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A dilemma for morally responsible time travelers

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Abstract

In this paper I argue that new attempts to undermine the principle of alternative possibilities via appeal to time travel fail. My argument targets a version of a Frankfurt-style counterexample to the principle recently developed by Spencer (Philos Stud 166:149–162, 2013). I argue that in avoiding one prominent objection to standard Frankfurt-style counterexamples Spencer’s time travel case runs afoul of another. Furthermore, the very feature of the case which makes it initially appealing also makes it impossible to revise the case such that it can avoid this further objection. Thus Spencer’s time travel case and cases like it provide no dialectical advantages over other Frankfurt-style cases. I conclude that this strategy for refining such cases should be abandoned.

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Notes

  1. Given the rich literature on this topic here I restrict my discussion only to the features of the debate directly relevant to motivating Spencer’s particular Frankfurt-style counterexample. For a helpful overview of some of the important contemporary moves in this debate see Fischer (2011).

  2. See Kane (1985: 51; 1996: 142–144), Widerker (1995), Ginet (1996), and Wyma (1997).

  3. For arguments in favor of this particular refinement of PAP see McKenna (1997: 73–74), Wyma (1997: 59), Otsuka (1998: 688), Steward (2008, 2009), and Alvarez (2009).

  4. For further discussion of the relevant notion of robustness see Pereboom (2009).

  5. For further discussion of the epistemic component of robustness see Pereboom (2009) and Nelkin (2011).

  6. Here I assume that the reader has some degree of familiarity with Frankfurt’s (1969) original case, and for the sake of brevity will not present it here.

  7. I focus on this strategy in particular as it is the one that Spencer (2013: 152) himself hopes to block. For a helpful taxonomy of other prominent strategies for defending PAP against Frankfurt-style counterexamples and further responses and refinements see Fischer (2011).

  8. Spencer also assumes that our current physical theories are consistent with the possibility of time travel, and provides arguments in support of this assumption (Spencer 2013: 152).

  9. Interestingly, this case trades on the intuition that Martin is praiseworthy for saving his grandfather’s life, and there is empirical evidence suggesting that there are potentially morally relevant asymmetries in our intuitions about praise and blame (see Knobe 2003). However, this potential objection to TT is tangential to the more serious worry I raise here, and so I wish only to flag it for further consideration.

  10. It may be helpful to the reader to note that Spencer does not assume that the necessity of origins is true. Rather, TT depends only on the less controversial claim that Martin counterfactually depends for his existence on his grandfather (for a brief argument in support of this claim see Spencer (2013: 157).

  11. See Kane (1985: 51; 1996: 142–144), Widerker (1995), Ginet (1996), and Wyma (1997).

  12. Spencer himself, though, is silent on the relevance of TT to the dilemma objection.

  13. For further discussion of the modal necessitarian view that there is no distinction between metaphysical and causal necessity see Shoemaker (1980, 1998), and for further discussion of the modal contingentist view that causal necessity is weaker, see Fine (2002).

  14. For early formulations of this kind of case see Hunt (1996, 2000), Mele and Robb (1998), Stump (1999), Pereboom (2001), and Zagzebski (2000), and for later refinements see Hunt (2005), Mele and Robb (2003), Pereboom (2003), Stump (2003), and Widerker (2011).

  15. Widerker (2011: 269) also states the features of a successful IRR scenario more formally as follows:

    1. (a)

      S decides-to-V at T on his own.

    2. (b)

      P1, P2, …., Pn are all (in the circumstances) causally possible alternatives to S’s deciding-to-V at T.

    3. (c)

      P1, P2, …., Pn, are actionally inaccessible to S in the circumstances.

  16. Or so Widerker (2011), and other proponents of this kind of case will argue. Here it is beyond my current purposes to assess the ultimate success of IRR scenarios in constituting a successful counterexample to PAP. Here I wish only to identify the best potential strategy for refining cases like TT in such a way that they avoid the dilemma objection. For arguments against the success of IRR scenarios see Widerker (2000), Ginet (2003: 85–87), Kane (2003), Goetz (2001), and (2002).

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Texas Christian University, TCU Box 297250, Scharbauer 3015, 2850 South University Drive, Fort Worth, TX, 76129, USA

    Kelly McCormick

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McCormick, K. A dilemma for morally responsible time travelers. Philos Stud 174, 379–389 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-016-0686-3

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