In Causes, Laws, and Free Will, Kadri Vihvelin argues that we can have free will even if everything we do is predictable given the laws of nature and the past. The belief that determinism robs us of free will springs from mistaken beliefs about the metaphysics of causation, the nature of laws, and the logic of counterfactuals.

The Consequence argument is an argument from plausible premises–our lack of causal power over the laws and past–to an implausible conclusion: that if determinism is true, we are equally powerless with respect to the future. What the compatibilist needs is a theory of counterfactuals that preserves the links between counterfactuals, causation, and the natural laws in a way that supports our commonsense belief that we have the power to make a causal difference to the future but no such power with (...) respect to the past. Lewis’s critique of the Consequence argument was based on his theory of counterfactuals and his analysis of causation as a counterfactual relation between particular events. He argued that, at a world that is deterministic in the way that ours might be, counterfactuals are temporally asymmetric in a way that matches the contingent temporal asymmetry of cauation. So it is not surprising, but only to be expected, that the past is causally closed while the future is causally open. If this worked, it would be just what the compatibilist needs. But it doesn’t work. There is an argument, due to Tooley and recently endorsed by Wasserman, that a fundamental feature of Lewis’s theory of counterfactuals is inconsistent with the metaphysical possibility of time travel and backwards causation. If this is right, then Lewis’s response to the Consequence argument fails. I endorse this conclusion, but argue that there is a better theory of counterfactuals–a theory that leaves open the metaphysical possibility of time travel to the past and backwards causation. (shrink)

Determinism is a claim about the laws of nature: very roughly, it is the claim that everything that happens is determined by antecedent conditions together with the natural laws. Incompatibilism is a philosophical thesis about the relevance of determinism to free will: that the truth of determinism rules out the existence of free will. The incompatibilist believes that if determinism turned out to be true, it would also be true that we don't have, and have never had, free will. The (...) compatibilist denies that determinism has the consequences the incompatibilist thinks it has. According to the compatibilist, the truth of determinism does not preclude the existence of free will. (Even if we learned tomorrow that determinism is true, it might still be true that we have free will.) The philosophical problem of free will and determinism is the problem of understanding, how, if at all, the truth of determinism might be compatible with the truth of our belief that we have free will. That is, it's the problem of deciding who is right: the compatibilist or the incompatibilist. (shrink)

The traditional debate between compatibilists and incompatibilists was based on the assumption that if determinism deprives us of free will and moral responsibility, it does so by making it true that we can never do other than what we actually do. All parties to the debate took for granted the truth of a claim now widely known as "the principle of alternate possibilities": someone is morally responsible only if he could have done otherwise. In a famous paper, Harry Frankfurt argued (...) that the principle of alternate possibilities is false. I argue that Frankfurt's argument rests on a modal fallacy. (shrink)

I have argued that even if time travel is metaphysically possible, there are some things a time traveler would not be able to do. I reply here to critics who have argued that my account entails fatalism about the past or entails that the time traveler is unfree or that she is bound by “strange shackles.” My argument does not entail any sort of fatalism. The time traveler is able to do many of the things that everyone else can do (...) and is as free as any non-time-traveler. The time traveler is constrained only as we all are by the laws of nature. My argument shows only how strangely those constraints must operate if those laws permit time travel. (shrink)

There is one important point about which Fischer and I are in agreement. We agree that determinism is compatible with moral responsibility. We disagree about the best way of defending that claim. He thinks that Frankfurt's strategy is a good one, that we can grant incompatibilists the metaphysical victory while insisting that we are still morally responsible. I think this a huge mistake and I think the literature spawned by Frankfurt's attempt to undercut the metaphysical debate between compatibilists and incompatibilists (...) is a snare and a delusion, distracting our attention from the important issues. (shrink)

This chapter proposes an approach to the free will/determinism problem that addresses the issue of whether the apparent conflict between free will and determinism is real or not. According to common sense, man has free will; when a person makes a choice, he or she indeed has the choice thought to be had. However, who is to say that the choices one makes are not predetermined? For all we know, determinism might be true. Common sense either is not aware of, (...) or does not take seriously, the thought of determinism. Nevertheless, as soon as a philosopher explains the thesis of determinism, common sense sees the problem: the truth of determinism means the absence of free will. (shrink)

Causation is defined as a relation between facts: C causes E if and only if C and E are nomologically independent facts and C is a necessary part of a nomologically sufficient condition for E. The analysis is applied to problems of overdetermination, preemption, trumping, intransitivity, switching, and double prevention. Preventing and allowing are defined and distinguished from causing. The analysis explains the direction of causation in terms of the logical form of dynamic laws. Even in a universe that is (...) deterministic in both temporal directions, not every fact must have a cause and present facts may have no future causes. (shrink)

The free will debate is a modal one--if determinism is true, can agents ever do other than what they do? Compatibilists have tried to show that statements about what an agent could have done are deductible to statements about what she would have done if certain conditions had obtained. But recent developments in modal logic and the logic of counterfactuals provide arguments that no such analysis can succeed. There is in the literature no satisfactory reply to these arguments, and some (...) compatibilists have retreated to the position that freedom in the sense worth wanting does not require being able to do otherwise. I argue that this retreat is both misguided and unnecessary. ;In Chapter One I examine a formal modal argument which Ginet and van Inwagen offer as a reconstruction of the reasoning that people actually use in concluding that determinism and freedom are incompatible. Although the argument has a form that is valid in the standard modal logics, I show that it is not valid for the kind of necessity at issue. ;If a causally determined agent were to do otherwise, either the past or the laws would be different. In Chapter Two I show that this does not commit the compatibilist to the claim that determined agents can change the laws or the past. ;The incompatibilist argues that deterministic laws prevent us from exercising any ability other than the one we in fact exercise. In Chapter Three I argue that abilities are a species of capacity, that capacities are not dispositions, and that determined agents are ordinarily able to exercise unexercised abilities. ;Frankfurt and Dennett claim to have counterexamples to the thesis that responsibility and the kind of freedom worth wanting require being able to do otherwise. In Chapters Four and Five I explain why their cases do not undermine the traditional debate. They are right in thinking that much of what we value about freedom is what distinguishes us from less complex parts of nature--our psychological abilities. But they are wrong in thinking that it doesn't matter whether we are able to do otherwise. (shrink)