Abstract
The truthmaker literature has recently come to the consensus that the logic of truthmaking is distinct from classical propositional logic. This development has huge implications for the free will literature. Since free will and moral responsibility are primarily ontological concerns (and not semantic concerns) the logic of truthmaking ought to be central to the free will debate. I shall demonstrate that counterexamples to transfer principles employed in the direct argument occur precisely where a plausible logic of truthmaking diverges from classical logic. Further, restricted transfer principles (like the ones employed by McKenna, Stump, and Warfield) are as problematic as the original formulation of the direct argument.
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Notes
While I believe that a reductive account of dispositions can be given, I do not believe that Lewis provides the best method for doing so. Yet, the account I defend (as well as all existing accounts of dispositions) takes the ontology of dispositions significantly more seriously (Hermes 2012).
David Armstrong has perhaps had the greatest influence on getting philosophers to think about truthmakers. C.B. Martin, however, was the philosopher who convinced Armstrong of the importance of truthmakers.
This point seems relevant to many different areas of the free will debate. The consequence argument often conflates the ability to do otherwise with the ability to render a proposition false. Yet, doing other than making a proposition true need not require the ability to make the proposition false. Similarly, in Frankfurt cases, the fact that the agent cannot make it false that he performs some illicit activity allegedly demonstrates that he could not have done otherwise than make it true that he performs that activity. Yet, in the actual sequence of events, the agent’s normal mental states make it true that he performs the activity. In the counterfactual scenario, a device that is not the agent’s own makes it true that the illicit activity is performed. Like the consequence argument, Frankfurt cases seem to presume that the ability to do otherwise than make a proposition true requires the ability to make that proposition false.
Theorists in the counterfactuals literature tend to follow David Lewis by using the term ‘counterfactual’ even for conditionals with true antecedents. Psychologists, working on counterfactual reasoning, often restrict the term ‘counterfactual’ only for conditionals where the antecedent is false and use the term ‘subjunctive’ for a broader class of conditionals. While I follow Lewis in my usage of the term ‘counterfactual’ nothing would be lost by replacing all occurrences of the term ‘counterfactual’ with ‘subjunctive conditional’.
A similar argument occurs in (Hermes and Campbell 2012).
While C2M as it is defined here is a principle in standard accounts of counterfactuals, there are a few alleged counterexamples to C2M in the counterfactuals literature (Gundersen 2002, 2003, 2004; Lycan 1993, 2001; McDermott 2007, and McGee 2000). One type of counterexample occurs in cases of iterated counterfactuals. These alleged counterexamples have the form 1. P□ → (Q□ → R), 2. P, therefore 3. Q□ → R. A second alleged counterexample occurs when a bizarre unexplained event prevents the consequent from being true when the antecedent is true. Those who accept these counterexamples still endorse a restricted version of C2M that applies when the contested patters are not an issue. Since neither of the contested patterns are employed in the above argument, even those who reject the standard version of C2M could employ a restricted version and derive the same results.
While there is a vast literature on scientific essentialism, Ellis 2007 is perhaps the best place to being examining this position.
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Acknowledgments
Author is grateful to Jeremy Byrd, Joe Campbell, Alfred Mele, and an extraordinarily helpful anonymous reviewer for the insights they provided on earlier drafts of this paper
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Hermes, C. Truthmakers and the direct argument. Philos Stud 167, 401–418 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0101-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0101-2