that they be, only when effective choices-otherwise on their parts are possible. Furthermore, this control which does not entail the possibility of effective choices-otherwise, is sufficient for moral responsibility. Being in control of one's actions, in so far as its matters personally and morally, is consistent with CDpss*. To be in this manner in control of one's actions does not entail that one has the kind of control over them that CDpss* excludes." 7.7.2 In lieu of discussion here of this line - according to which determinism, even if inconsistent with Minimal Free Will and the possibility of effective choices-otherwise, is consistent with all the freedom that matters personally and morally - I offer two opposing opinions by authors who are more comfortable than I am with the category of moral responsibility. Recently, against the idea that when "the causal history [however far back it goes] of [a person's] action has the right pattern [in which it culminates in firstorder desires of his which conform to his second-order desires, all of which have been generated in a context of rational evaluation of reasons, then] he is free and morally responsible," Derk Pereboom has defended with a series of cases "[t]he incompatibilist intuition ... that if an action results from a deterministic causal process that traces back to factors beyond the control of the agent, he is not morally responsible for the action. ... ordinary intuitions about moral responsibility in specific cases [notwithstanding]" (1995, 23 and 25). "The incompatibilist's most fundamental claim is that moral responsibility requires that one's choice and action not result from a deterministic causal process that traces back to factors beyond one's control [where it does not matter by what path it traces back to such factors]" (ibid., 27). Of relevance to present issues is Pereboom's observation that "[t]his [fundamental claim] ... does not entail ... that moral responsibility requires that one be able to choose to do otherwise, and this proposition, for the reasons Frankfurt has advanced, is best rejected" (ibid.). Kant, regarding the problem "how can a man be called quite free ... with respect to the... action in which he is subject to physical necessity," derogated as "wretched subterfuge ... [and] petty word-jugglery" the would-be solution that

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although the actions of man are necessarily determined by causes which precede in time, we yet call them free, because these causes are ideas produced by our own faculties, whereby desires are evoked on occasion of circumstances, and hence actions are wrought according to our pleasure. In fact, in the question of the freedom which must be the foundation of all moral laws and the consequent responsibility, it does not matter whether the principles which necessarily determine causality by a physical law reside within the subject or without him, or in the former case whether these principles are instinctive or are conceived by reason, if, as is admitted by these [determinists, of whom determinist Kant is not one] themselves, these determining ideas have the ground of their existence in time and in the antecedent state, and this again in an antecedent, &c. (from Critique of Practical Reason 96, in Abbott, trans., 1923, 189-90)

Kant and Pereboom speak against the sufficiency for moral responsibility of the compatibilist 'choiceless' control and freedom of section 7.6.6.1. Against its sufficiency for personal self-esteem, Dostoyevsky might say that 'men' wish to be 'men,' not pianos, not even player-pianos - that they wish to be initiators and "'not wholly moved movers'" (O'Connor 1995, 174). Additional discussion of kinds of control and 'choiceless freedom' that are compatible with robust determinisms that are not compatible with 'freedom of choice' is conducted in section 4 of chapter 4 below. Pursued there are the important issues of whether any such forms of control and freedom can be sufficient, as far as conditions of freedom go, for Peter Strawson's 'reactive attitudes' of engagement, and whether they can be sufficient for deliberation and self-conscious agency. 8. THE COMPATIBILITY OF FREE WILL WITH AN EXTREMELY DEMANDING MODE OF A VENERABLE AND RELATIVELY DEMANDING FORM OF DETERMINISM

It is I suppose not a surprise that CDpss*, even though a relatively undemanding mode of form CD-3, is incompatible with Free Will. Of more interest perhaps, and possibly somewhat surprising, is that an extremely demanding mode of the form State-to-State Causal Determinism - Every state has an antecedent cause that is a state, which is CD-i (or CDss), is compatible with Free Will. We shall consider CD-i*, the Necessary, Fixed-Laws, and Fixed-Past mode of CDSS. CD-i*, or CDSS*, is of the most demanding mode in my catalogue of modes of determinisms. CD *, recall, is not Necessary in any manner, and it is Fixed-Laws and

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Fixed-Past only weakly, and restrictedly relative to choices proper. In contrast, CDSS* is - relative to everything that can happen or begin at a time, and so relative not only to choices proper but to natural choices, and indeed to all natural states and processes with beginnings - Necessary, fully Fixed-Laws, and fully Fixed-Past. Its mode is more stringent at numerous points than CDpss*'s. The key to even this very demanding mode of causal determinism's compatibility with Free Will is that - in contrast with all versions of CDpss - given its form, CDSS* does not imply Ancient Causes. It is not true of CDSS* that when "we wind our way back along the deterministic chain of causes that [it says] results in [an agent's] reasoning and desires [and thence his action] ... we [necessarily] reach causal factors that are beyond his control - causal factors that he could not have produced, altered, or prevented [because they antedate his birth]" (Pereboom 1995, 23). To show compatibility of a variety of determinism with Free Will it is sufficient to describe, in a manner consistent with this variety, a case in which a person can by choice act otherwise. It is not necessary that the case be believable. All that is required for logical compatibility is that its specifications be consistent with the variety at issue. I first detail, in section 8.1, and then, in section 8.2, comment at some length on, a case that shows that CD-i* is compatible with Free Will. The case and some of the comments are briefly reprised in a manner sufficient for many readers in section 8.3. 8. i A Detailed Case Suppose that I have just at t decided to pause in four minutes, save the document on my screen, and take Dubber for a walk. And suppose that when the time comes I will do these things. Since that is a lot, it will be convenient to concentrate just on the save part: let this part be S at t4. Could I have chosen not to save at t4, and, consequent to this choice, not save at t4? One would think so. One would think that I could have at t chosen $ at t4 (let this be my not saving at t4), and that had I made that choice, then when the time t4 came I would succeed in acting on it and not saving. The question is whether this thought is consistent with CDSS*. The answer to this question is Yes. Now comes a demonstration of this answer. It is required for that consistency that there be no changes in the past before t, the time of the choice-otherwise, and no changes in natural laws - no repeals, no new additional legislation. Therefore let there be no such changes. Even so one can consistent with CDSS* have, given the choice-otherwise for $ at t4, $ at t4 rather than S at t4. How? Let $ at t4 be a series of states of my body, no one of which precedes t4. (It would have been simpler, but possibly less realistic, to

148 Puzzles for the Will have $ at t4 be not a process of several states, but simply a single state, of my body at t4.) Have a state D of my brain at t2 be, for every state in $ at t4, a cause. (It could be a cause for later states in this series by being a cause for earlier states.) Have a state D' of my brain at t, be a cause of D; a state D" of my brain at t,/2 be a cause of D', and so on. None of these causes will occur at or before t. An act-otherwise along with causes for it have been placed in the case subsequent, and we can assume consequent, to the choice-otherwise, and all in a manner that is clearly consistent with CD-i*. What, however, about the choice to do $ at t4, the choice that will not take place, but that we are supposing will take place? How does choice-otherwise get into my construction? Doesn't CDSS*, Necessary Determinism that it is, require that to place it in our construction we must enter causes for it? And isn't that precluded, since CD-i* requires that the past to this choice's time, and the laws, would not be changed were it made? The second question has point only if the answer to the first question is Yes. But the answer to that first question is a resounding No. CDSS* requires that every state should have an antecedent cause, but, to recall with added emphasis what I have said about choices: "Choices, as understood here, that is, these acts of wills of agents, would not themselves be states of the world or possible subjects of or laws of nature." Choices, choices proper, do not as far as CDSS* goes need causes. But it is part of the story of these 'real choices' that they are typically responsible (acausally) for and reflected in states of the world, specifically certain sets of minds of agents or natural choices. Could the choice-otherwise at t to do $ at t4 be reflected in a natural-choice otherwise? Yes. States in which the choice for $ at t4 was reflected would need causes according to CDSS*. But in our case we can, and I hereby do, take unending series (D at t 2 , D' at t,, D" at t I/2 , D'" at t 1/4 ,...) of states of my brain, to be the relevant set of my mind or natural choice in which that choice-otherwise would be reflected. In the construction each state in this series would have as a cause the next state in the series (which state would precede it in time - the series is in reverse temporal order), so that this series, this 'set of mind' as 1 am now supposing it to be, would have all of the causes CDSS* requires for it. It is not a requirement of CDSS*, state-to-stafe determinism that it is, that this series of causes, were it to take place, would be prefigured in states antecedent to the time of its commencement, or to the time when I (the agent) would 'make' it, whether by a choice proper or, if one prefers to 'leave these out of this,' somehow directly. In particular, CDSS* does not imply that this series of causes, this natural choice, would be causally prefigured in antecedent beliefs and preferences. (Indeed, it is not implied that it would in any way, causal or otherwise, be prefigured in states that could be thought of as constituting subjective reasons for it at the time of its choice or

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origination. CDSS* leaves room for choices that are, relative to choosers' beliefs and preferences, irrational, which, I think, is as it should be.) But what about the causes of the act S at t4 that will take place? Doesn't CDSS* require that they go back ultimately to causes that pre-date not only t but my birth? Certainly not. In contrast with CDpss*, CDSS* does not imply that states have ancient causes. This is why one cannot simply apply to CDSS*, the argument for incompatibility that works for CDpss*. It is consistent with CDSS* that the actual causes of S at t4 should consist of actual states of my brain each of which post-dates any prior-to-t4-time one likes. S at t4 need not, as far as CDSS* is concerned, have causes that come at or before t, the time of my actual choice of S for t4, and of my possible choice of $ for t4. We therefore may, and I now do, assume that the actual causes of S at t4 themselves make a fast-starting series of which t is the latest early bound. Let them make a series that, given a choice of $ at t4, would be replaced by, or changed into, the fast-starting series of D-causes of $ at t4 described in the previous paragraph in which a choice-otherwise at t for $ at t4 would be reflected. Then, given that choice-otherwise, there would be all the causes CDSS* requires for $+• at t., 4' and no causes for S at t.. 4 I have explained how effective proper-choices-otherwise are consistent with CDSS*, and at the same time, for sceptics of choices proper, how effective natural-choices-otherwise are consistent with CDSS*. 8.2 Comments and Discussion 8.2.1 Reflections on Science Effective choices-otherwise that could be consistent with CDSS* would not necessarily involve violations of possibly sacrosanct conservation principles such as that "particle world lines do not have beginning or end points and mass is constant along a world line" (Earman 1986, 38). One may wonder, even so, whether effective choices-otherwise consistent with CD-i* can be plausible. One may wonder in particular whether choices-otherwise as realized in our construction would be consistent with brains as currently understood. What follows in this section are thoughts reached when reflecting on comments made by William Seager. A beginningless series of brain-states arranged so that each was a sufficient cause of its successor would, supposing unchanging and finite sets of possible brain-states during the series's period, need to cycle countless times. So one might wonder how, consistent with CDSS*, such a series could need, or could take, non-infinitesimal periods of time to issue in overt action, since it would take less than any finite time to reach any given possible brain-state. In

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response I say that though these series - these 'brainstorms' or 'mini-bangs' would not take appreciable intervals of times to reach particular possible brainstates, it can be that periods of time must elapse before their effects in other parts of the agent's body can take place. In cases of choices-otherwise that are to be acted upon directly and without delay, brief delays might, though not wanted, be imposed by muscle-response chemistry. Early states in the series could 'cue up' muscles that signals emanating only from much later states were sufficient to 'fire.' In other cases, in cases of choices-otherwise made in advance and not to be acted upon directly, delays could be planned and implemented by placing signals from brainstorms 'on hold' for future transmissions. Signals could be 'placed on hold' with provisions for their automatic releases at times for chosen actions. And the brainstorms themselves might in some cases commence only some time after proper choices that called them forth. The specific construction proposed seems consistent with the finiteness and relatively fixed character of brains. However, it seems not consistent with there being a minimum time required after a change in brain-state before another one can take place. Supposing that brain-states are simply patterns of neuron states of which there are only two, 'on' (firing) and 'off (not firing), such a minimum time would be implied by the finite number of a brain's neurons, and a minimum recovery or recharging period between firings of any given neuron. The specific construction proposed to show that CDSS* is compatible with Free Will is, I am persuaded, not consistent with currently sophisticated views about brains. Perhaps no construction to do 'early on' exclusively with brains and other things physical is possible that would be currently believable by persons possessed of such up-to-date views. Perhaps - it is not for me to judge the conjunction of CDSS* with Free Will, though possibly true, is thus not currently believable by the scientifically sophisticated, so that for them CDSS* is merely logically compatible with Free Will. This could be because they would find believable only constructions that had to do 'early on' exclusively with brains and other physical things, and would reject out of hand recourse to beginningless initial blurs of mental states related to brain-states only as antecedent causes (mental states that were neither correlated with nor supervenient upon contemporaneous brain-states). 8.2.2 More Metaphysics Robert Bright has observed that my construction proves the consistency of Free Will with CDSS* in only a certain restricted sense, and that this consistency result is thus far less strong than one would have hoped. The construction shows only that there is room for effective choices-otherwise when the causes of the action or omission that would be replaced constitute themselves an

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already in place fast-starting series that post-dates what would be that choice's time. This restriction is unavoidable, and not just a feature of my specific construction. For an effective choice-otherwise would need to 'lose' all the causes of the action to be replaced, and it could do this, given CDSS*, only if all of these post-dated what would be its time. Given CDSS*, however, all of an action's causes can post-date some time only if they make a fast-starting series. This detracts, but I am not sure that it detracts significantly, from the strength of my consistency result. For one can maintain that such fast-starting series are in place for every action for the replacement of which an effective choice-otherwise is possible. There are always fast-starting series in place, and one can say that when effective choices-otherwise are possible, there is such a series that is a complete series of causes for the action that would be replaced by choicesotherwise. It is, as said, an unavoidable feature of my construction that the causes of the action to be replaced all post-date what would be the time of the effective choice-proper-otherwise that would lead to that action's replacement. This is because that effective choice-proper-otherwise would have to lead to the elimination of these causes. It is a further feature of my specific construction that the causes of the action to be replaced make a series whose time or latest early bound is what would be the time of the choice-otherwise. But this further feature is not unavoidable in constructions that show the consistency of CDSS* and Free Will. The time of that series could post-date what would be the time of the choice-otherwise, just as the time of that series can post-date the time of an actual choice proper, if any, that is responsible for the action to be replaced. The causes of that action can have a latest early bound that post-dates the time of its actual choice proper. Incidentally, the possibility of effective actual choices proper being responsible for effective natural choices whose times post-date the times of these choices proper makes room for the possibility of overriding effective actual choices proper by subsequent choices-proper-otherwise. My construction features an effective actual choice proper that is simply replaced by an effective proper choice-otherwise. We now see, however, that this is not essential to constructions that show the consistency of CDSS* and Free Will. An effective proper choice-otherwise could, consistently with CDSS*, be made at a time later than the time of the proper choice it would counter, and without wiping it out override it. 18.2.3 On the Logic of States and Processes 8.2.3.1 Possibility. It is consistent with CD * that sometimes a choice-other-

