Against divine temporalism

I stipulate that:

0. According to pure divine temporalism, God is a being in time without a timeless existence all of whose decisions are made at moments of time.

I will argue that on plausible assumtions divine temporalism is incompatible with divine creative libertarian freedom.

First, we need this:

1. If pure divine temporalism is true, time has no beginning in the sense that before every moment of time, there was an earlier moment.

This is because everyone agrees that God is eternal. If there were a moment that had no moment before it, then according to pure divine temporalism, that moment would be God’s first moment of existence, without any timeless existence prior to or beyond it, and that is just incompatible with divine eternity. At that first moment it would be correct to say that God has just appeared.

One might object by saying that the first moment has infinite duration, and so it was an infinitely long changeless state. This is difficult to understand. An infinitely long changeless state seems like a timeless state more than anything else. In any case, if the point is pressed, I will simply stipulate that I don’t allow for moments like that.

Now, add this:

2. Every contingent feature of creation not even partly due to creaturely indeterministic activity was decided on by God with God having had the possibility of deciding otherwise. (Divine creative libertarian freedom)

Next, add some plausible claims:

3. The fact N that there was a moment of time before which there were no stars obtains.

4. The fact N is a contingent feature of creation not even partly due to creaturely indeterministic activity.

5. There is no backwards causation.

6. Time is linearly ordered: for any distinct moments of time t₁ and t₂, one is earlier than the other.

Finally:

7. For a reductio ad absurdum, assume pure divine temporalism.

What do we have? Well, our assumptions imply that God at some time decided on N while yet having the possibility of deciding to the contrary. But prior to any past time t₁, the fact N was already in place. History by time t₁ already made it be the case that there was a time before which there were no stars. So if there is no backwards causation, at no past time t₁ did God have the possibility of making N not be true. It was always already too late! But divine creative libertarian freedom requires that possibility.

Objection 1: The fact N does not actually obtain. We live in a sequential multiverse and before every time there were already stars in our universe or another.

Response: In that case, let S be the following contingent feature of creation: it was always the case that there already had been at least one star. I.e., for any past time t, there was a time t′ < t at which there had already had been at least one star. And an argument similar to the above goes through with S in place of N. At any past time, it was already too late to make S true, because history at that time was sufficient to make it be the case that prior to every time there was a star.

Objection 2: Fact N is made true by an infinite conjunction of facts such as that in year n there were no stars, in year n − 1 there were no stars, in year n − 2 there were no stars, and God unproblematically makes each of these facts true while having the power not to make it true.

Response: This objection is basically a rejection of (2). It says that some facts (even among the ones that aren’t due to creaturely indeterminism) aren’t freely decided on by God, but are instead consequences of other facts freely decided on by God. This reminds one of the Principle of Double Effect: God need not intend all the consequences of what he intends. He intends N_n, there not being stars in year n, as well as N_n − 1, and N_n − 2, and so on, but doesn’t intend their joint consequence N. I think this is a powerful objection. I don’t want to rule out the possibility of such a thing. But N is a morally unproblematic and structurally central part of the arrangement of reality. It seems very plausible that even if we reject (2) in general, we should accept it in the special case of morally unproblematic and structurally central parts of the arrangement of reality. Otherwise, God isn’t really in charge of creation.

Yet another simple argument for incompatibilism

1. If you have always done the morally best you could, you are not culpable for anything.

2. If determinism is true, you have always done the only thing you could.

3. When you do the only thing you can, you do the morally best you can.

4. So, if determinism is true, you are not culpable for anything.

A causal powers account of the favoring relation for reasons in a choice

Suppose we accept the following causal power account of what it means for reasons to enter deliberation:

1. A complex of reasons R counts as entering into a choice C in favor of an act of will A precisely when R confers on the agent a causal power to A as the outcome of C.

And suppose we also add:

2. In a choice C, there are two or more incompatible acts of will each of which is favored by its own complex of reasons entering C.

Finally, let’s add:

3. If you have a causal power to ϕ as the outcome of C, then it is causally possible for you to ϕ when you are in C.

It follows from 1-3 that:

4. In any choice, there are two or more causally possible incompatible acts of will.

And that’s a version of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities.

What about Frankfurt cases? Well, the above metaphysics of reasons gives a very nice response to non-theistic Frankfurt cases: No finite being can make you choose act of will A in C. For if someone did so, by (3), they would have to take away your causal power to will anything incompatible with A, and by (1), they would have to take out of the choice the complexes of reasons favoring acts of will incompatible with A, and in doing so they would thus be ensuring that by (2) there is no choice (but, rather, a shoo-in, where the reasons entering the deliberation end up favoring only one action).

