Chance, determinism, and unsettledness

Abstract

Abstract.A previously unrecognised argument against deterministic chance is introduced. The argument rests on the twin ideas that determined outcomes are settled, while chancy outcomes are unsettled, thus making cases of determined but chancy outcomes impossible. Closer attention to tacit assumptions about settledness makes available some principled lines of resistance to the argument for compatibilists about chance and determinism. Yet the costs of maintaining compatibilism may be higher with respect to this argument than with respect to existing incompatibilist arguments. §1. Chance, Determinism, and Possibility

Context Sensitivity and Chance

“…In fairness to proponents of context‐sensitive accounts of deterministic chance, their arguments do not focus exclusively on our discourse practices. In fact, Eagle (2019) even claims that they center ‘their argument around the ability of deterministic probabilities to adequately play the chance role’ (p. 782) 11 . I will not attempt to adjudicate this latter claim, nor will I attempt to assess the success of these arguments about the chance role, in keeping with my strict neutrality here on the (in)compatibilist debate (cf.…”

“…First, I think Eagle provides a clear demonstration of the mistake that any such argument must make. Second, I think that Eagle also makes an important, additional mistake about context sensitivity, to some extent repeated in Eagle (2019), that must be guarded against. Here is the structure my argument will take.…”

“…3 3An anonymous reviewer suggests that Eagle may commit himself to a more easily defended claim: one that is about the truth conditions for IC itself as opposed to for its utterances (cf. Eagle 2019, pp. 799–800).…”