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wise would be effective if it were possible. But is it consistent with CDSS* that choices-otherwise should sometimes be possible? Yes, and this is so whether the issue of possibility concerns proper or natural choices-otherwise. CDSS* leaves open that a person can make choices proper other than those he will make, and choices proper to act differently than he will act. For choices choices proper - are not in the natural world or subjects of natural laws. Choices proper are not 'states,' and CDSS* is a state-to-state determinism. Choices-proper-otherwise are of course consistent with CDSS*. But what about natural choices-otherwise? (It was claimed in section 5.1.3 that arguments then to come would all be readdressable to natural choices.) These too are consistent with CDSS*, for natural choices can be processes that involve several states. In particular, natural choices can be fast-starting beginningless brainstorms or mini-mental-bangs. We have seen — recall the D-series of causes described above - how non-actual processes of this sort can consistently with CDSS* be supposed. It is true that if C is such a natural choice-otherwise, then were it to take place, states would take place which states cannot be supposed consistently with CDSS*. Indeed, in profound contrast with non-actual processes, no non-actual state can be supposed consistently with CDSS*. Given CDSS*, every non-actual state is 'counterfactually impossible' or in other words not even entertainable. Lines for a demonstration of this consequence of CDSS* can be gathered from the deduction in Addendum (i) to section 7.2 above of a similar consequence of CD-3**. (It is shown in Addendum (i) that it is not consistent with CD-3** that any non-actual natural choice, whether it would be a single state or a process, should be entertainable. CD-3**, it mav be noted, makes not only certain states unentertainable, but also certain processes, because it is a mode of Perpetual State-to-State Causal Determinism.) However, though, given CDSS*, the realization of a non-actual natural choice must include 'counterfactually impossible' non-actual states, this does not mean that the choice itself must be impossible in this sense. It is what should be an easily resisted fallacy of distribution that tempts one to the view that CDSS* allows a non-actual process, C, to be possible at a time, only if it allows - as it never does - each non-actual state, S, in what would be the realization of this process to be possible. For C might be a fast-starting beginningless process. C could be from the standpoint of CDSS* a causally self-sufficient fast-starting beginningless process that includes for S, and indeed for each state in C, a statecause. Given CDSS*, if such a C were to take place, then the laws and the past to the time of C would be unchanged, but the past to the time of S, indeed the past to the time of each state in C, would be changed. Non-actual processes can be possible given CDss* in the sense that they can be supposed without contradiction to take place, even though they must involve

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non-actual states that cannot be supposed without contradiction to take place. (Compare with observations in Sobel 1967 concerning cases in which, though no one of several persons can do a certain thing [that is, though it is not possible for any of several persons to do this thing] they can all do it.) When modalities are founded in various ways on subjunctively conditional features, it can happen that their applications to wholes, and to parts of these wholes, are logically independent. What would be (e.g., P(S)), given a relatively weak counterfactual supposition (e.g., the supposition that S) need not be included in what would be given a stronger supposition that entails the weaker one (e.g., the supposition that C, which by hypothesis entails S): strengthening the antecedent is not invariably valid for subjunctive conditionals. Also, even if some counterfactual supposition would have a certain counterfactual consequence (e.g., in our case,

(C D-> S), since C is said to entail S), and the counterfactual supposition of that consequence would itself have a certain other consequence (e.g., in our case, (S D-> [D([L & P(S)] => S) & ~D([L & P(S)] => S)]),

since CDSS* makes part of our case), it does not follow that that initial counterfactual supposition would have this other consequence (e.g., in our case, (C D-* [D([L & P(S)] => S) & ~D([L & P(S)] => S)]),

does not follow): hypothetical syllogism is not invariably valid for subjunctive conditionals. 8.2.3.2 Lewis-entertainahility. It is noteworthy that while Lewis views strengthening of the antecedent (0D->*F) ... [( ¥] as a fallacy when addressed as here to counterfactuals (c/., Lewis 1973, 31), he endorses as valid the special case in which 4* is a contradiction _L, (O D-» 1) .-. [(0 & X) l>> 1].

In his theory, if 0 is not entertainable, then no conjunction (0 & X) is entertainable. In Lewis's theory, entertainability distributes through conjunctions, as do all

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familiar 'alethic' possibilities. More generally, his unitary operators for entertainability and 'it would be no matter what that' (p. 22) "are interpretable in the usual way" in terms of truth at some, and truth at all, worlds in a set of worlds accessible from a given base world (p. 23). This is a consequence of Lewis's decision to conduct evaluations of counterfactuals at a world in terms, (i), of a determination of which, if any, worlds are 'too far out from this world' for their relative similarities to it to matter, and, (ii), of determinations of relative similarities of worlds other than those set aside in (i) to this world, these determinations (i) and (ii) to be made once for all counterfactuals without regard to their antecedents. (See Lewis 1973, 13-14, 16, and 22.) Against Lewis's theory, I have explained how, even if CDSS* does not imply that a non-actual beginningless process is unentertainable, it can imply that each non-actual state S that would be a part of this beginningless process is unentertainable. I have explained how, assuming CDSS* for a world, it can be that for each S in C, (S Q-> -L), even though ~(C EH _L). This explanation argues for a theory roomier than Lewis's for counterfactual conditionals; it argues for a theory that allows a counterfactual's antecedent to be relevant to which worlds are, for purposes of this counterfactual's evaluation, 'too far out' for their relative similarities to it to matter. Other considerations (see Pollock 1976) may argue for a theory that is roomier by not establishing relative similarities of worlds once for all counterfactuals, regardless of their antecedents. Though Lewis counts counterfactual hypothetical syllogism

(O D-» *F), OF D-> x) .-. (OLHX) as a fallacy (cf. Lewis 1973, 32), it can be seen that he endorses the special case of this form, ( _L).-. (O EH 1). In his theory, if O is entertainable, i.e., ~(O CH i.), then, if (O D-» VF), *F is also entertainable, i.e., ~OF Q-* -L). This means that, in his theory, the conclusion of the above special case of hypothetical syllogism follows by a very simple indirect argument from its premises. I reject, for subjunctive conditionals, even this special case of hypothetical syllogism. As explained, in showing how a non-actual process can be entertainable at a CDss*-world, though none of its states are entertainable at this world, I have argued for a theory in which several principles are not valid that are valid in Lewis's theory. In particular, there are special cases of strengthening the antecedent and hypothetical syllogism that Lewis counts as valid, and that I reject.

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These special cases are not valid in a theory that allows the 'outer limit' for worlds relevant to the evaluation of a counterfactual at a world to depend on its antecedent. I 8.3 A Brief Reprise of the Case My case for the compatibility of Free Will and CDSS* is in brief as follows. I assume that the actual situation includes, (i), a choice at t0 of S at t* (in the case, 'my saving to disk' at t*), (ii), S at t*, (iii), C, a cause of S, whose time, t, is between t0 and t*, (iv), C' a cause of C whose time, t', is between t and t0, (v), C" a cause of C' at some time, t", between t' and t0, and so on. C7z(S) t0

C" C t" t'

C t

S t*

The contention of the case is that we can assume further that, if I were at t0 to choose $ at t* (incompatible with S at t*), then though the laws would be the same, and the past to t0 the same, the future from t0 would be somewhat different. We can assume that C, along with all the other causes of S, would be absent, and in their places would be causes of $, each of which would be a cause of subsequent ones. Let us say that D would be in place of C, D' in place of C', D" in place of C", and so on. Ch($} t0

D" D' t" t'

D t

$ t*

A fast-starting beginningless series of causes to $ would then be located subsequent to t0. Consistently with CDSS*, and as Free Will would have it: I can at t0 choose $ at t* both the choice proper and its consequent natural choice, which can be that fast-starting beginningless D-series, are consistent with CDSS* and if I were at t0 to choose $ at t*, then, when its time came, $ at t* would take place. That is, it is consistent with CDSS* that (Can[Ch($)] & [Ch($> D-> $]). That this is so in a case is all that Minimal Free Will requires. We see that it is

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consistent with CDSS* that it should be so in a case, and that CDSS* is therefore consistent with Minimal Free Will. The same constructions can be used to show that a similar mode of Conservative State-to-Process CD-2 Causal Determinism is consistent with Minimal Free Will. To show that similar modes of the continuous state-to-state causal determinisms, CD-4 and CD-6, are consistent with Minimal Free Will, the C- and D-series, which are discontinuous causal processes, could be replaced by continuous causal processes. The capacity for effective choices-otherwise - the capacity to choose to act in ways other than one will be caused to act, and to actually act on this choice - is consistent with several necessary, fixed-past, and fixed-law varieties of causal determinism. It is a capacity that may, depending on the causal order of nature, be possible. And if, given the actual order of nature, free will is possible, then one would expect it to be realized eventually in one way or another for some living systems. A naturalist would expect this on general evolutionary grounds even if the actual order is deterministic in a manner that, while permitting free will, makes its realization very difficult. For free will, if prudently managed, would be a very great, a marvellous, advantage in a deterministic world in which it was possible. A traditional theist would expect the capacity to have been, for its great usefulness, bestowed by God. 8.4 Summing Up We have a case consistent with CDSS* in which it is true both that a person can choose (really and naturally, see 8.2.3.1) to do a certain thing instead of something he will not only choose to do but do, and that he would do this other thing if he were to choose to do it. This shows that Free Will and CD-SS* - Necessary, Fixed-Laws, Fixed-Past State-to-State Causal-Determinism - are compatible. It shows how, consistent with this kind of determinism, it can be possible for a person to do by choice something that he will be caused not to do. Peter van Inwagen writes: "I did not conclude that free will is incompatible with the thesis that every event has a cause, but rather with determinism [defined in a certain way]. And the denial of this thesis [that is, of determinism defined in that way] does not entail that there are uncaused events" (van Inwagen 1975, J96)- Van Inwagen is contrasting a mode of a kind of Laplacean determinism with a similar mode of State-to-state Causal Determinism, and contrasting them in the way I contrast a mode of Perpetual Stateto-State Causal Determinism (CDpss*) with a considerably more demanding mode of State-to-State Causal Determinism (CDSS*). (Cf. van Inwagen 1977, 89-90.)

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8.5 A Kantian Postscript Kant believed in conditions outside the series of appearances for events in this series. He may have viewed these conditions as always for sequences of events in this series, sequences that not only lack first members, but that, unlike my series, stretch back through all time and lack beginnings in time even in the sense of latest early bounds. However, some of his words leave open that he envisioned, as phenomenal effects of these noumenal, outside-the-series-ofappearances, conditions, fast-starting beginningless sequences of the kind I have sketched. His words sometimes suggest sequences of events without beginnings in the sense of first members, but with beginnings in the sense of latest early bounds. He writes, for example, that "freedom ought not ... to be conceived only negatively as independence of empirical conditions ... It must also be described in positive terms as the power of originating a series of events ... Its effect has, indeed, a beginning in the series of appearances, but never in this series an absolutely first beginning" (Critique of Pure Reason, ^553-4/6581-2, trans. Norman Kemp Smith). The effect in the series of appearances of an exercise of freedom (of an act of will, of a choice proper) is to be beginningless. It is to be a series of events that does not have "in this series [the series of appearances] an absolutely first beginning." But then it seems that to say that, even so, a "series of events" originated by an exercise of freedom "has, indeed, a beginning in the series of appearances" could mean that this series of events has a beginning in time in the sense of a latest time that precedes all of its members. However, it may be that the troubling last sentence quoted reflects, instead of this somewhat exotic speculation, only Kant's view of world history ("the series of appearances") as always incomplete and extendable by the mind that constructs it. He may not, in addition to thinking of "the series of appearances" as ever open-ended, have envisioned the possibility of ever incomplete and open-ended series of events within "the series of appearances." He may not have envisioned parts of world-history as in this way mimicking the whole of world-history.

9. THE COMPATIBILITY OF FREE WILL WITH TWO RELATIVELY UNDEMANDING MODES OF A DEMANDING FORM OF DETERMINISM

I comment in this section on two varieties of determinism that are like doctrines that have interested recent compatibilists. Each is a mode of CDpss. The doctrines

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CD-3a: Necessary, Fixed-Laws, Variable-or-Unfixed-Past CD pss CD-3b: Necessary, Variable-or-Unfixed-Laws, Fixed-Past CD differ from CDpss* in that neither of these doctrines fixes even weakly and restrictedly both pasts and laws. Each leaves one or the other of these causal determinants of events fully variable relative to all things that can happen at times. As a consequence, in contrast with CD * and CDSS*, neither mode of CD-3 now to be considered poses even aprimafacie threat to free will. 9. i Mad-Dog Compatibilism CD-3a is obviously compatible with Free Will. For it is consistent with CD-3a that, consequent to a choice, the past, the entire past, should be altered somewhat (not necessarily much at any time) so that it should lead by the laws of nature, which would not be altered, to the chosen action. "I claim, when a person acts he or she affects the whole causal chain, stretching back into the past, as well as forwards into the future ... My proposal, then, is that in acting in an undetermined fashion I affect the past. That is how I reconcile iron laws with free acts" (Forrest 1985, 212-13). Amazing? Perhaps. Though it should be noted that CD-3a and the space it provides for free will can seem right to philosophers of idealist bents such as Berkeley and Kant. Such philosophers can think that to some extent we construct the world, including its past, in order to make sense of our always limited experience. They can think that if we act in a contra-causal fashion, then, given that experience, we would construct, we would make up, the world, and in particular the past, somewhat differently. But to philosophers for whom the world is, though relatively unknown, fully objective and real, it can seem obvious that the past is at any time fixed down to its last detail at least relative to choices and acts. It can seem obvious that there is a difference between 'realistically' and 'doxastically' intended conditionals; that the conditional involved in Free Willif x were at t' to choose to do B at t, then B would take place at tshould be, as I have stipulated, 'realistic' in intent and of the kind appropriate to contexts of deliberation and advice; and that, therefore, though 'back-tracking' (on which I have commented in section 6.3.2 above) would sometimes be appropriate when evaluating a belief-revision conditional proposition (if such propositions there be), it is never appropriate when evaluating the conditional involved in Free Will.

