Ability, Foreknowledge, and Explanatory Dependence

Abstract

Many philosophers maintain that the ability to do otherwise is compatible with comprehensive divine foreknowledge but incompatible with the truth of causal determinism. But the Fixity of the Past principle underlying the rejection of compatibilism about the ability to do otherwise and determinism appears to generate an argument also for the incompatibility of the ability to do otherwise and divine foreknowledge. By developing an account of ability that appeals to the notion of explanatory dependence, we can replace the Fixity of the Past with a principle that does not generate this difficulty. I develop such an account and defend it from objections. I also explore some of the account's implications, including whether the account is consistent with presentism.

Atemporalism and dependence

“…3 See Merricks (2009), Swenson (2016), and Westphal (2011). McCall (2011) gives a similar response as does Westphal and Swenson (and Fischer and Tognazzini 2014 treat McCall as another sempiternalist), but McCall is actually an Atemporalist.…”

Free Will, Foreknowledge, and Future‐Dependent Beliefs

“…Past divine beliefs about future actions are up to us because they depend on what we do. In a somewhat similar spirit, Swenson () explicitly suggests that we should revise FP in the light of Origen's Suggestion. McCall () and Westphal (), in contrast, appear to believe that something like Origen's Suggestion directly blocks the incompatibilist argument.…”

“…Moreover, I will forego a discussion of Ockhamism, which would take us too far from our actual target. For a discussion of how Origen's Suggestion may relate to Ockhamism, see Fischer and Todd , as well as Swenson , 659, note 5. Let me now turn to the core assumption, Origen's Suggestion.…”

“…Past divine foreknowledge and past truths, as such, do not. Quite the contrary, it has been argued that past divine beliefs and past truths depend on what they are about (Merricks ; McCall ; Westphal ; Swenson ; van Riel, forthcoming). The past may determine the future in these cases, in the modal sense that necessarily , if God foreknows that some agent x will φ in the future, then x will φ in the future, but the order of dependency runs in the opposite direction.…”

“…Although this idea has been largely ignored in the rather heated free will debate of the second half of the last century, it has attracted considerable attention in the past few years. And it has been reintroduced with a purpose: theorists who employ this idea typically believe that reference to the dependence of past divine beliefs or past truths on their future content blocks arguments for corresponding forms of incompatibilism (most notably, Merricks ; McCall ; Westphal ; Swenson ). In a nutshell, the idea can be put as follows: if past divine beliefs or past truths about what we do depend on what we do, then these beliefs and truths are, in a sense, up to us ; hence, we are able to act otherwise, despite the existence of past truths or past divine beliefs about our future actions.…”