Abstract
My students sometimes worry that if eternalism is true then they can’t have libertarian freedom. They aren’t alone, as this sentiment is also expressed, albeit typically briefly, by various philosophers. However, somewhat surprisingly, those working within the free will literature have largely had nothing to say about libertarianism’s relationship to time, with this also being similar in the case of those working in the philosophy of time, apart from some work which has mainly focused on nonlibertarian views of freedom. In this short paper I note why I’m currently unconvinced that there’s an incompatibility between eternalism and libertarianism, and in doing so one will see why I think they are compatible.
My thanks to James Read, Robin Le Poidevin, Tim Mawson, Damiano Costa, and an anonymous referee for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I also wish to acknowledge my students for interesting discussions on this topic, which provided inspiration for writing something on this subject.
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Notes
- 1.
For additional references, see Oaklander (1998).
- 2.
Apparently, some have no interest in the matter either, with Koperski writing that ‘Timpe [who specialises in the philosophy of free will] has said that he is not terribly concerned about the metaphysics of time (private conversation).’ (2015, 115).
- 3.
Note that throughout the paper I will speak of time-slices. I do this since I find it easier to think and speak about the block being ‘sliced’ up in this way. One big slice after another. I take it that nothing substantial rests on this, and one can translate my talk into events or entities if one prefers. It may even be that translating this talk into events is preferable since, as my colleague James Read informs me, ‘the Gödel universe isn’t foliable into hypersurfaces of constant time --- but we can still (the thought typically goes) be eternalists about it through thinking about it in terms of events.’ (in personal Correspondence) I let the reader do so if they wish.
- 4.
There might be some slightly harder varieties of eternalism to classify, such as Maudlin’s (2007, ch.4), and perhaps Koons’s (2022), but I take it that the vast majority will fit comfortably into my classification. In any case, what I will largely be concerned with is the claim of ENTITY EVERYWHENISM, and this is one all eternalists seem to embrace.
- 5.
Rather than the other type of incompatibilists, hard determinists, who think agents can’t act freely.
- 6.
One could read Petkov as thinking this, as he writes that four-dimensionalism, by which I take him to mean eternalism, implies that our actions are ‘predetermined’ (2005, 152). Similarly Rietdijk (1966), who seems to think that all time-slices exist, claims that because of this there is no indeterminism, a view Putnam (243–247) also seems to hold. There is a little ambiguity, however, in what both mean when they speak of determinism, with Rietdijk saying that ‘we may conclude that there is determinism (which is, of course, not the same thing as causality)’ (1967, 343). Perhaps then what is meant is not causal determinism, but that events in the future are ‘set’ or what I will call later ‘fixed’, and it is for this reason that they call them determined. However, if this is all they mean I see no reason why this would imply that there couldn’t be an indeterministic link between two time-slices, even though it is set or fixed what will occur in our future.
- 7.
For instance, my actions, since I take it that my actions do not exhaust the time-slice. There are, after all, your actions as well.
- 8.
Instead of entities you could read this as parts of the time slices.
- 9.
Defining determinism in terms of possible worlds makes this clear. Such as Clarke’s definition, where ‘one event is taken to deterministically cause another just in case, in every possible world in which the actual laws of nature obtain and in which the first event occurs, it causes the second.’ (2003, 4).
- 10.
Assuming that the laws of nature were the only determining factor.
- 11.
PAP sometimes includes a claim about moral responsibility, however here I just mean it to refer to having alternative possibilities.
- 12.
Note that there are also sourcehood versions of compatibilism (Timpe, 2017), but I focus on libertarianism here.
- 13.
This position is also attributed to Clarke in Fischer (1999, 129, footnote 66).
- 14.
In fairness, and unlike others, Koperski (2015, 115) does mention this, although he moves past it fairly promptly.
- 15.
Timpe (2013, 155–161), for instance, has suggested that narrow-sourcehood does require PAP. If he is correct, then it isn’t a viable option and this way to make eternalism and libertarianism compatible fails. By contrast Shabo thinks all sourcehood accounts should reject PAP (2010, 350, n.4). Who is in fact right about this, I leave undiscussed here.
- 16.
This is what O’Connor and Franklin call the categorical analysis of PAP.
- 17.