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9.2 Miraculous Compatibilism 9.2. i CD-3b is also compatible with Free Will, and again easily and obviously. For CD-3b countenances the possibility, the entertainability, of 'miracles.' That is, CD-3b countenances the entertainability of 'non-actual miracles': it is consistent with CD-3b that non-actual states that are incompatible with the conjunction of their pasts and the laws of nature should be possible in the relatively strong sense of being entertainable for purposes of counterfactual speculation. If such an event were to happen, then according to CD-3b, which is Fixed-Past, some law would not be true and so would of course not be a law. According to CD-3b, Necessary determinism that it is, the possible world that would obtain would itself be causally determined in the manner of CD-3. Since the history of that world, subsequent to some time but not before it, is different, this world has to be causally determined and lawful under a body of laws somewhat different from the body of laws of the actual world. How different they need to be corresponds to the 'magnitude' of the miracle posited. So, according to CD-3b there is a sense in which miracles, violations of laws of nature, can happen. It is possible that states ruled out by the past and laws should happen, and happen without the past to their times changing (according to CD-3b they would not change), even though if they were to happen, there would be a change in the laws of nature. Given that changes in laws of nature, large or small and by not only subtraction but also addition, can, as far as CD3b is concerned, make room for all sorts of happenings, they make room for persons doing things they will be caused not to do. That an agent should be able to do such a thing by choice is not challenged in the least by CD-3b. 9.2.2 Lewis indicates how, even if laws and the past are in some manners fixed - in particular, even if they are fixed relative to choices, proper and/or natural - determinisms (whether or not they are in some manner 'necessary') that do not entail that laws and the past are fixed relative to actions can accommodate actions-otherwise while countenancing only 'small' miracles that require very subtle and small adjustments to the laws. "I have just put my hand down on the desk. That, let me claim was a free but predetermined act. I was able to act otherwise, for instance to raise my hand. But [you say] there is a true historical proposition H about the intrinsic state of the world long ago, and there is a true proposition L specifying the laws of nature that govern our world, such that H and L jointly determine what I did" (Lewis 1981, 113). No problem! "If I raised my hand, some law would be broken ... The course of events would have diverged from the actual course of events a little while before I raised my hand, and at the point of divergence there would have been a law-breaking event - a divergence miracle" (ibid., 116-17). Lewis writes, "a little while before I raised

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my hand." I think (for reasons, see section 9.2.6 below), that Lewis would be happy to add, "but not before all that was involved in my choosing to raise my hand, that is, but not before the entire 'interior-to-me' program leading up to this hand-raising had run." Lewis defends compatibility of the capacity of actions-otherwise with varieties of ancient-cause determinism that entail a principle of restricted fix pasts, according to which pasts of natural choices are fixed relative to them, and similarly restricted principle of fixed laws. Of course only varieties that do not entail that the past and laws are fixed relative to actions are compatible with there being for actions-otherwise prior natural choices-otherwise, and similarly for effective natural choices-otherwise. Lewis does not defend the compatibility of actions-otherwise with determinisms that entail either fixed-relative-toactions pasts, or laws. He accepts, given determinism, action-counterfactuals that not only backtrack, but backtrack to "small, localized, inconspicuous miracle[s]" (Lewis 1973, 75). 9.2.3 Compatibilisms of various determinisms with the possibility of actsotherwise, choices-otherwise, and effective choices-otherwise should come easily to philosophers like Lewis for whom laws of nature 'govern' only by misleading metaphor, and for whom 'causes do not necessitate.' Only Variableor-Unfixed-Laws determinisms should recommend themselves to philosophers who take 'Humean views' of causal laws and see them not as constraining history, but merely as certain systematic summaries, suited to human ways of thinking, of history's patterns. Consider, for example, the ramified Ramsey-view of laws, embraced by Lewis. Of... true deductive systems, some can be axiomatized more simply than others. Also, some of them have more strength, or information content, than others... What we value ... is ... as much of both [simplicity and strength] as our way of balancing will permit. We can restate Ramsey's 1928 theory of lawhood as follows: a contingent generalization is a law of nature if and only if it appears as a theorem (or axiom) in each of the true deductive systems that achieves a best combination of simplicity and strength. A generalization is a law at [any possible] world i, likewise, if and only if it appears as a theorem in each of the best deductive systems true at i. (Lewis 1973, 73, bold emphasis added)

I note that the sentence I have emphasized is analytic of 'what we value' and 'our way of balancing,' and thus empty. The idea is that laws of nature are generalizations that are theorems of what, 'at the end of the day,' would be to our ways of human inquiry and thinking the best systems of the world. This

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"explains why we have reason to take the theorems of well-established scientific theories provisionally as laws" (p. 74): "scientific theorizing is [of course] an attempt to approximate, as best we can,... the best combination [that 'end of the day, to our way of thinking' ideal]" (74). According to the Ramsey-Lewis theory of laws of nature, what are the laws is partly up to nature, since they are true contingent generalizations, and partly up to us, since it is our way of balancing, our way of thinking systematically, that decides the best combination of simplicity and strength. To violate laws of nature thus conceived should not seem an enormity. It does not seem so to Lewis, though he does, for reasons unclear to me, display a reluctance to countenance violations, and a readiness to countenance only "small, localized, inconspicuous [divergence] miracle[s]" (75). Perhaps Kant should have thought that he had two easy ways to reconcile free will and determinism. If so it is doubly surprising that he may have been inclined - see section 8.5 above - to take a relatively hard way. 9.2.4 Certainly the principle of Restricted Fixed Laws that fixes laws relative to natural choices should not recommend itself to philosophers who view causes and effects as events related, not by objective necessitating connections, but merely regularly, and who say that "the necessity, which enters into [the idea of cause], is nothing but a determination of the mind to pass from one object to its usual attendant, and infer the existence of one from that of the other" (Hume 1888, 400, in section I of part III, "Of Liberty and Necessity," in A Treatise of Human Nature). Compare: "The Regularist [concerning causal laws of nature, among whom Norman Swartz counts himself along with Hume] agrees that one cannot undo the past ... But ... [according to the Regularity account, one can [when one has a choice] ... choose the universal law that is to apply [and that is to be a law] ... One does that ... simply by doing what one chooses to do" (Swartz 1985, 135, bold emphasis added). "Just do it!" admonishes that Humean purveyor (cited in section 5.1.4 above) of really expensive sneakers to would-be doubters. From a Regularist's Humean perspective, " 'The' problem of free will versus determinism is an artefact of the Autonomy Theory of physical laws," where that is any theory "that would vie with Regularity" (ibid., 116) and say that "physical laws are irreducible to statements [merely] about what happens" (39, bold emphasis added). What has been said to be "undeniable[,] that the laws of nature place certain constraints on our abilities" (Fischer 1994, 67), is regularly denied by regularity theorists. According to Humeans causal laws of nature neither necessitate nor prescribe, but merely describe. According to Hume himself, though having "perfprm'd any action ... we were govern'd by necessity, and ... 'twas utterly impossible for us to have acted otherwise," this necessity implies not "constraint" (Hume 1888, 407). Furthermore, in Hume's view that 'necessity'

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amounts 'objectively' to no more than the performed action's taking place: for any action that were to take place would hold up its end of some "constant union and conjunction of like objects" (409). And that 'impossibility' in Hume's view amounts to no more than other actions' not taking place. "The necessity of any action, whether of matter or of the mind, is not properly a quality in the agent [or an objective condition of things], but [only a subjective condition] in any thinking or intelligent being, who may consider the act, and consists in the determination of his thought to infer its existence from some preceding objects" (408, bold emphasis added; repeated with 'chiefly' modifying 'consists' in Hume 1902, 94n, part I of section VIII, "Of Liberty and Necessity," in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding). Objects are in themselves "entirely loose and separate" (Hume 1902, 74, part II of section VII, "Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion"), and would-be necessary connections between them are only in the minds of their beholders. However, though "we consider only the constant experienced conjunction of ... events; ... as we feel a customary connexion between the ideas, we transfer that feeling to the objects; as nothing is more usual than to apply to external bodies every internal sensation, which they occasion" (78n). So I can not 'defy gravity' and leap tall buildings in a single bound, only because I do not! That seems to be the official Humean line for strictly correct philosophic speech that does not partake of these all too common projective errors and pathetic fallacies of ordinary thought and speech. • 9.2.5 On 'actual miracles' and 'violations of laws of nature.' Many philosophers take laws of nature to be propositions that imply contingent generalizations that admit no exceptions. Lewis (as does every 'regularity theorist') takes laws of nature to be certain contingent generalizations (Lewis 1973, 73). 'Necessitarians' consider laws of nature to imply, but not to be implied by, corresponding contingent generalizations. An actual miracle would be an actual violation of an actual law. Therefore, on these common views of laws, 'actual miracle' is a contradiction in terms, and we can know a priori that, testimony and Scripture notwithstanding, miracles have never happened and never will. Hume does not in "Of Miracles" write of laws of nature as being or implying exceptionless generalizations. He writes that a miracle would be a certain kind of "transgression of a law of nature" (Hume 1902, H5n, original italics), and insists throughout on the difficulty of having sufficient evidence for beliefs in miracles, especially sufficient testimonial evidence for religious miracles (cf., 127-9). But he takes for granted that actual miracles, even religious ones, are possible. He nowhere suggests that short shrift can be given to all testimony for miracles since we can know a priori that no miracle has ever happened. He nowhere suggests that the very phrase 'actual miracle' is a contradiction in

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terms. On the contrary, the laws of nature of which he speaks would evidently admit of"transgression[s] ... by ... particular volition[s] of the Deity, or by the interposition[s] of ... [other] invisible agent[s]" (ii5n). It seems that these would be extra-natural volitions and interpositions. Hume says that laws are established by "a firm and unalterable experience" (ibid., 114). He would perhaps have said that they are "founded merely on our experience of ... constant and regular conjunction," as are "all the inferences, which we can draw from one [object] to another (in). But Hume in "Of Miracles" does not "define ... laws to be constant conjunctions" (Swartz 1985, 108). There is no evidence there that 'the Humean view of laws' was Hume's view, and there is as indicated considerable evidence that it was not there Hume's view. "But then what exactly was Hume's view in 'Of Miracles' of laws of nature, if, as many of his words there require, they are not statements of exceptionless regularities?" I am not sure. I believe we cannot look elsewhere in his work for direct help, for I think he uses the phrase 'law of nature' elsewhere only in moral/political senses (see Hume 1888, 410, in section 2, "Of Liberty and Necessity," and Selby-Bigge's indices in Hume 1888 and 1902). It is, however, plausible that in "Of Miracles" Hume used 'laws of nature' in a popular and uncritical sense. It is plausible that in "Of Miracles" Hume used 'laws of nature' in what, in a deeper philosophical discussion, he would have denigrated as a would-be sense, a confused error-driven sense, as he did denigrate "the frequent use of the words, Force, Power, Energy, &c ... in common conversation, as well as philosophy" (Hume 1902, 77n). These partake in Hume's view of those already mentioned nonsensical, illicit projections of internal sentiments, expectations, and determinations to infer, than which patterns of projection of internal conditions onto objects the experiences of which occasion them, "nothing is more usual" (Hume 1902, 77-8n). It is plausible that Hume used 'laws of nature' as if descriptive of necessary connections and contingently necessary patterns in nature that are for us absolutely inviolable, though a deity and other invisible agents, if such there be, could violate and transgress them.I 9.2.6 Lewis would have a 'small' divergence-miracle come before the act otherwise, but, I think, not before the natural choice for or decision to do this act (and so not before the time when a deliberator was contemplating it). I think he would have the process of natural choice begin in that miracle. That Gibbard and Harper assume the condition of Restricted Fixed-Past is evidence for this. They fix pasts relative to choices, and they imply that their stance is endorsed by Lewis: "We consider only worlds in which the past [to the instant of decision] is exactly like the actual past, for since the agent cannot now alter the past, those are the only worlds relevant to his decision. Lewis ("Causation," Journal

164 Puzzles for the Will of Philosophy, 1973, and in conversation) suggests that a proper treatment of overall similarity will yield as a deep consequence of general facts about the world the conditions we are imposing by fiat" (Gibbard and Harper 1985, I58n2; first published 1978). They say that, given at t an effective decisionotherwise to do a, "the world ... unfolds after t in accordance with [actual] physical law, and ... initial conditions at time t [the time of the decision-otherwise] are minimally different from conditions in the actual worlds at t in such a way that 'I do a' is true ... The differences in initial conditions should be entirely within the agent's decision-making apparatus" (ibid., 136, bold emphasis added). I note that the construction employed in my argument for the compatibility of CDSS* with Free Will (see section 8.1 above) satisfies conditions imposed by Gibbard and Harper, if we replace 'initial conditions at time t' by 'conditions after time t' and ignore the restriction to physical law. Indeed, not only does my construction satisfy their specifications thus modified, but it allows the world to unfold before and at time t, as well as after it, in accordance with actual laws even if these are comprehensive for the world, and the world is determined according to CDSS. In my construction the time of the choice proper comes before the times of all novel states for which it would be acausally responsible, and, connectedly, the time of its natural choice is the latest time that precedes all the times of its states. These differences between our constructions having been stated, I confess that I find their construction more plausible. While actual choices are of course not miraculous, I think that, as contemplated in their construction, at least some choices-otherwise would be miraculous in that they would begin in contracausal states. Though I think that 'causes' as 'ordinarily conceived' (scarequotes here for Humean qualms concerning causes in ordinary talk and thought) would be really 'productive' of their effects (cf. Sapire 1991, 324 and passim); in my view — a view detailed in section 7.2 and 7.3 of chapter 2 above — they would even so be sometimes contravenable by choice. Connectedly, I think that 'laws' as ordinarily conceived are never variable by choice, as if given some choice-otherwise there should be laws that while different had the same scopes as actual laws do and still covered all this choice's moments. But 'deterministic laws' would be sometimes contravenable by choice, and tendencies of 'full force causes,' though real, would be sometimes effectively neutralizable and opposable by free agents. Also a free agent could, without violating laws of "'chancy' or probablistic" indeterministic causation, choose-otherwise and then do the chosen action, though "until her performance ... the chance that she would perform it remained somewhere between zero and one" (Clarke 1995, 204) - of course.

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Conclusions i o.i "So is determinism compatible with free will, or is it not? Yes or No? Can we, if determinism is true, choose to do, and by our choices do, things other than we will be caused to do? Again please, Yes or No!" Sorry, I offer as answers to these questions only, "Yes and No." I can, however, add some remarks that may be useful. First, while there are varieties of determinism that are incompatible with Free Will, they are demanding varieties. My principal example is CDpss*, whose form is very demanding. Furthermore, one can have considerable determinism, enough I think to satisfy many philosophers, and have Free Will too. My principal example here is CDSS*, which doctrine is in mode much more demanding than CDpss*, and meets, I think, most of the expectations of philosophers who view determinism as a potential threat to free will. Included here are philosophers who think that the world would be determined no matter what were to happen at a time, who are furthermore realists concerning causal connections and the past who think that both the past and all causal laws are always fully fixed relative to anything that can happen at a time. In reprise of the compatibilist side of my argument, suppose that a philosopher were convinced that every event has an antecedent cause. Suppose he or she believed that every state has an antecedent natural cause. Could this philosopher believe in an agent's capacities to make choices other than those this agent will make? Could he or she believe in an agent's capacities to originate natural choices and thence actions other than those that will in fact take place? Could he or she believe in an agent's capacities to make up his mind, to set his mind, in ways other than it will in fact be made up and set? Yes. If this philosopher's metaphysical conscience were satisfied with causes 'state-by-constituent-state' for all actions, thoughts, desires, and natural choices, and were to countenance fast-starting causally self-sufficient processes, then he or she could have it both ways. He or she could be a CDss-Determinist and a believer in free will. This philosopher could have it both ways even if he or she were to make things especially difficult for his or her self by insisting on a variety of Causal Determinism that is Necessary and Unrestrictedly Fixed-Laws and Fixed-Past. To reprise the incompatibilist side of my argument, a philosopher cannot, if he or she would believe in free will, believe that every event has a cause at every antecedent time, and believe this in even a Weak Restricted Fixed-Laws and Fixed-Past mode. A philosopher who believed in such a determinism would think that actions all have ancient causes - causes that pre-date their agents' births - and think that if a choice-otherwise were made, neither the past to its time nor the laws would be changed. So he or she would need to think that even

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if a choice-otherwise were made, it would not be acted upon. Such a determinist would need in the end to think that even if possible, choices-otherwise would always be futile and pointless, unless, of course, reflecting on this extraordinary consequence of his deterministic metaphysics, he changed his mind about that in itself extraordinary and troublesome deterministic metaphysics. 10.2 Some causal determinists would be, if consistent, fatalists and think that even if a choice-otherwise were made it would not be acted on and would make no difference. However, to recover phrases from section i. i of chapter i above, a causal determinist's fatalism would be based on a reason that can be denied. It would be based on a reason that, speaking as a libertarian, I would say one is free to deny. It would be based on a reason that, thinking of the metaphysical extravagance of all fixed-laws determinisms, I would say it is easy to deny. It would be based on a reason that, thinking of the importance to us that we should be agents, and of our concern "that men [should be] men and not the keys of a piano" (Dostoyevksy), we could not do better than to deny.

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[SJince reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose ... I dine, I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and ... I find myself absolutely and necessarily determin'd to live, and talk, and act like other people in the common affairs of life. David Hume (i 888, 269)

John Martin Fischer's book The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control (Fischer 1994) occasions discussions that elaborate and supplement studies of previous chapters of the present volume. The present chapter adapts and expands to serve these ends a critical notice that I have prepared of that book (Sobel forthcoming). Introduction i.i Fischer, for his 'Basic Version of the Argument for Incompatibilism,' which is designed to finesse difficulties specific to Transfer' and 'Conditional' versions, maintains that "an agent can do X only if his doing X can be an extension of the actual past, holding the laws fixed" (Fischer 1994, 88 - subsequent references unless otherwise indicated are to this text). 'Determinism' is for Fischer "the thesis that, for any given time, a complete statement of the facts about that time, together with a complete statement of the laws of nature, entails every truth as to what happens after that time" (p. 9). He argues that this determinism is incompatible with anyone's ever being able to act otherwise than he does act, and so incompatible with anyone's having Regulatory Control over his actions or (my words) 'freedom of choice.'

