Are all possible laws actual laws?

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (4):517 – 533 (2003)
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Abstract

Suppose it is a law that all Fs are G. Does the law hold in all possible worlds? According to Necessitarianism, it holds in at least all those worlds containing F-ness. I argue that the Necessitarian must also take the law to hold in all those possible worlds which do not contain F-ness. Accepting the principle that a law can only hold in a world if it has some ontological grounding in that world, I argue that Necessitarianism is committed to the claim that any law holding in the actual world is grounded in every possible world, and that any law holding in any possible world is grounded in the actual world. In other words, Necessitarianism takes all possible laws to be actual.

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Simon Bostock
University of Sheffield (PhD)

Citations of this work

Moral Necessitism and Scientific Contingentism.Harjit Bhogal - forthcoming - Oxford Studies in Metaethics.
A Defense of Hume's Dictum.Cameron Gibbs - 2019 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Fine-Tuned of Necessity?Ben Page - 2018 - Res Philosophica 95 (4):663-692.
Causal essentialism and the identity of indiscernibles.Cameron Gibbs - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (9):2331-2351.

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References found in this work

What is a Law of Nature?David Armstrong - 1983 - Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Causality and properties.Sydney Shoemaker - 1980 - In Peter van Inwagen (ed.), Time and Cause. D. Reidel. pp. 109-35.
The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism.Brian David Ellis - 2002 - Chesham: Mcgill-Queen's University Press.
» The Nature of Natural Laws «.Chris Swoyer - 1982 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 60 (3):1982.

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