Another way PAP is sometimes put is in terms of agents having the power to act otherwise than they in fact do. Since I take it that powers are inherently modal, with reductive analyses failing, this will also make PAP inherently modal.
- 18.
I understand ‘access’ talk, the way van Inwagen does, as providing ‘a way of organizing our talk about unexercised abilities by reference to unrealized possibilities: an unexercised ability is treated as an ability to realize some unrealized possibility.’ (1983, 87).
- 19.
I have spoken here, and will speak elsewhere in this paper, of possible worlds. I take it that whilst modal realism might be seen as a natural analogue to eternalism, eternalism by no means requires it. In fact I see no reason why eternalism would require any specific view on the metaphysical status of possible worlds. Given this, and since I want eternalism and libertarianism to be compatible with as many views as possible, I take no particular view on the ontology of possible worlds and therefore one can understand them as they wish.
- 20.
Hinchliff (2000) also seems to give some views of presentisms relationship to relativity which would also allow me to tell a similar story.
- 21.
I would also add sourcehood which I will turn to shortly.
- 22.
This is also related to the problem of logical fatalism, which I don’t intend to contribute to here. The argument I’m responding to is sometimes purposefully distinguished from fatalism and as such is taken to be distinct (Koperski, 2015, 113–116). Nevertheless, let me say that some of the moves I make here, also speak against fatalism (Merricks, 2009, 2011) and that some have argued that eternalism grants additional resources for responding to fatalism (Finch & Rea, 2008).
- 23.
- 24.
Anselm, for instance seems to say just this in his De Concordia (The Compatibility of God’s Foreknowledge, Predestination, and Grace with Human Freedom), whilst also thinking that our actions are still free (Davies & Evans, 1998, 435–474).
- 25.
This relation might be causal, with Tahira’s acts having a causal effect on what God believes. Some theists might worry about this. However, my purpose here isn’t to provide an orthodox theism but rather just to show that a closed future is compatible with free action. Nevertheless, a suggestion which may make what I say here non-causal is found in Merricks (2009, 41, 54–55; 2011, 574–579, 584, n.11) and Leftow (1991, 243–244, 255–265).
- 26.
Le Poidevin (2013, 540–542) also provides a response to this worry.
- 27.
- 28.
- 29.
This is not to say that event-causal accounts must be reductive. If they are not, then another response will need to be given.
- 30.
I can also produce an argument from authority for the claim libertarianism is compatible with eternalism. Van Inwagen is a contemporary defender of libertarianism, and yet he also doesn’t seem to be at all a fan of dynamic theories of passage (2015, ch.4). Yet never, as far as I’m aware, has he suggested that the negation of dynamic theories rules out libertarianism.
- 31.
I do not mean to imply here that those who adopt a powers view must be agent-causalists.
- 32.
I assume here that STR is compatible with simultaneous causation, but for some pushback on this see (Hansson Wahlberg, 2017).
- 33.
- 34.
Lockwood’s comment is also related to a powers theory of causation noted above and will be addressed further below. It is therefore also worth pointing out that many power theorists will deny that powers turn from being potentially X to being actually X. Instead they think of a power manifesting as jumping from being actually X to being actually Y (Mumford & Anjum, 2011; Bird, 2007). Whether they should do so, however, is another matter, since it might be that this theory denies change since it gives rise to the notorious always packing never travelling worry (Armstrong, 1997, 80).
- 35.
Or in other words they do not ‘persist’.
- 36.
This is ‘worm theory’ or standard perdurance. One could also adjust what I say here for ‘stage-theory’ if they wished. For more on this distinction see Hawley (2020).
- 37.
This isn’t to say that I think this is in fact the case.
- 38.
This view of powers isn’t prey to the always-packing-never-travelling worry (Marmodoro, 2017, 60–62).
- 39.
Of course, the whole time-slice doesn’t depend on what they do, since it contains much besides the agent. But I take it you get the picture.
- 40.
Obviously if libertarianism does not require endurantism and is compatible with other theories of persistence, then this objection will be overcome more easily.
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Page, B. (2022). Libertarian Freedom in an Eternalist World?. In: Austin, C.J., Marmodoro, A., Roselli, A. (eds) Powers, Time and Free Will. Synthese Library, vol 451. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92486-7_5
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