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Fischer's determinism is like van Inwagen's 1974-determinism, a statement of which is quoted in section 4.4 of chapter 3 above. 'Determinism' in the present chapter is intended in Fischer's sense. I note that rather than building fixity conditions concerning the past and laws sufficient for his argument into this determinism, to make what I term a 'variety' of its form, Fischer builds fixity conditions into his theory, summarized above, of circumstances in which 'an agent can do X.' 1.2 Determinism, Fischer argues, is incompatible with choice. But, he assures us, 'Not to worry.' For, (i), we can learn from Harry Frankfurt that being able to act otherwise is not required for responsibility; (ii), we can see that "the freedom-relevant condition sufficient for responsibility" (p. 159) and for our being proper 'persons' who possess, and are the objects of, the 'reactive attitudes' (Peter Strawson's term) of ordinary life "such ... as love, respect, gratitude, resentment, indignation, and hatred" (2) is that persons should 'act freely,' which is to say that they should be 'in control of their actions, that they should exercise Guidance Control and display (my words) 'choiceless freedom' in them; and, (iii), we can establish that our exercising this Guidance Control and displaying 'choiceless freedom' in our actions is compatible with Determinism. Fischer, though an Incompatibilist regarding Determinism and freedom of choice, is a Compatibilist regarding Determinism and 'free acting.' And he is a Compatibilist regarding Determinism and responsibility, 'personhood,' and the reactive attitudes. He sees himself as a Semi-Compatibilist (p. 180) regarding threats of Determinism, and also regarding what he views as similar threats posed by some theisms that feature omniscients. It is, Fischer claims, a virtue, a bonus, of his Basic Version of the Argument for Incompatibilism of determinism and freedom of choice (which argument is thus not all 'bad news') that it affords "a distinctive approach to the notoriously intractable Newcomb's Problem" (86), an approach that is in a certain way conciliatory, and that goes around the vexing issue of which conditionals are right for the Problem. He reaches "[t]he one-box strategy ... [in] the case of an infallible predictor, and the two-box strategy ... [in] the case of a merely inerrant predictor ... [the] position," he says, that "was embraced, but not defended, by Nozick" (106). 1.3 Commending to the reader Fischer's Basic-Version argument for the incompatibility of his determinism and fixed laws and pasts with regulative control (pp. 88-98), with the conclusion of which I agree, I attend to significant

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disagreements that take me into areas identified but not entered in previous chapters. Section 2 below, which revisits Newcomb's Problem, argues that Fischer's one-box solution to infallible-predictor Newcomb problems is incoherent, and that Nozick did not even entertain this part of Fischer's position on versions of the problem. This section includes comment on an idea of Fischer's for a theory of rational choice, and serves to supplement in several ways the discussion of Newcomb's Problem and rational choice in chapter 2 above. Section 3 defends the compatibility of divine omniscience and regulative control. Challenges addressed to this compatibility were anticipated in section A2 of the appendix to chapter i above. Section 3 also includes a theory of the past that uses devices similar to those of the 'nice' account of state propositions of section 2.2 of chapter 3 above. Section 4 takes up Fischer's semi-compatibilism and argues against it that more in the way of freedom than guidance control is required for, and connectedly that Fischer's determinism with fixed laws and pasts is incompatible both with the legitimacy of those reactive attitudes, as well as with our conceptions of ourselves as agents. This discussion supplements the foray in section 7.6.6 of chapter 3 above into the territories of 'control' and 'moral responsibility.' An appendix is occupied with rigorous reconstructions of, and brief comments, on two versions - the Transfer and the Basic - of the argument for the incompatibility of Determinism and 'freedom of choice' that are sketched by Fischer. Also included is an elaboration of the Conditional version, which Fischer disarmingly confesses is, despite its extreme importance (p. 46) not, as he sketches it, valid (228n43). These reconstructions and this elaboration make Fischer's approaches to incompatibility comparable to mine in section 7 of chapter 3 above. Newcomb's Problem and Rational Choice Suppose a being in whose power to predict your choices you have enormous confidence ... There are two boxes, (Bi) and (62). (Bi) contains $1000. (62) contains either $1,000,000 ($M), or nothing ... You have a choice between two actions: (i) taking what is in both boxes, (2) taking only what is in the second box. Furthermore, and you know this...: (I) If the being predicts you will take what is in both boxes, he does not put the $M in the second box. (II) If the being predicts you will take only what is in the second box, he does put the $M in the second box ... First, the being makes its prediction. Then it puts $M in the second box, or does not... Then you make your choice. What do you do? (Nozick 1985, 114-15)

2.1 David Lewis on Standard and 'Backtracking' Conditionals Jim and Jack quarreled yesterday, and Jack is still hopping mad. We conclude [pursuant

170 Puzzles for the Will to our usual sort of counterfactual reasoning in which facts about earlier times are taken to be counterfactually independent of facts about later times] that if Jim asked Jack for help today, Jack would not help him. But wait: Jim is a prideful fellow. He never would ask for help after such a quarrel; if Jim were to ask Jack for help today, there would have been no quarrel yesterday. {This is an 'explicitly backtracking conditional' that is a premise in a "back-tracking argument." JHS} In that case Jack would be his usual generous self. So if Jim asked Jack for help today, Jack would help him ... {This is a 'backtracking conditional' albeit not explicitly so. It is based on a backtracking argument. JHS}" (Lewis 1979,456, with bracketed material from 457; bold emphasis added)

What is going on, Lewis suggests, is that "counterfactuals are infected with vagueness" (457): the conditional, if it were A, then it would be that C, is true if, in making A true while doing 'least violence' to the facts, one also makes C true. "Different ways of ... resolving the vagueness [of 'least violence'] are appropriate in different contexts" (ibid.). It is a tautology that the standard resolution of vagueness of our usual sort of counterfactual reasoning is more often than not appropriate. "Some special contexts," however, do "favor a different resolution of vagueness" that approves of backtracking conditionals and arguments (ibid.). 2.2 A Contest of Conditionals in Analyses ofNewcomb's Problem Fischer observes that while "Lewis believes that in certain ... contexts a... resolution of vagueness is appropriate ... [that] allows for backtrackers ... Lewis does not believe that a Newcomb situation is such a context" (p. 99). Deploying "our usual counterfactual reasoning" in which we "assume ... that facts about earlier times are counterfactually independent of facts about later times," Lewis argues that: Depending on what the predictor has predicted, either if I were to take both boxes, it would be that the predictor predicted that I was going to take both boxes, and I would get $1000; or if I were to take both boxes, it would be that the predictor did not predict that I was going to take both boxes, and I would get $M + $1000. Similarly, but for returns of either $o or $M 'in the columns,' if I were to take only the second box. Either way I would do better by $1000 if I were to take both boxes. That, therefore, is what I should do. No, I should not take both boxes, argues Terence Morgan, who, Fischer tells us, maintains that "the Newcomb situation is precisely the sort of situation in which a special resolution of vagueness (allowing for the truth of backtrackers) is appropriate" (100). Resolving vagueness in the manner appropriate to this situation, we have, according to Horgan, that if I were to choose both boxes, it

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would be that the predictor predicted that, and I would get $1000, while if I were to choose the second box only, it would be that the predictor predicted that, and I would get $M. His predictions are not counterfactually independent of my choices, not when we resolve the vagueness of relevant conditionals in the special manner that Lewis allows is sometimes appropriate, and that Morgan maintains is appropriate in Newcomb's Problem. Lewis's 'dominance argument,' which assumes independence, is then flawed. The correct conclusion is that "I should take what is in the second box" (99). 2.3 Fischer's Way to Two Boxes Unless the Predictor Is Infallible Rather than enter into the dispute concerning "which conditional" - that is, which mode of resolution - is appropriate in Newcomb's Problem, Fischer uses the principle of his Basic Version argument to bypass that "vexatious and [he says] intractable issue" (p. 101). It is, according to Fisher, a matter of what worlds we can actualize, and so of what worlds are extensions of the past: "reasons relevant to an individual's deliberations are those which obtain in the worlds that are extensions of the actual past" (101). So I should take both boxes. For either "the predictor put the $M in Box (62) or not" (101). If he did, then "the only possible worlds I can now actualize have in their past that this is so," and I get $1000 more in the one of these in which I take both boxes. Similarly, if he did not. 2.4 Fischer's Way to Just One Box When the Predictor Is Infallible I should choose both boxes. This is my rational choice in Newcomb's Problem. This is my rational choice even in a variant of the problem in which I am sure that the predictor is inerrant and always right, given, Fischer qualifies, that "there [are] possible worlds in which the predictor is wrong, that is, given that it is not part of the predictor's essence that he is always right" (p. 102). Change the problem further, however, and stipulate that I am sure that the predictor is not merely inerrant but 'infallible' and that it is logically impossible that he should be in error, and, according to Fischer, the solution is changed, and I should take only the second box. The simple point I wish to make is that the move from inerrancy to infallibility is significant ... [W]hen one affirms... pertinent can-claims in the Newcomb situation with a merely inerrant predictor, one implicitly assumes that either choosing one box or two boxes could be extensions of the actual past. So suppose the predictor predicted that I would choose one box. Nevertheless it is imagined that I can choose two boxes; corre-

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spending to this thought is a possible world in which the predictor is wrong ... But there are no such possible worlds, if the predictor is infallible. Thus it seems that, if the predictor is genuinely infallible, the puzzle conditions are not coherent: it cannot be blithely assumed that I can either take one box or two. After all, one of the two predictions is part of the actual past, and given the infallibility of the predictor, there can only be one relevant extension of the past... [I]magine a revised Newcomb's Problem in which [the predictor is infallible]... [Although I can in fact only choose one of these options, I do not know in advance of making my decision which option I can take ... Under such circumstances, it seems rational to choose the one box." (105-6)

2.5 This way of Fischer's to one box in infallible predictor Newcomb problems is doubly strange. First, it is very strange to speak of choice - of what it is rational to choose - in situations in which, by hypothesis, one has no choice. An agent in such a situation, an agent who was sure he was in such a situation, could not think that he had a decision-problem, where that would be a problem what to do. He might wonder what he was going to do, and as a consequence was going to get. He might very well be curious. But he could not, consistent with his opinion that he has no choice and that only one action is for him something he can do, wonder what to do. Suppose I am sure that of two doors, behind which there are 'prizes' (a lion and a lady), exactly one is sealed shut. I cannot, with that certainty in mind, deliberate by which door to leave. All I can do is wonder by which door I will leave, and hope that it opens to the best 'prize.' My fate has been sealed, though I do not know in which way. Second, it is very strange to suggest that taking one box is the rational strategy in each of these situations. For though in some of these situations an infallible predictor predicts that I will take one box, in the rest of these situations an infallible predictor predicts that I take both boxes. Attending to these latter cases, since in them only worlds in which I take both boxes are extensions of the past, this action obtains in "the possible world with greatest expected utility [that is an extension of the past]" (p. 96). Fischer's Basic-Version principle says that in these infallible-predictor worlds, of the actions, take just the second box and take both boxes, I can do only the one I actually do. And so he should have ruled not that in all of these situations it is rational to take the one box, but rather that in these situations whatever I do is maximizing and rational by default. 2.6 Nozick on an Extreme Newcomb Problem According to Fischer, his position - that the one-box strategy is correct for infallible-predictor Newcomb problems although the two-box strategy is cor-

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rect for merely inerrant-predictor Newcomb problems - is Nozick's position. In fact, however, there is no evidence that Nozick, when composing his paper, contemplated 'infallible predictors,' in the sense of essentially inerrant predictors, or in any other sense that entails being incapable of error (another such sense is discussed in Sobel 1988, 4-10). Nozick does not explicitly consider even inerrant-predictor Newcomb problems. The extreme case he does consider involves an agent who is quite certain that the prediction is correct, which he could be without thinking that the predictor is never wrong. And Nozick does not (as he has been said to do) take a position even on this case. Rather he sees it as a part of the not yet fully resolved puzzle of Newcomb's Problem. Let me repeat, [f]or the record ... that Robert Nozick ... writes that if the probability is i then "one naturally argues: I know that if I take both, I will get $1000.1 know that if I take only what is in the second, I get $M. So, of course, I will take only what is in the second" (Nozick 1969, p. 141). After saying how one "naturally" argues in this case, Nozick asks, rhetorically it seems: "And does a proponent of taking what is in both boxes in Newcomb's example (e.g., me) really wish to argue that it is the probability, however minute, of the predictor's being mistaken which makes the difference?" Nozick then asks, argumentatively it seems: "And how exactly does the fact that the predictor is certain to have been correct dissolve the force of the dominance argument?" (p. 141). Rather than take a stand on probability-of-1-cases, Nozick intends his comments on them as reasons for thinking (as he has said earlier in his paper) that "an adequate solution to this [Newcomb's] problem will go much deeper than I have gone or shall go in this paper" (p. 135). (Postscript: "That's exactly right, all of it, and you can quote me," or words to that effect, said Nozick to me on 30 December 1986 at meetings in Boston of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association.) (Sobel 1988, 4n2)

2.7 Rational choices, according to Fischer, would go by expected utilities of actualizable possible worlds. "[A]n agent can actualize only ... worlds which share the past of the actual world [and its laws] ... Thus, it seems reasonable for an agent to restrict his attention in deliberating to the reasons present in such worlds ... This seems ... reasonable ... quite apart from one's particular view about how one ought to combine and weigh these reasons. If one accepts some sort of maximization of expected utility as rational, then one ought to choose that action associated with the possible world whose past is [and laws are] just like ours with the greatest expected utility" (96). 2.7.1 What Fischer says here is in several ways not exactly right. For a first small point, possible worlds, since everything is settled in them, have for a person not merely expected utilities, but unqualified utilities. It is propositions

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other than whole-world propositions, including in particular action-propositions, that have only expected utilities. For a second connected and severally faceted point, Fischer does not mention probabilities, whereas: "To judge what one must do to obtain a good or avoid an evil, it is necessary to consider not only the good and the evil in itself, but also the probability that it happens or does not happen ... The Port-Royal Logic, 1662" (Jeffrey 1983/1990, i). Fischer's suggestion - "that the reasons relevant to an individual's deliberations are those which obtain in the worlds that are extensions of the actual past [holding the laws fixed]" - provides openings for two kinds of uncertainties. First, an individual may well be in doubt concerning the actual past and the laws. And second, room has been left for a world's past and laws, conjoined with some action, not settling every detail of its future: that is, it is left open that an action obtains in several extensions of a world's past holding the laws fixed. (A third point about Fischer's rationality principle on which I will not follow up, is that it has the rationality of an action depend on comparisons of worlds that are, whether or not the agent thinks so, objectively actualizable, whereas rationality should, I think, be an entirely subjective affair.) 2.7.2 For a 'probabilification' of Fischer's idea, one might start by saying that a rational choice is for an action that has for an agent maximum expected utility among actions the agent can do, that is, among "options ... that [obtain in] extensions of the actual world" (102) holding the past and laws fixed. For a first approximation of an adequate probabilification, one might then, attending only to agents who place absolutely no credence in the second kind of uncertainty noted above, rule that an agent's expected utility for an action x is a weighted average of his utilities for worlds in which x obtains, in which average the weight for the utility of a world w is his probability for the conditional - if I were to do x, then world w would be actual — the vagueness of which conditional is to be resolved in a certain manner. The imbedded conditional is to be true if and only if it is either logically impossible that I do x, or w is, amongst worlds in which I do x, 'nearest' - this is where vagueness comes in - to the actual world. This vagueness of counterfactual conditionals is to be resolved in a manner appropriate to a given conditional's context and purpose. (Cf.: "[W]hat counts as a minimal accommodating change depends (perhaps) upon the purpose for which the hypothesis is being entertained"; Sobel 1970, 431, bold emphasis added. I would now delete 'perhaps.') According to the manner relevant here in contexts in which one is establishing the expected utility of an x, in the 'nearest' worlds to w in which action x obtains, the actual past and the laws are held fixed. Fischer can have no quarrel with the appropriateness for this purpose, and in contexts of deliberation, practical assessment, and advice,