What about theistic Frankfurt cases? Could God, without taking away the causal power for acts of will alternative to A, simply refuse to cooperate with such acts of will? Maybe. But I think in that case, he still wouldn't be making you choose A. At most, God could ensure you don't choose any alternative. But since you had a power for non-A, you wouldn't have to go for A. At the same time, you couldn't go for any alternative to A. Thus, I think, it would be possible for you to get into a position where you can't will contrary to A, but you can refrain from willing A. The only way God could take that away from you would be by taking a way the alternate powers, and in doing so he would be making you not make a choice.

Theists can't be anti-libertarians

Strong anti-libertarians believe that choices need to be determined by our motives in order to be free.  Weak anti-libertarians believe that choices need to be probabilified, with a probability greater than 1/2, by motives in order to be free.

Strictly speaking, one could be a libertarian and a weak anti-libertarian.  But it would be odd.  As a weak anti-libertarian, one would say something like this:  When I am choosing between two equiprobable options, I am not free.  It's just chance how I choose.  When I am choosing between an option A whose probability is greater than 1/2 and another option B, I may be free if I choose A, but I won't be free if I choose B.  And that would be a weird thing for a libertarian to say.

Theists should be neither weak nor strong anti-libertarians.  Consider these two plausible premises:

1. Necessarily, whatever God chooses, he chooses freely.
2. God made at least one choice that it was possible for him to have made otherwise.

I actually think premise 1 is true for any agent: I think non-free choices are impossible.  But that's very controversial, and the special case of God is much more clear.  If non-free choices are possible, surely God isn't going to be making any such--that would surely be contrary to an important aspect of omnipotence.

Premise 2 is I think a part of standard religious views.  For instance, Catholics are committed (by the First Vatican Council) to the claim that God isn't necessitated to create.  Christians more generally tend to think that God has chosen to redeem us, but did not have to.  It would, I think, be difficult to reconcile omnipotence with a denial of 2--we can perhaps allow that doing wrong or doing the impossible are things an omnipotent being can't do, but surely some alternate options are needed for omnipotence.  Moreover, merely conditional "had he willed otherwise, he would have done otherwise" options won't be enough to do justice to omnipotence.

We can also argue for premise 2 as follows.  Intuitively, there is a possible world w* which has no contingent beings in common with our world.  God exists necessarily.  Hence, God exists at w*.  At w*, God must have decided something differently from what he decided in our world.  (Some differences between worlds can be due to inter-creaturely causal processes having gone differently.  But in this case because w* has no contingent beings in common in our world, the differences can't be like that.)

If one accepts 2, one has to deny strong anti-libertarianism.  And if one accepts both 2 and 1, one has to deny weak anti-libertarianism.  For suppose God is choosing between alternatives A and B and can choose either one.  Then it cannot be that both the alternatives have probability greater than 1/2.  Hence at least one of the alternatives fails to have probability greater than 1/2.  Let's say that's B.  Now consider a world where God chooses B.  That's a world where God chose something that did not have probability greater than 1/2.  But by 1, the choice was still free, contrary to weak anti-libertarianism.

It doesn't follow that theists have to be libertarians.  But they have to think that freedom is compatible with lack of determinism.

[Edited to reflect my view that all choices are free. -ARP]

Effort

A concept that I haven't seen much contemporary discussion of is effort. A jstor title search finds 18 entries, most notably an 1897 piece by Dewey. But there is very little recent material: There are a few interesting-looking pieces from the 70s (one on effort and desert, and two on effort and freedom of the will), and there is 2009 Business ethics piece on withholding job effort. The subject seems to have been largely neglected in recent times, though it was an active area of interest at the end of the 19th century (in addition to the Dewey piece, there is William James' 1880 Feeling of Effort.

So, if some graduate student needs a project in moral psychology or metaphysics, effort might be worth some attention. A dollop of history—thinking about conatus, say—wouldn't be amiss.

What made me think of the topic was struggling with wind in a canoe, and being struck by the idea that the feeling of effort or struggle, while unpleasant, does not seem to be classifiable as even prima facie evil.

Ability comes in degrees. I can easily lift a pound. With a moderate effort I can lift forty. And over that, effort significantly increases and ability peters out. There is some kind of a connection between ability and effort. Where ability is limited, at the edge of ability there seems to be a need for effort. So it may be that thinking about effort would help advance some of our understanding of ability, and hence of freedom of the will. But that's speculation. (On a connection with freedom, also see this and the responses in the above-mentioned jstor search.)

Here's an argument that has just occurred to me. The more effort of will, mind or muscle it would take for x to A, the less we blame x for failing to A. But the limiting case of increased need for effort is impossibility. So if Aing is impossible to x, for reasons of will, mind or muscle, then we will least, if at all, blame x for failing to A. This is a kind of principle of alternate possibilities. I am not that impressed with this argument. While the limiting case of increased need for effort is an impossibility of some sort, there may be sorts of impossibility that are not limiting cases of increased need for effort.