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of this manner of resolution which is very close to the manner of Lewis's 'standard resolutions.' Fischer, as long as he maintains the principle of his Basic Version of the Argument for Incompatibilism, is in no position to quarrel with the appropriateness of this manner of resolution for conditionals in these contexts. The formula for expected utilities of this first approximation to an adequate probabilification of Fischer's ideas concerning rational choice is, for logically possible x, EU(x) = Xw P(x D-» w)-U(w). (While the symbol 'Q-»' is David Lewis's, its general truth conditions are here Robert Stalnaker's. I am assuming for mathematical simplicity that there are countably many worlds and, so that an expected utility is defined for every logically possible x, that world-utilities are bounded.) Fischer chooses to "bypass the vexatious ... issue of precisely which conditional is [appropriate]" (101) in the context of Newcomb's Problem. This can seem possible since this particular decision-problem features a dominant option under circumstances that are independent of options. But these circumstances are in the problem not independent in terms of conditional probabilities. So, though they are independent of options in terms of probabilities of conditionals whose vagueness is resolved in a manner appropriate to the context of decision, they are not independent in terms of conditionals whose vagueness is resolved (as Morgan would have it resolved) in a 'backtracking' manner which yields probabilities for them that equal corresponding conditional probabilities. (I have observed that Horgan defines the mode of resolution he favours in decision-problems in part in terms of this equality: Sobel 1988, I7ni5.) So the issue is not easily avoided. What is more, Fischer does not need to avoid it. He provides materials that tend to settle it in the manner incorporated in the above first approximation of an adequate probabilification of his ideas about rational choice. 2.7.3 The first-approximation theory stated, which resembles the firstapproximation theory of Allan Gibbard and William Harper (see Gibbard and Harper 1988, 342 and 344-5, including 345n3), is good for "agents who do not believe in objective chances [other than o and i]" (Sobel 1986, 418, emphasis deleted), that is, for agents who are sure that every state has either no objective chance at all of taking place, or no objective chance at all of not taking place. To accommodate the second kind of uncertainty intimated above that arises when an action obtains in several extensions (holding its past and laws fixed) of a world in which an agent places some credence and (I now add) there is not among these a unique one that is 'nearest' for present deliberative purposes, and

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for a theory that is good for agents, whether or not they 'believe in objective chances,' I have considered weighted averages of objective conditional chances wherein the weight for a given objective conditional chance is the agent's subjective probability for it (Sobel 1988, 4i8ff). An objective chance conditional, (x O->n w), suited to the establishment of the expected utility, would say what chance n there is that w would be actual were x to obtain. Chances for world w conditional on x are constrained by the requirement that, if C(w/x) = n if and only if (x O->n w), then, (i), C(w/x) > o only if w is a 'nearest' world in which x obtains, with the vagueness of 'nearest' resolved in a manner appropriate for deliberative purposes, and, (ii), [Xw C(w/x)] = i. The idea I have considered for a theory of rational choice for agents whether or not they 'believe in objective chances,' would have weights in computations of expected utilities be 'probable chances' defined thus, PC(w/x) = In P(x 0->n w)-n, for 'expected utilities' for agents who believe in objective chances defined thus: EU(x) = Iw PC(w/x)-U(w). Divine Omniscience and the Past 'God' is to be ... a proper name ... that names a person who has the divine attributes (such as eternality, omniscience ...) essentially ... God's eternality is here understood in the sense of [everlastingness] ... God is assumed to be within the same temporal framework as humans, and He is assumed to exist at all times (given that He exists at all)... He is [everlasting] in all possible worlds in which He exists ... A person is omniscient only if he believes all and only true propositions ... [A] person is essentially omniscient... [if] he is omniscient in every possible world in which he exists. (Fischer 1994, 11-12) The Basic Version of the Argument for Incompatibilism [which] employs the ... idea [that] an agent can do X only if his doing X can be an extension of the actual past, holding the laws fixed ... can be developed in the context of the assumption of God's existence ... [B]egin with the assumption that God (as envisaged above) exists ... [IJmagine that S mows the lawn at t2. It follows that God believed at ti that S would mow the lawn at t2. Given the assumption of God's essential omniscience, God's belief at ti entails that S mows the lawn at t2. Thus, S's refraining from mowing the lawn at t2 cannot be an extension of the actual past. It follows that S cannot refrain from mowing the lawn at t2 [and, say, go to a movie instead]. (88-9)

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3. i Mere vs Essential Everlasting Omniscience Everlasting omniscience, mere (mere?!) everlasting omniscience is not a problem for alternative possible actions. It is analytic that it is impossible for an everlasting omniscient to be sometimes mistaken, which is to say that it is analytic that (x)~O[EO(x) & SM(x)], or equivalently, (x)D [EO(x) ID NM(x)] ('EO(x)' for 'x is everlastingly omniscient,' 'SM(x)' for 'x is sometimes mistaken,' and 'NM(x)' for 'x is never mistaken'). But this is not to say that it is analytic that 'no everlasting omniscient can sometimes be mistaken.' Indeed that, which in the sense intended here is in symbols, (x)~(EO(x) & O[SM(x)]), and equivalently, (x)(EO(x)=DD[NM(x)]), is not analytic. The case is different however for essential everlasting omniscience. For if x is essentially everlastingly omniscient, EEO(x), then x is everlastingly omniscient and never mistaken in a world in which x exists. Also, x is never mistaken in a world in which x does not exist, for to be mistaken in a world one must exist in it (that is, 'mistaken' is an 'existence-entailing' predicate). So D [NM(x)]. That is, it is analytic that (x)(EEO(x) z> D [NM(x)]). Essential everlasting omniscience is thus at least potentially a problem for alternative possible actions. Contrary to Fischer, however, I do not think that it is a real problem. My reasons begin forthwith and are summed up in section 3.5 below.

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3.2 Fischer's Argument for the Incompatibility of Essential Everlasting Omniscience and the Possibility of Actions Otherwise, Restated With 'P' short for 'Paul will mow his lawn in 1999,' suppose that P. Then God, an essentially everlasting omniscient, in 1919 (say), believed that P -' 1999' and ' 1919' are short for designations of particular intervals of mowing, and instants of believing: that is, to abbreviate, then gBEL,9I9(P). And so, concludes Fischer, Paul cannot not mow his lawn in 1999 - he cannot, for example, go to the movies instead, M. In the sense relevant to what Paul can do in 1999, gBELI919(P) is part of the past, and gBELI9,9(~M) is another part, which means that ~P is a part of no, and that ~M a part of every, extension of the past. For, given that God is an essentially everlasting omniscient, gBEL I9I9 (P) entails P, and gBELI9,9(~M) entails ~M. Fischer concedes (to focus on one divine belief) that the fact that gBEL,9,9(P) is not in the case a 'hard' past fact. Fischer adopts for purposes of his discussion Alvin Plantinga's Entailment View according to which account, by examples of the hard past, no fact that entails a proposition such as P is a hard fact about the past (p. 113). But, Fischer maintains, this fact that gBELI9I9(P), though it is in 1999 a soft fact about the past, is even so then a fixed fact that is out of all human control. It has this in common with paradigmatic hard facts about the past, with all of them Fischer implies. And this means that it is part of the past in the sense that is, according to the principle of Fischer's Basic-Version arguments for incompatibility, relevant to what, in 1999, we can do. The fact that God believed P in 1919 is, Fischer maintains, as 'counterfactually independent of the future,' as "resilient to future states," as would be the fact that some human believed P in 1919 (p. 119). That someone, anyone, believes a proposition "just is not counterfactually dependent on the future" (120). It does not, Fischer insists, matter who is doing the believing, you, or me, or God Himself. And so, to express in somewhat different words the conclusion of the previous paragraph, the fact that gBEL,9,9(P) would be a proper part of the past in the sense of 'past' that this word has in the principle of Fischer's Basic-Version arguments, which, trimmed to what is relevant to the problem of divine omniscience, is that "an agent can do X only if his doing X can be an extension of the actual past" (88, bold emphasis added). 3.3 Now comes a response to this argument for the incompatibility of essentially everlasting omniscience and freedom of choice, a response adapted from a response of Marilyn McCord Adams. Curiously, Fischer in the book under review does not address McCord Adams's response which, in another book, he terms McCord Adams's "Existence Ockhamism" (Fischer 1989, 34). Certainly facts concerning past beliefs of ordinary persons are fixed and out of our control. But God would most certainly not be an ordinary person. Not only would He be omniscient, and so by most measures very extraordinary. He

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would also be (we are assuming) essentially omniscient, and the rest, and so modally extraordinary, which is another order of extraordinariness. Of such a person, and this is my main point, we should not in advance of reflection and theorizing suppose we know what to think. Of such a person all intuitions — generated as they are with only ordinary persons in mind - should be 'off.' In particular, though it is a firm intuition that facts concerning the existence in the past of ordinary persons are fixed and out of our control, it is entirely possible that facts concerning the existence of a modally extraordinary person who was an essentially everlasting omniscient would not be out of our control: it is entirely possible that we would have the power (for example, by not mowing our lawns on days when we do mow them) to bring it about that an actual person of that modally extraordinary nature who existed in the past, and so always, should not have existed in the past, and so should not ever exist. That is, for all we can know, the fact that gBELI9,9(P) would not be part of the past in that sense of 'past' that is operative in the principle of the Basic Version, because this fact entails that God existed in 1919, and His existence in 1919 would be under Paul's control in 1999 (as well as under the control of others who could see to it that Paul did not mow his lawn). If you want 'God' to name a person who would have the divine attributes essentially - if on reflection you want this for spiritual or philosophic reasons - then you should know that there is a price to pay for this in loss of 'intuitions' relevant to Him supposing He exists. But, one may object, this response to Fischer's argument - this response that would give us power over God, power indeed over His very existence - would be bad, if not irreverent, theology. "[It is an] intuitive idea that God's existence should not depend on human action. God is after all, the Supreme Being, a being 'than which nothing greater can be conceived,' in St. Anselm's words. It seems plausible, then, to think that such a being's existence should be 'counterfactually independent of possible human action" (Fischer 1989, 9). "[I]t is theologically implausible to claim that humans can affect the existence of God" (34). Leaving intuition out of this, perhaps God's existence, even if not the existence of lesser essentially everlasting omniscients, should, for theological reasons we need not go into, be said to be independent of all possible human action. A way to effect this independence, one might cast it as Anselm's way, would be to say that God not only would have the divine attributes essentially, but would be a necessary existent. I shall add this to Fischer's conception of God to facilitate completion of my response to his argument for the incompatibility of God's existence and the possibility of actions otherwise. (Alternatively, one could less simply say that, for theological reasons we need not go into, though He would not be a necessary existent, His existence would be independent of all possible human action.)

i8o Puzzles for the Will 3.4 Essential Everlasting Omniscience Combined with Necessary Existence Even if His existence would be entirely out of our control since He, this essentially everlastingly omniscient, would be a necessary existent, it is for all we know possible that His beliefs, including His past beliefs, would, unlike those of ordinary persons, not be out of our control. This could be precisely because He would be not only essentially everlastingly omniscient but a necessary existent. Now come sketches of two ways in which sense can be made of the idea that we would have control over some of His beliefs, without, what would seem theologically repugnant, our having control over Him - without, that is, our having the power to work changes in His 'proper person.' There are two ways in which God's beliefs in a possible world about that world could be seen to be functions of its states. Ted Warfield has demonstrated that if a certain 'naive' logical fatalism is false, and past truths about agents' actions are consistent with agents' actingotherwise, then so is the necessary existence of an essentially omniscient being. He neatly shows in (Warfield 1997), on condition that that 'naive' logical fatalism is false, that actions-otherwise are consistent with there being a necessarily existent, essentially everlastingly [I add] omniscient. In what follows I show that unconditionally, by showing how, that is, ways in which, actions-otherwise are consistent with there being such a being.

3.4.1 One Way "This position might be supported by extending Putnam's point that meanings and beliefs ain't in the head. According to Putnam, my belief that water is wet the state of my mind that constitutes in fact, my believing that - would have been [would have constituted] a different belief - the belief that XYZ is wet - if lakes and oceans on earth had been filled with XYZ rather than water" (Fischer 1989, 94). Though I would call it 'water,' it, by hypothesis, would not be water but XYZ. And my beliefs expressed using 'water' would be not about water, but about this XYZ stuff. So one sees that my beliefs are partially constituted by what happens to be the case. Somewhat similarly, the suggestion goes, for God, if he would be an essentially everlasting omniscient who was a necessary existent. Taking it to be possible that Paul not mow his lawn in 1999 - supposing that is that Paul has this power to act otherwise - the current suggestion concerning God's beliefs says that if Paul were not to mow his lawn in 1999, then of course he and God would be in a different world in 1919 (for in the actual world Paul mows his lawn in 1999). And though God is the same 'in himself in this other world (as Putnam would have me be 'in my head' if transported to

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Twin Earth), His 'intrinsic mental state' in 1919 in this other possible world comes to or constitutes somewhat different beliefs. In particular, this state does not in that world, as it does in the actual world, constitute among countless other beliefs and attitudes the belief that Paul mows his lawn in 1999, for in the world in question that would be a false belief. Rather His mental state in 1919 constitutes in that world among countless other beliefs and attitudes the belief that Paul does not mow his lawn in 1999. As my beliefs 'in their wide contents' are dependent on what happens, and the state of the world 'outside my head,' so, the hypothesis goes, God's beliefs at a time in their wide contents depend on the world apart from Him, including its future. It makes Putnam-sense, it could for all we know be, that the intrinsic state of God at a time t in a world would constitute, among other things, a belief that p, if and only if it is the case that p in this world, and this regardless of the times p is about, and whether they precede or come after t (Zemach and Widerker, in Fischer 1989, 118, and Wierenga 1989, 107-8). Why not? "God," after all, "is not a member of any linguistic community" (Zemach and Widerker, 119). Who knows in virtue of what the unlearned mental words in which He would believe would "have this or that definite meaning[s]" (ibid.) in this or that possible world? "We suggest that the item in virtue of which some state of God's [would mean] p, [would be] the fact that p" (ibid.). 3.4.2 A Second Way Before proceeding to possible objections to this Zemach-Widerker account of how, without God's intrinsic state at a time ever being counterfactually dependent on what happens at later times, His beliefs at a time could be thus dependent, let me enter another account of how His beliefs could be thus dependent without He himself being malleable. It is in some ways a simpler account, and a possibly better account, and this not just because it is simpler. To begin on a negative note, a theorizing theologian might well reject "the idea that God's beliefs involve ... mental representations" (Fischer 1994, 124), and that there is for His beliefs the contrast between narrow and wide content that underlies the Zemach and Widerker account. Shifting to the positive, a theorist might say that for God - now comes the core of the simpler account believing facts about the world's future and past, as about its present, would be a matter of unmediated-by-representations direct apprehension. Few if any philosophers/theologians think that believing facts about the world would be for Him mediated by mental representations that were caused by those facts, or that believing would be for Him mediated by mental representations from which those facts would be only inferred by Him. As He would act on the world

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directly, so, the present suggestion goes, would He apprehend it directly. Direct-apprehension theorists see would-be divine mental representations of facts about world as troublesome 'fifth wheels,' and so do without them in their accounts of divine believing. Connectedly, their theories afford no distinction between the narrow and wide contents of Divine beliefs. Nor do they afford a distinction between Divine Knowing and Divine Believing: each is for these theories a matter of direct apprehending of what is as it is. 3.4.3 Possible Objections Fischer has written against the Zemach-Widerker account that "God's omniscience would be seriously attenuated if the same state of God's mind at t t would constitute different beliefs about Jones, depending on Jones's behavior at t2" (Fischer 1989, 94). One wonders, however, how it would 'seriously attenuate' God's omniscience, for Him to be, though not 'in Himself,' still 'in his beliefs,' 'transworld mutable' in the manner Zemach and Widerker say He might be? "But is it not unseemly — is it not even 'blasphemous' - to suggest that we might have this kind of power over God's beliefs?" See (Zemach and Widerker 1989, 120-1) for this question, and for an implied calm No as an answer that sounds good to me. Fischer's charge of attenuation may harbour the idea that God's being 'in himself the same in every world would make mysterious in the extreme differences in His behaviour in different worlds that we would want to go with differences in His beliefs ('wide content'). One supposes that in a world in which A does X at t, God might warn of dangers that A's doing X courts, even though in another world in which A does not do X, God would not issue that warning. But how to understand this difference in behaviour, given no difference in God in himself, so that for one thing "the narrow content" (Fischer 1994, 123) of His beliefs is the same? Would not differences between their 'wide contents,' since "not reflected in any 'internal' differences" (p. 123) be inaccessible to God, and so not reflected in His behaviour? Presumably not, I say, for by hypothesis God would be omniscient and nothing that is the case would be inaccessible to Him. That, it must be conceded, makes a mystery, for we are apt to suppose that when someone X knows some fact, this knowledge makes an intrinsic difference in X. But that there is mystery here should not surprise, especially if, as I think, this mystery arises for an essentially everlastingly omniscient who is furthermore a necessary existent. Such an extraordinary being - such a modally extraordinary being - would be in His existence, and one supposes might well be in His beliefs, behaviour, and 'psychology,' removed by a vastness from ordinary beings such as ourselves. Certainly He would be very strange and mysterious. Fischer in the end

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graciously concedes that "greater mysteries have been associated with God," and that he does not claim to "have presented a knockdown argument for the [practical] relevance [even in His case] of [only] the narrow sense of belief content" (123). It can be seen, incidentally, that Fischer's challenges to the Zemach and Widerker way of making Divine beliefs about future facts counterfactually dependent on these facts are specific to that way. They are not adaptable to the way of direct-apprehension theorists. This is one reason for thinking it is a better way, even if the Zemach and Widerker way is good enough to disarm Fisher's Basic-Version argument for the incompatibility of divine omniscience and the possibility of actions otherwise. 3.5 To sum up, there are several reasons for saying that, for all we know, the fact that gBEL,9I9(P) would not be part of the past in that sense of 'past' that is operative in the idea of the Basic Version. One reason is that, unless He would be not only essentially everlastingly omniscient but also a necessary existent, it is plausible that His existence in 1919 would be under Paul's control in 1999 (section 3.3 above). Other reasons are that even if He would be both essentially everlastingly omniscient and a necessary existent, it is plausible that this belief of His would be under Paul's control in 1999, either in a manner detailed in an Putnamesque representative theory of divine believing model (section 3.4.1), or in a simpler and perhaps theologically preferable manner detailed in a direct believing model (section 3.4.2), merely by Paul's 'passing differently before Him.' Fischer "can see no good reason to deny that" as human beliefs are, so God's beliefs would be, "resilient to future states of the world" (p. 119). David Hunt seconds the substance of this: "Human beliefs ... are ... 'hard' ... There is no apparent reason why divine beliefs [of an essentially omniscient... sempiternal being] ... should be different ... in this respect" (Hunt 1997, 280-1 [274]). My main point is that there are good reasons for saying that God's beliefs would be different, if God would be an essentially everlastingly omniscient being, and even more so if He would also exist necessarily. For one set of reasons, under that hypothesis, unless either God's existence or God's beliefs would be in the indicated ways different, we could not, if He exists, 'act otherwise' as we surely have reasons to think that we can sometimes do. And for other reasons, what would be God's posited modal extraordinariness should on reflection lead us to expect many differences between Him, supposing He exists, and ordinary persons. The 'problem of divine omniscience for freedom' is made by taking God 'now' to be modally extraordinary, and 'now' to be merely as a matter of fact extraordinary. To make the problem go away, it is not necessary that we make up our minds about Him. It is sufficient to see clearly that we cannot have it

184 Puzzles for the Will both ways about Him. In this respect, even if not several others, He would be like everyone else. It is thus open, even to a theist of extravagant metaphysical opinions who believes in an essentially everlastingly omniscient deity, consistently to pray God give me • • the serenity • to accept the • things I cannot change • • • to change the • things I can • and the wisdom to know the difference.

(from an embroidery by Grace Hill, member of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, of a Quaker prayer) 3.6 The past Fischer adopts for purposes of his discussion of omniscience Alvin Plantinga's Entailment View of the (hard) past to a time, the idea of which is to be that of all and only what is to this time, in words of Nelson Pike that Fischer quotes, 'fully accomplished and over-and-done-with' (112). The past to, for example 1999, according to this view, entails no proposition such as that Paul will mow his lawn in 1999. There is, I think, a better view of the past that would serve Fischer's purposes as well as Plantinga's does. For this way I adapt ideas from (Zemach and Widerker 1989, 113). 3.6.1 Let a proposition be about a time t if and only if it entails, (i), that the world exists at t, i.e., that something exists contingently at t, and, (ii), either that a certain thing happens or obtains at t, or that a certain thing does not happen or obtain at t. (Cf. Fischer 1989, 36.) That Jones mows his lawn today, that he does not mow his lawn today, that he mows his lawn for the first time today, and that he mows his lawn for the last time today are four propositions about today. So is the proposition that Jones mows his lawn every day. 'Jones' here rigidly designates a person who exists contingently, that is, actually but not necessarily: Jones exists in the actual world, but not in every possible world. Similarly for 'Paul' below. I propose that the past through t is the strongest true proposition about a time

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not later than t that is compatible with, (i), the proposition that "the world ceases to exist at t" (Zemach and Widerker, 113), i.e., the proposition that at t, but at no later time, something exists contingently, and, (ii), every proposition about a time or times later than t and about only times later than t. The past to t is the weakest proposition that entails, for every t' < t, the past through t'. I assume for these definitions that a truth is incompatible with the world's ceasing to exist at t if and only if it entails a proposition that would not be true if the world were to cease to exist at t. Suppose that Jones will mow his lawn next Thursday - J, and that Jones knows this now - K. Since neither J nor K are compatible with the proposition that the world will cease to exist at noon next Wednesday, neither J nor K will then be part of (i.e., entailed by) the past. Suppose that Jones will mow his lawn for the last time today - L. L is about today, and is compatible with the world's ceasing to exist next Thursday. But L is not compatible with the proposition that Jones will mow his lawn next Thursday, so L will not be a part of the past next Thursday. To say that 'the world ceases to exist at t' is to imply that nothing contingent exists after t, and that nothing contingent happens after t. Arguably, to say this is to imply that "there are no times after t" (Zemach and Widerker 1989, 113) and that t is the "last moment of time" (Wierenga 1989, 102). These, however, are contentious points on which the present account of the past does not depend. 3.6.2 One may wonder whether, on the account of the past on offer, the past is fixed and out of all human control! The answer is, possibly not. What follows works as well to the same conclusion regarding Fischer's Entailment View of the hard past. Neither his 'view' nor mine is problem-free as an account of 'what is over-and-done-with,' if one countenances essentially everlasting omniscients. Suppose (elements of what follows are suggested by Fischer 1989, 37) that God, an essentially everlastingly omniscient being who exists contingently, in 1919 believed that Paul was going to mow his lawn in 1999: fact Fi. Suppose further that John, along with everyone else who existed in 1919, believed that Paul was going to mow his lawn in 1999: fact F2. And suppose fact Fi is subject to Paul's control in 1999 because, not God's existence in 1919, but what God believed in 1919 depends in one of the ways described in section 3.4 on what Paul does in 1999. Then, on the account of the past presented, Fi is not a part of the past to 1999, since God's believing in 1919 that Paul mows in 1999 entails that Paul mows in 1999, and so is not compatible with nothing existing contingently in 1999. Even so, F2 can be supposed to be a part of the past: in particular, it can be supposed to entail neither that under 'everyone else' is included an everlastingly omniscient being (for it can be supposed that there is not a necessarily existent essentially everlastingly omniscient being) nor that

186 Puzzles for the Will Paul mows in 1999. However, whether or not F2 is a part of the past to 1999, this fact is not fixed and out of all human control in 1999, because Fi is not then fixed: by hypothesis Paul, by not mowing in 1999, can make it false that 'everyone else' in 1919 believed that Paul was going to mow in 1999, because he can in this way make it false that God in 1919 believed this. Edward Wierenga might consider it a defect of the account of the past offered here that it entails that a fact, though past, can still be subject to current human control: Wierenga 1989, 108. But whether or not that entailment is a defect in an account of the past depends on the conditions necessary for the entailed possibility. It should not be surprising, and is not a telling argument against an account, that this possibility should be realizable in a case that, dizzyingly, features a modally extraordinary believer whose beliefs at times are functions of states of the world at future times. Fischer's Semi-Compatibilism Determinism, while in Fischer's view incompatible with the possibility of alternative actions, and thus with our having any control over what we do, and having freedom of choice, is, he thinks, compatible with our sometimes being in control when we act, and exhibiting 'choiceless freedom.' To the sage advice of Yogi Berra, "If you come to a fork in the road, take it," John Martin Fischer adds, "and never mind if there aren't any." Being in control is, he contends, all in the way of freedom that responsibility and the maintenance of reactive attitudes of love and respect and the rest require. Determinism, he maintains, is thus compatible with responsibility and our being proper persons. It is he says also compatible with our views of ourselves as agents, and our views of our situations when we deliberate, though to make these latter compatibilities plausible, we are told, calls for further work. 4.1 'Regulative Control' vs 'Guidance Control' Let us suppose that I am driving my car. It is functioning well, and I wish to make a right turn ... I signal, turn the steering wheel, and carefully guide the car to the right... I was able to form the intention ... to [turn to] the left instead ... [H]ad I formed such an intention, I would have turned the steering wheel to the left and the car would have gone to the left. In this ordinary case, I guide the car to the right, but I could have guided it to the left... I have a certain sort of control over the car's movements... I have 'guidance control' ... Further... I have 'regulative control.' (Of course, here I am not making any special assumptions, such as that causal determinism obtains or God exists.)... [IJmagine a second case. In this ... Frankfurt-type case ... I again guide my car in the normal way to

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the right. The car's steering apparatus works properly when I steer the car to the right. But unbeknownst to me, the car's steering apparatus is broken in such a way that, if I were to try to turn it in some other direction, the car would veer off to the right in precisely the way it actually goes to the right... Here, as in the first car case ... I control the car, but [in contrast with the first case] I do not have control over the [car]... I have guidance control of the car. But I cannot cause it to go anywhere other than where it actually goes. Thus, I lack regulative control of the car. (Fischer 1994, 132-3)

'Regulative control' entails the possibility of alternative actions, and so regulative control is, according to arguments Fischer accepts, not compatible with Determinism. 'Guidance control' does not entail the possibility of alternative actions. So it may be compatible with Determinism. And it may, as far as 'conditions of freedom' are concerned, be sufficient for the reactive attitudes of engagement. I take up these possibilities in turn, and explain why I think that if 'guidance control' is compatible with Determinism with fixed laws, it is not 'freedom enough' for the reactive attitudes, or for moral responsibility. 4.2 Determinism and Guidance Control The words 'guidance control' are introduced by cases for which no assumptions one way or another regarding Determinism are made. To think about whether these words are for Fischer consistent with Determinism, we need to know more about what Fischer intends by them. 4.2.1 As a first step towards a theory of guidance control, Fischer says one "might employ the ... condition that an agent exhibits guidance control of an action insofar as the mechanism that actually issues in the action is reasonsresponsive" (p. 163), or better perhaps "insofar as there is no actually operative ... mechanism issuing in the action that is not [weakly] reasons-responsive" (173). To decide whether a mechanism operating in a situation is weakly reasons-responsive, ask whether there is a "possible world in which [the agent has] a sufficient reason to do otherwise, [this one of] the [actually operating] mechanism[s] operates, and the agent does otherwise" (p. 166), and "the ... natural laws [are the same] as [in] the actual world" (243n7). So far it seems that guidance control, as Fischer understands it, is not compatible with Determinism. This is because, given Determinism there will be for every action of an agent some very detailed actual mechanism leading to this action, indeed some very detailed 'time-slice' of an actual mechanism leading to this action, such that there is no world in which that kind of mechanism or 'time-slice' of it obtains, the natural laws are the same, and the agent does otherwise.