Principles of Alternate Possibilities and God

1. (Premise) If x chooses A, then x chooses A over some alternative B such that x deliberated over both A and B.
2. (Premise) A perfectly rational being does not deliberate over options he knows with certainty to be impossible for him to choose.
3. (Premise) If x is an omniscient being, then x knows with certainty exactly which options it is impossible for him to choose.
4. (Premise) God is omniscient and perfectly rational.
5. Therefore, God knows with certainty exactly which options it is impossible for him to choose. (3 and 4)
6. Therefore, God does not deliberate over any options that it is impossible for him to choose. (2 and 5)
7. Therefore, if God chooses A, then God chooses A over some alternative B such that it was possible for God to choose B. (1 and 6)

An argument for incompatibilism

The following argument is valid:

1. Normally, if an embodied person freely does A, then x could have done otherwise than she did. (Premise)
2. It is a common occurrence that an embodied person freely does something. (Premise)
3. If a general conditional holds normally, and specific cases of the antecedent are common, then it is nomically possible that the antecedent and consequent hold simultaneously. (Premise)
4. Therefore, it is nomically possible that there be an embodied person x and an action A such that x does A freely and x could have not done A. (By (1)-(3))
5. Metaphysically necessarily, if an embodied person x does A freely and x could have done otherwise, then determinism is false. (Premise)
6. Therefore, it is nomically possible that determinism does not hold. (By (4) and (5))
7. If determinism holds, then it holds of nomic necessity. (Premise)
8. Therefore, determinism does not hold. (By (6) and (7))

Observe that the Principle of Alternate Possibilities in (1) is not subject to any Frankfurt-style counterexamples. I got this Principle based on an idea of David Alexander, but I don't think he endorses this version.

I think the tough question is whether (3) holds. But I think it at least holds as a probabilistic principle: if normally (if p, then q), and if cases of p are common, then probably a case of both p and q is nomically possible. In fact, a stronger probabilistic claim seems to hold: probably some case of both p and q actually holds. (When I talk about cases, I am assuming that the conditional is a quantified one: for all x, if P(x), then Q(x).) If so, then the conclusion would be that probably determinism does not hold. (Not earthshaking in light of the fact that there is some direct reason from physics to think it does not hold.) But the stronger non-probabilistic claim is also plausible. How could something be normal and yet nomically impossible?

[Edited to fix typo in argument and attribution of PAP.]

An argument for a Principle of Alternate Possibilities

Say that George chooses to do A knowledgeably provided that the beliefs on the basis of which George chooses to do A are in fact knowledge. In a paradigmatic case of deliberation (this sentence can be taken to be stipulative of what I mean by "paradigmatic case of deliberation"), the beliefs on the basis of which George chooses include counterfactual claims of the form "Were I to do A, F would happen" and "It is not the case that were I not to do A, F would happen."[note 1]

I now claim that: If George chooses to do A knowledgeably and in a paradigmatic case of deliberation, then it can happen that he failed to choose to do A.

Here is the argument:

1. It is false that were George not to do A, F would happen. (Premise: by definition of "knowledgeably" and since only truths can be known)
2. F actually happened. (Premise: since George does A and knows that were he to do A, F would happen)
3. Whatever happens, can happen. (Premise)
4. If C cannot happen but D can happen, then were C to happen, D would happen. (Premise)
5. Suppose it cannot happen that George does not choose to do A. (Premise for a reductio)
6. F can happen. (By (2) and (3))
7. Were George not to choose to do A, F would result. (By (4) and (6))
8. Thus (7) is true and false. (By (1) and (7))
9. Thus, (4) is false, and so it can happen that George does not do A.

One term that has not been defined is "can happen". On any plausible reading of "can happen", all the premises will hold in a case of knowledgeable and paradigmatic deliberation, with the possible exception of (4). Thus, for any plausible reading of "can happen" that makes (4) true, we get a PAP.

In particular, on any account of counterfactuals that makes p's entailing q entail that were p to hold, q would hold as well, (4) will be verified where "can happen" expresses logical possibility. This gives us a PAP with logical possibility, though only in the case of knowledgeable and paradigmatic deliberation. Still, that's something. After all it entails that if the laws of nature are necessary and determinism holds, then knowledgeable cases of paradigmatic deliberation are impossible.

I don't know what other senses of "can happen" make (4) true.

Arguments like this provide a general template for generating relatively weak versions of PAP. Are any of the versions of PAP that the argument provides sufficiently strong to yield some kind of incompatibilist doctrine? Here is the best I can do. Say that D can happen provided that D is compatible with the laws of nature and the initial arrangement of matter in the universe. Then (4) restricted to cases where C describes a wholly non-initial arrangement of matter is not completely implausible. Given materialism (which of course I deny, but many compatibilists accept), George's not doing A will be a wholly non-initial arrangement of matter, and the argument implies that George's not doing A is compatible with the laws of nature and the initial arrangement of matter in the universe, assuming George is acting knowledgeably and paradigmatically deliberatively. So we do get an incompatibilistic conclusion, but under heavy assumptions.

What is kind of neat about the above considerations is that they do not involve freedom directly, but only deliberation.