188 Puzzles for the Will There is, however, more to Fischer's general understanding of guidance control. Fischer seeks "to capture ... our considered judgments about clear cases of moral responsibility" (p. 179) in a general theory. In that theory, guidance control is to be "the freedom-relevant condition necessary and sufficient for moral responsibility" (168). Fischer therefore stipulates that kinds of actual mechanisms that are "pertinent" (179) to his possible-world formula for guidance control are never 'micro-detailed.' He rules in this manner, I conjecture, precisely because guidance control would otherwise not be compatible with Determinism with fixed laws, and in his view it is not one of our considered judgments that Determinism with fixed laws is not compatible with being in control. Judgments of "the 'man on the Clapham Omnibus' or the student in Philosophy i" (152) do not count, presumably because they are not 'considered' but merely "initial [and] unreflective" (153). (We go to class, Fischer is saying, not with our students to learn about, but simply to teach, implications of Determinism for control.) As for considered judgments of sophisticated and reflective 'hyper-incompatibilists,' these do not count because • • • • ? It is settled then that guidance control, as Fischer understands it, is compatible with Determinism with fixed laws. But it is not yet settled that this guidance control is 'freedom enough.' It is not settled that it is the freedom-relevant condition for moral responsibility and for our being "appropriate candidates for ... [those] 'reactive attitudes'" ... that "are essential ingredients of our lives as we lead them" (2). Connectedly: There are real differences between cases in which we would ordinarily say that persons are 'in control' and 'acting freely,' even though they could not have acted otherwise, and cases in which we would not say this. There are real differences between cases here whether or not Determinism with fixed laws is true. And we could continue marking these differences with these words even while believing for sure in Determinism with fixed laws. But it is not clear that we would or could, while embracing and dwelling upon Determinism with fixed laws, attach to these words the significance we ordinarily attach to them. More simply and directly, the issue is not yet settled whether full acceptance of this Determinism, and reflection on its significance, can consist with those reactive attitudes of engaged living. 4.2.2 Let me confess, before proceeding to the just tabled issue, that I have Humean doubts concerning the very idea of fixed laws and to this extent "do not know what [this] thesis of determinism [with fixed laws] is" (Strawson 1963, i). But, to borrow more words, "though darkling, one has some inkling some notion of what sort of thing is being talked about" (ibid.). Fischer may be more confident in his grasp of potentially troublesome fixed laws of nature. Be that as it may, what he says is "undeniable," namely "that the laws of nature place certain constraints on our abilities" (Fischer 1994, 67), is, as has been

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observed in section 9.2.3 of chapter 3, regularly denied by regularity theorists. According to Humeans, causal laws neither necessitate nor prescribe, but merely describe regular patterns through all time. Causal laws, understood properly according to Humeans, are not 'fixed,' and causes most certainly do not imply "constraint" (Hume 1888, 407). 4.3 Determinism and the Reactive Attitudes of Engagement 4.3.1 That Determinism Threatens These Attitudes What we, Fischer and I, have here are some points of agreement, together with points of disagreement. He writes: "What if we had good reason to suppose the universe to be deterministic? Under these circumstances, I do not believe we would have any inclination to give up the reactive attitudes ... I am not making primarily a 'psychological claim' ... Rather, I am making a normative point. I am saying that, upon due reflection, it just does not seem appropriate or plausible to think that we should abandon our view of ourselves as persons" (p. 7). I do not deny that our 'strong intuitive reaction' would be to maintain these attitudes which are constitutive of life as we know and live it. With Strawson: "I... think that it is, for us as we are, practically inconceivable ... that a general theoretical conviction might so change our world that, in it, there were no longer any such things as inter-personal relationships as we normally understand them ... A sustained objectivity of inter-personal attitude, and the human isolation which that would entail, does not seem to be something of which human beings would be capable" (Strawson 1963, 11). Nor do I suggest that the acceptance of Determinism should lead us 'to abandon our view of ourselves as persons.' Supposing the utter and permanent abandonment of those reactive attitudes of engagement to be an option among others, its rationality, as Strawson has said, would depend on "gains and losses to human life, its enrichment or impoverishment" (Strawson 1963, 13), that are possible given our options, and on the probabilities of these gains and losses given our options, in the light of all of which it would I think be almost always a dreadful idea to 'abandon our view of ourselves as persons.' Notwithstanding these two points of agreement, however, I do not agree that "we would [not] have any inclination to give up the reactive attitudes ... if we had good reason to suppose the universe to be deterministic" (Fischer 1994, 7, original emphasis). I can testify that one of us has some such inclination even when only contemplating Determinism with fixed laws as a for-all-we-know possibility. From this, taking myself not to be an unusual subject, I generalize that though "acceptance of the truth of... determinism ... would [not]... lead to the [total] decay or repudiation of all [participant reactive] attitudes" (Strawson

190 Puzzles for the Will 1963, 10, bold emphasis added), it would tend to this depressing end. In my view, expressed in terms of a perhaps only approachable limit, embracing Determinism with fixed laws fully - as perhaps, given natural resistance to its implications, we cannot do - would for anyone quite corrode these attitudes. Compare: "Viewed from one standpoint, the standpoint that we naturally occupy as social beings, human behavior appears as the proper object of all those personal and moral reactions, judgments and attitudes to which, as social beings, we are naturally prone ... But if anyone consistently succeeded in viewing such behavior in ... the 'purely objective' ... the 'purely naturalistic,' light ["whether [as] causally determined occurrences or chance occurrences"], then to him such reactions, judgments, and attitudes would be alien ... Such a condition would be akin to that recommended by Spinoza... I have described it in the conditional mood ... in order to emphasize ... our human incapacity ... to hold such position for more than a limited period in limited connections. (Strawson 1985, 35-6, with bracketed insert from p. 32, and bold emphasis added).

4.3.2 From Whence This Threat? "What is it about Determinism well-considered that so threatens moral responsibility?" Traditionally, according to Fischer, it has been thought that Determinism is incompatible with responsibility because "it would rule out alternative possibilities" (1994, 6; cf. pp. 10 and 134). But Fischer is convinced that Frankfurt-type cases show that responsibility does not require alternative possibilities, so that it cannot be its incompatibility with these that constitutes Determinism's well-considered threat to responsibility. What then can it be? Fischer is at a loss: "[I]t is hard for me to see why causal determinism would threaten moral responsibility ... apart from its relationship to alternative possibilities" (149). "What, supposing its relation to alternative possibilities is not of proper, well-considered concern," Fischer might challenge, "could be the threat of Determinism?" Taking up this challenge, some writers who have thought deeply about the matter have said that it is precisely the causal determination of it, understood as it generally is in something like Fischer's way. It is precisely by Determinism's implication, given that the world is ancient, that every action, indeed every thought, desire, and decision, is causally determined by factors not due to us that Determinism threatens. Recently - as observed in section 7.6.6.2 of chapter 3 above, words from which I now repeat with some embellishments - against the idea that 'choiceless freedom' is sufficient for moral responsibility, Derk Pereboom has defended

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[t]he incompatibilist intuition ... that if an action results from a deterministic causal process that traces back to factors beyond the control of the agent, he is not morally responsible for the action ... ordinary intuitions about moral responsibility in specific cases [notwithstanding]... The incompatibilist's most fundamental claim [a claim that does not entail that moral responsibility requires 'freedom of choice'] is that moral responsibility requires that one's choice and action not result from a deterministic causal process that traces back to factors beyond one's control [where it does not matter by what path it traces back to such factors]. (Pereboom 1995, 23, 25, and 27, bold emphasis added) Not so recently Kant was scornful of the "wretched subterfuge ... [and] petty word-jugglery" of the idea that although the actions of man are necessarily determined by causes which precede in time, we [may] yet call them free, because these causes are ideas produced by our own faculties, whereby desires are evoked on occasion of circumstances, and hence actions are wrought according to our pleasure ... In fact, it does not matter whether the principles which necessarily determine causality by a physical law reside within the subject or without him, or in the former case whether these principles are instinctive or are conceived by reason, if, as is admitted by these [determinists] themselves, these determining ideas have the ground of their existence in time and in the antecedent state, and this again in an antecedent, &c. [to states at times antecedent to the subject's being, and so to states not due to him for which he is not responsible]. (Critique of Practical Reason 96, as in Abbott 1923, 189-90) 4.3.3 What to Do about It "But if you are right, if Determinism with fixed laws threatens quite apart from its relation to alternative possibilities, what is a poor right-thinking incompatibilist who sees Determinism with fixed laws as a possibility to do?" He can take Hume's advice. He can dine, play a game, converse, and be merry with friends, while letting nature - here the "thoroughgoing and deeply rooted ... human commitment to participation in ordinary inter-personal relationships" (Strawson 1963, 11) - prevail. With his philosophy repressed and out of mind, his reactive attitudes should be hardly adulterated, and this incompatibilist should feel and "live, and talk, and act like other people in the common affairs of life" (Hume 1888,269). 4.4 Determinism and Agency Determinism threatens responsibility and the reactive attitudes regardless of its

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relation to alternative possible actions. In contrast, Determinism threatens deliberation and agency in part because of its perceived relation to alternative possible actions. Frankfurt-type cases are of no avail in these connections. The deliberating agent wants to view himself as an 'unmoved mover,' as a potential initiator of series of causes (perhaps, if he is a kind of determinist, as an initiator of 'fast-starting' beginningless series of causes in nature). This, someone's being an initiator of series of causes, is incompatible with Determinism as Fischer understands quite apart from its relation to alternative possibilities. His Determinism entails that all causes in nature have causes antecedent to any time one might mention, and so, given that the world is ancient, antecedent to our lives. The deliberating agent wants to view himself as a potential initiator of several series of causes which would issue in the several alternative actions over which he is deliberating. The deliberating agent needs to view himself as confronted with a choice, with several alternative actions among which he can choose. Fischer says part of this himself: he writes that "in ... deliberation ... we typically take ourselves to have genuine alternative possibilities" (206). And this is patently incompatible with his Determinism, if, as Fischer believes that arguments prove, this determinism is incompatible with the possibility of alternative actions. Compare: To get the mind to really boggle, consider the following. A: B:

S, 10 8

S2 4 3

Suppose that you know that either Sj or S2 already obtains, but you do not know which, and you know that S: will cause you to do B, and S2 will cause you to do A. Now choose! ('Choose?') (Nozick 1985, 128)

Assuming, as presumably Fischer does, that x causes y only if x and the laws entail that y, and assuming, as Fischer's Basic-Version principle says, that one can do an act only if it obtains in an extension of the past in which laws are held fixed, then in this case set by Nozick you have no choice. Similarly for all philosophers who hold (contrary, I think, to ordinary conceptions of choice and cause - see section 9.2.6 of chapter 3 above) that effective choices that would contravene causal laws are impossible. Fischer acknowledges that even if, as he maintains, Determinism despite ruling out alternative possibilities is compatible with responsibility and the reactive attitudes, he has a problem with deliberation and agency. For he is

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persuaded that "[t]he view of the future as a garden of forking paths [accessed by alternative possible actions] is a central feature of the natural, intuitive picture of ourselves as agents" when we deliberate (206). He acknowledges that "it is not a straightforward task to give a picture of deliberation and practical reasoning according to which we may not have alternative possibilities" (206). However, while he casts the reconciliation of the deliberative aspect of agency with the possibility that we lack all regulative control optimistically as a "project [that] must await future work" (206), I view this project with extreme scepticism. Until what for me is the totally unexpected is at least begun so that I have a glimmer of how it just might be accomplished, I will be confident that deliberative agency entails regulative control, and is thus incompatible with any metaphysics that excludes regulative control. To my opinion that, given that the world is ancient, Determinism with fixed 'necessitating' laws is incompatible with the reactive attitudes of engagement, I therefore join the confidence that it is incompatible with deliberation and agency. Appendix: Three Arguments from Fischer for the Incompatibility of Determinism and Freedom of Choice "I want to argue that a 'finer-grained' approach [than I have taken in this book] to the various arguments for incompatibilism is needed which recognizes that not all formulations make use of the same inference rules or involve the incompatibilist in the same commitments" (Fischer 1994, 228n47). Taking a cue from these words of Fischer with which I agree, I offer rigorous reconstructions of two arguments for incompatibilism that he develops and discusses, and a rigourous correcting elaboration of the other main argument for incompatibilism that he produces. His own 'coarse-grained' and 'easy' approaches, which eschew logical notation and explicit articulations of deductive forms, do not lend themselves to 'nice' appreciations and assessments. Principal contrasts between the rigorous arguments for incompatibilism below, and those that are detailed in section 7 of chapter 3 above, are as follows: (i), that Fischer's arguments when 'dressed out' are still all about actions, whereas mine are about not only actions but also choices of actions choices are in themselves and in their relations to actions central in my arguments; and, (ii), that subjunctive conditionals play a role in only one of Fischer's arguments, and in it play a minor role, whereas they are featured in my arguments, in all of which they and their logic are major players.

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My arguments differ in these ways from many others in the literature of arguments for the incompatibility of determinism and free will. AI THE TRANSFER ARGUMENT

Definitions and abbreviations. "[W]hen a proposition p obtains and a person S does not have it in his power to act that p would not obtain, p is 'power necessary' [for] S [at t]" (p. 8, bold emphasis added). 'Ns t ' abbreviates 'it is power necessary for S at t that' (p. 8); 'P(t)' abbreviates a sentence that expresses the proposition that is the past to t, for which proposition see section 3.3 above; 'L' abbreviates a sentence that expresses the logically weakest proposition that entails every law of nature; 'F(t)' abbreviates a complete statement of the facts about t (it abbreviates what I cast in section 2 of chapter 3 above as a total-state proposition for t); ' Alts t(y,x)' abbreviates 'if S were to perform y at t, S's doing x would not obtain at t; 'K S t ' abbreviates 'S can at t bring it about that.' "Causal determinism is the thesis that, for any given time, a complete statement of the facts about that time, together with a complete statement of the laws of nature, entails every truth as to what happens after that time" (p. 9): for every time t and prior time t', and type of happening h, (h happens at t) z> D [(F(t') & L) z> (h happens at t)] and D[P(t)ZDF(f)].

The second conjunct expresses what I take to be a presupposition of Fischer's determinism, namely that the world is in some state at every time, that is, that at every time something contingent exists. But for this presupposition, Fischer's determinism is what I term Windowshade Determinism in section 4.4 of chapter 3. (What I take to be Fischer's determinism relates to Windowshade Determinism, as I guess in that same section that van Inwagen's 1974-determinism does.) Principles of inference (of which principles only N-transfer is explicit in Fischer's presentation - p. 8) are N-conjunction: For every person S, time t, and propositions p and q, from Ns t(p) and Ns t(q), one may infer Ns t(p & q)

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N-entailment: For every person S, time t, and proposition p, from Ns ,(p) and D (p => q), one may infer Ns t(q). N-transfer (Fischer's Transfer): For every person S, time t, and proposition p, from Ns t(p) and Ns t(p D q), one may infer Ns ,(q). Lemma to be cited in the deduction. (The development of an argument for this lemma is left to the interested reader.) Li: For every person S, time t, and action types x and y, [Ns t(S does x at t) & Alts t(y,x)] =5 ~KS t(S does y at t). Li says, in informal words, that if someone must do an action, then he cannot do any alternative action (which, minus rhetorical significance, is close to John Wayne's principle, "that a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do"). Premises. Fischer writes that "no person can act in such a way that some fact about the past would not have been a fact" (p. 9). From this (with an eye to p. 10) I gather for the present argument the principle TFP (transfer fixity of the past): For every person S and time t, Ns,tP(t). Fischer also writes that "no person can act in such a way that some natural law would not be a law" (p. 9). From this I gather for the present argument the principle TFL (transfer fixity of laws). For every person S and time t, Ns>tL. (TFL says that no person has the power to act so that some law would not be true. This leaves open that a person might have the power to act so that some law, though still true, would not be a law, that is, that it would not have that status.) Conclusion: If the thesis of Determinism is true, then no one can ever act other than he does act.

196 Puzzles for the Will Deduction: i. the thesis of Determinism is true assumption for conditional proof 2. someone can at some time act other than he does act assumption for indirect proof 3. (S does x at t) & Alts t(y,x) & Ks t(S does y at t) 2 (El) 4. For a time t'prior to t, (a)D[P(t)=>F(f)l (b) D [(F(t') & L) => (S does x at t)] 3 (S), i (MP) 5. NStF(t') TFP, 4(3), N-entailment 6. NS',L TFL 7. N St [F(t')&L] 5, 6, N-conjunction 8. Ns t(S does x at t) 7,4(b), N-entailment 9. ~KS t(S does y at t) 8, 3 (S), Li 10. Ks t(S does y at t) 3(8) 11. no one can ever act other than he does act

2-10 (indirect proof)

12. If the thesis of Determinism is true, then no one can ever act other than he does act. 2-11 (conditional proof) (El: existential instantiation; S: simplification; MP: modus ponens.) Fischer on the Transfer Version of the Argument for Incompatibilism: "I have looked closely at two attempts (by Kenny and Slote) to cast doubt on Transfer. I have argued that Transfer cannot be impugned in these ways ... The possibility of showing Transfer to be invalid is left open by the fact that neither I nor (as far as I know) anyone else has been able to prove it" (p. 45). I note that my reconstruction of Fischer's Transfer Argument uses instead of N-transfer, another "modal principle similar to Transfer" (p. 65), namely, N-entailment. A2. THE CONDITIONAL ARGUMENT

This argument is the first in Fischer's book that he thinks may make what he says is an "extremely important" point (p. 46), namely "that the incompatibilist's argument does not require any modal principle similar to Transfer" (65). (This point is made in section 7 of chapter 3 above by an argument that can be seen to be very different from any of Fischer's arguments.) It is therefore surprising to learn that he does "not claim that the Conditional Version of the Argument for Incompatibilism is 'formally valid'" (228n43). Fischer wants "to suggest that the claim that all versions of the argument for incompatibilism depend on Transfer [or some principle similar to it] is false," but says that he does "not know exactly how to argue for its falsity" (64). In fact, it is evident

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that he does know how to argue that this claim is false: he knows that what is necessary and sufficient is to produce a valid argument for incompatibilism that does not depend on principles similar to Transfer. The problem he has with his first try is that he is not sure that the Conditional Version that he produces is valid. (Fischer implies on p. 64 that he also has a problem with his second try, which is constituted by his Basic Version of the argument for Incompatibilism. It is, however, unclear what his problem with it might be. There is no indication that he has doubts concerning the validity of his Basic Version. And not only does it not depend on a principle similar to Transfer, but there is no reason to think the principles on which it depends entail a principle similar to Transfer.) Fischer is right not to claim that the argument of his Conditional Version is valid. For the argument he states wants a premise, and is not valid. The argument can, of course, be fixed. When it is fixed in the most natural way, it can be seen that the premises stated for it that are initially insufficient are in the end not needed. A connected point is that his informal deduction on pages 62 to 63 turns out to contain two unnecessary 'loops.' Proceeding to a valid and simpler argument for his Conditional Version, I replace the two conditional-fixity premises that Fischer states on page 62, one for pasts and the other for laws, by the following single conditional-fixity premise: CFPL (conditional-fixity of past and laws): For any action type x, person S, and time t, [(S does x at t) EH (~P(t) v ~L)] ID ~KS ,(S does x at t). In informal words, if, were someone to do an action it would be that either the past to its time or the laws would not be as it or they are, then he cannot do this action. A principle of inference to be used is Strict to subjunctive implication: For any propositions p and q, from Q (p z> q), one may infer (p Q-> q). Lemma to be cited (the development of an argument for which is again left to the interested reader): L2. For every person S, time t, and action types x and y, if the thesis of Determinism is true, then

198 Puzzles for the Will [(S does x at t) & Alts t(y,x)] ID D [(P(t) & L) => ~(S does y at t)]. Conclusion: If the thesis of Determinism is true, then no one can ever act other than he does act. Deduction: i. the thesis of Determinism is true assumption for conditional proof 2. someone can at some time act other than he does act assumption for indirect proof 2 (El) 3. (S does x at t) & Alts t(y,x) & Ks t(S does y at t) 4. D [(P(t) & L) => ~(S does y at t)] ' i, L2 (MP), 3 (S,MP) 5. Q [(S does y at t) z> (~P(t) v ~L)] 4 (interchange) 6. (S does y at t) Q-> (~P(t) v ~L) 5, strict to subjunctive implication 7. ~K S t (Sdoesyatt) CFPL, 6 (MP) 8. K S t (Sdoesyatt) 3(8) 9. no one can ever act other than he does act

2-8 (indirect proof)

10. If the thesis of Determinism is true, then no one can ever act other than he does act. 2-9 (conditional proof) Fischer on the Conditional Argument for Incompatibilism: "Employing the Conditional Version ... allows us to avoid the Transfer Principle. Unfortunately, the Conditional Version can lead to Dialectical Stalemates. Specifically, the local-miracle compatibilist will say that there are cases in which both a can-claim and local-miracle conditional are true [which the incompatibilist who does not believe in miracles will deny] ... Similarly, the multiple-pasts compatibilists will say that there are cases in which both a can-claim and a backtracking conditional are true [which the incompatibilist will say is not relevant]" (p. 86). I have suggested that the manner of 'resolution of vagueness of nearness' that is appropriate to a conditional depends on its context, with different manners being appropriate to contexts of deliberation, and of theoretical inquiry. If this is right, then regarding these apparent stand-offs, one should wonder whether contexts implied for conditionals imbedded in Fischer's conditional-fixity principles (and the one I put in place of them) are the same as contexts implied for them in cases developed to challenge these principles. The answer is presumably that they are the same, and that these compatibilist's challenges are - as our introductory students keep trying to tell us - 'off the wall.'

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A3 THE BASIC ARGUMENT

"I shall develop a version of the incompatibilist's challenges which can allow us to avoid the problems that issued in the Stalemates described above ... It employs the intuitive views which also underlie the Transfer Version and the Conditional Version, but it gives expression to these ideas in a slightly different way ... The Basic Version of the Argument for Incompatibilism employs the following very simple idea: an agent can do X only if his doing X can be an extension of the actual past, holding the laws fixed" (p. 88). I take this simple idea as the sole premise of the Basic Argument, and use the lemma used in the deduction of the Conditional Argument. Premise: FTA (freedom to add to the given past while holding the laws fixed): For any person S and time t, and action type x, Ks t(S does x at t) ID O[(S does x at t) & (P(t) & L)]. Lemma to be cited: L2. For every person S, time t, and action types x and y, if the thesis of Determinism is true, then [(S does x at t) & Alts t(y,x)] => D [(P(t) & L) => ~(S does y at t)]. Conclusion: If the thesis of Determinism is true, then no one can ever act other than he does act. Deduction: i. the thesis of Determinism is true assumption for conditional proof 2. someone can at some time act other than he does act assumption for indirect proof 3. (S does x at t) & Alts t(y,x) & Ks t(S does y at t) 2 (El) i, L2 (MP), 3 (S,MP) 4. D [(P(t) & L) ID ~(S does y at t)] ' 5. ~O[(S does y att) & (P(t) & L)] interchange, modal negation 6. ~KS t(S does y at t) FTA, 5 (MT) 7. Ks t(S does y at t) 3 (S) 8. no one can ever act other than he does act

2-7 (indirect proof)

9. If the thesis of Determinism is true, then no one can ever act other than he does act. 2-8 (conditional proof)

2OO Puzzles for the Will Query: When deliberating at t' whether to do x at t, and the question whether one can do x at t arises, should this be in part the question whether doing x at t is in a possible extension of the actual past all the way to t, or just to ?'? Left as an 'exercise' is adapting the Basic Argument to the plausible answer, Just to t'.

Looking Back

Logical fatalisms can fascinate, but their threats are bogus. Logical necessities, which is all that fuel these doctrines, are never in themselves or in their implications of proper human concern, of proper human practical, not theoretical, concern. It is part of philosophy's business to clear away the puzzles of these doctrines, so that they should not while confusion reigns illegitimately perturb wills. Beliefs in necessities are never properly worrying. Cases are different, however, for beliefs in other than necessities, specifically, for beliefs in certain probabilities, and in possibilities. Taking probabilities first, beliefs in predictors, for example, can, in the manner exemplified in the Samarra Problem, make rational choices impossible, and in this way stymie wills. And there is in philosophy no solace for these problems. All it can say is that they are possible, that the beliefs, the subjective probabilities, that fuel them, can be perfectly reasonable and well-grounded. There is, I think, no saying 'what to do about them' when they are perfectly reasonable. Turning to possibilities, I have considered those of divine omniscience and of determinism, each variously understood. Regarding divine omniscience, its threats can be as unreal, as mere nasty logical tricks, as are the would-be threats of logical fatalisms. This is so for mere, for inessential, omniscience. As for the threats of essential omniscience, though real they are manageable: they are answerable by recourse to one or another extraordinary metaphysical measure. These measures are licensed here by what would be the modally extraordinary character of essential omniscients, because of which very special extraordinariness, all 'intuitions' regarding the fixities of their past existences and beliefs are properly off. Turning to possibilities of determinisms, threats of these can be real and unmanageable. Some determinisms fitted out with principles that fix pasts and

202 Puzzles for the Will laws are incompatible with freedom of choice, and, if dwelled upon as serious possibilities, are corrosive of valued attitudes towards ourselves, and of conceptions of ourselves as agents. Regarding these real and unmanageable threats that determinisms can pose, there is, however, Hume's good advice. Dine, converse, be merry with friends, and take one's mind off philosophy. There is, when in a deterministic funk and estranged, the solace that, unless we are quite depraved by thought or nature, our deep commitments to engaged living will prevail. There is the solace that we almost certainly will in some manner enact Hume's advice, that we will soon come up from underground, join the living, cjid feel human once again.

References

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Index

AckrilU.L. 46 actions 110-11; incompatible 112 actuality ('(@)') 18 Adams, Marilyn McCord 178 alethic necessities 17, 20-4, 129 Ancient Causes 93,95, 99, 123, 135,142 Aristotle 10,46,112,119 backtracking conditionals 64,65-6, 117, 119, 158, 169-70, 198 Bergman, Gustav 87 Berkeley, George, Bishop 50,158 Berra, Lawrence Peter ('Yogi') 186 big bang 89, 95. See also mini-bangs Bishop, John 110 Blumenfeld, David 145 Bright, Robert 96, 150 Calvin's Problem 55 causal conditionals 63, 65-7 causal principle, the 84 Che Sara Sara 5, 26 'choiceless freedom' 168. See also 'guidance control' choices, natural 108-10,132-3; and 'CD-3**' 129-33 choices proper 107-8

Chrysippus 31 Cicero 31 Clarke, Randolph 164 Cocteau, Jean 75 conditional derivation 7, 8-9, 30 Consequence Argument 122 constructive dilemma 11-12,30 control 144. See also 'regulatory control' and 'guidance control' Craig, William Lane 89 Darrow, Clarence 5 Day, Doris 5 Defoe, Daniel 76 deliberation and agency 191-3 deontic necessities 19,129 Descartes, Rene 119 desirability 44. See also expected utility determinisms - block universe 101-7 Laplacean 102, 103-6,107, 137 'Windowshade' 102, 137, 194 - causal 84-101,104,105 perpetual state-to-state ('CD-3', 'CDpss') 98; necessary, fixed-laws, variable-or-unfixed-past CDpss ('CD-3a') 158; necessary,

210 Index variable-or-unfixed-laws, fixed-past CDpss ('CD-3b') 158; necessary, weak fixed-laws, and weak fixedpast, all relative to natural choices ('CD-3**') 129; restricted weak fixed-laws, and restricted weak fixed-past ('CD-3*', 'CDpss*') 123 state-to-process ('CD-2', 'CDsp') 87; conservative 92; liberal 93 state-to-state('CD-l', 'CDSS') 87; necessary, fixed-laws, and fixed-past CCD-1*',CDSS*) 146 - 'fixed laws' 73, 116-18 - 'fixed pasts' 73, 118-21 - 'necessary' 115-16 Diodorus Coronus 5 divine foreknowledge 47 Dostoevsky, Fyodor xii, 146,165 Dummett, Michael 31 Barman, John 80, 85, 86, 102, 149 entertainability ('Enr') 124, 128, 130, 153-5 expected utility 68-9, 173-6. See also desirability 'fast-starting' series 89, 96 Fischer, John Martin xi, 82, 127,128, 161,167-200; and Mark Ravizza 117, 120 'fixed pasts' and 'fixed laws.' See determinisms Forrest, Peter 158 Frankfurt, Harry 145, 186, 190, 192 'freedom of choice' xi. See also 'regulatory control' 'Free Will,' 'Minimal Free Will' 111-14, 127,144 Freud, Sigmund 5

Gibbard, Allan 112, 117; and William L. Harper 62, 75,117, 120, 163^, 175 Ginet, Carl 78,110 Godel, Kurt 43 Goldman, Alvin 79 Gombay, Andre 51 'guidance control' 168,186-88. See also 'choiceless freedom' 168,186-8. Harcourt, Arthur 74 hard determinism 4 Hare,R.M. 85 Harper, William. See Gibbard, Allan Hill, Grace 184 Hillerby, Susan 27 'history' 84 Holbach, Baron d' (Paul Henri Dietrich) 5 Horgan, Terence 66,170,175 Hume, David 81,96,118,161-3,167, 189,191,202 Hunt, David 13, 31,183 Hunter, John 89 hypothetical syllogism 29-30,40, 153 'idle argument,' the 28, 31 infallible predictors 171-3 James, William 102 Jeffrey, Richard C. 68,73,174 Kane, Robert 114 Kant, Immanuel 108,145-6,157,158, 161,191 Kapitan, Tomis 111,112,127 Laplace, Pierre Simon, Marquis de 103-4 lawhood, Ramsey/Lewis 160-1 law of nature (causal law) 86-7,102, 117, 163

Index Lehrer, Keith 138,140 Lewis, David K. 35, 38, 104, 113, 129, 130, 132, 153, 154, 159-60, 162, 163, 169-70, 175 logical fatalism ix, 3-50 logical necessity ('D', S5) 14,18, 130 Lukasiewicz, Jan 88 Mackie,J.L. 73 material conditional 7, 8 Maugham, W. Somerset 55, 74 'mini-bangs' 159,162-3. See also big bang miracles 159, 162-3 modus ponens 9-10, 12, 24, 30 Montague, Richard 85 Moore, George Edward 138-9,140,141, 144 moral responsibility 139, 144 'naive fatalism' 5,13, 31 Newcomb's Problem x, xi, 52-5, 56, 62-9, 72, 168, 169. See also infallible predictors Nozick, Robert 72, 168, 169, 172, 192 O'Connor, Timothy 146 Oedipus Rex 51,75 O'Kara, John 55,74-5 omniscience 47, 176-84; mere essential everlasting o. 177; essential everlasting o. 177-9; essential everlasting o. with necessary existence 180-3. See also divine foreknowledge Parker, Dorothy 74 past, the 184-6 Pereboom, Derek 145, 146, 147, 190-1 Pike, Nelson 184

2ii

Plantinga, Alvin 178,184 Pollock, John 154 'possible state' 80 'possible world' 17 predictability 78-80 'processes' 83; 'properly circumscribed' ('CD2-series') 90 'process-propositions' 83—4 Putnam, Hilary 180 quasi-quotation 10 Rabinowicz, Wbdzimierz (Wlodek) 120, 128 Ravizza, Mark. See Fischer, John Martin 'reactive attitudes' (Strawsonian) xi, 146, 168, 188, 189-91 'regulatory control' 167,186-7. See also 'freedom of choice' Reid, Thomas 110 Rowe, William L. 110,205 Samarra Problem, The x, 55-62, 69, 70, 72 Sapire, David 93^t, 164 Seager, William 149 Segerberg, Krister 33 Smith, Quentin 88,89,94 Sobel, Jordan Howard 35,44,50,53, 55, 59,66,69,71,72,91,113,137, 143, 153, 167, 173, 174, 175, 176 Stalnaker, Robert 175 'state-proposition' 81,82 Stevenson, Charles 138,139,140 Strawson, Peter xi, 146, 168, 188, 189, 190 strengthening the antecedent 153 subjunctive conditionals ('CK') 33; closeness and purposes 35,198; in contexts of deliberation and advice

212

Index

112, 119,158; necessarily counterfactual ('->') 34; realistic and epistemic (belief-revision) 112, 117, 119,158. See also backtracking and causal c. subjunctive conditionals, principles of inference for: Rl - conditionalnegation-exportation 125,127,136; R2 - conjoining consequents 126, 128,131,135; R3 - entailmenttransference 126,128,129,132,135; R4 - robustness of logical necessities 131;R5- repetition 131 Swartz, Norman 161 Talbott,W.J. 73 Taylor, Richard 5,13,16,17, 27, 31,47, 48-50 'total state' 81,83

'transference rules' 127,129,194-7 Trilling, Lionel 55, 75,76 van Inwagen, Peter 4, 31, 50, 81, 86, 104,106,113,117,118,119,122,127, 128,134,156,167 Vihvelin, Kadri 127 Warfield, Ted A. 180 Weatherford, Roy C. 31 Wharton, Elizabeth 75 Widerker, David. See Zemach, Eddy Wierenga, Edward 185,186 Wisdom, John 91,95 Zemach, Eddy, and David Widerker 82, 181,182,183,184, 185