Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T09:48:05.708Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Explaining counterfactuals of freedom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2013

ALEXANDER R. PRUSS  and
JOSHUA L. RASMUSSEN
ALEXANDER R. PRUSS
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798, USA e-mail: alexanderpruss@baylor.edu
JOSHUA L. RASMUSSEN
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA 91702, USA e-mail: jrasmussen@apu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (CCFs) are notoriously puzzling. One puzzle has to do with truth-making: we wonder how any CCFs could be true prior to the existence of all creatures. Another, less addressed puzzle has to do with truth-explaining: what antecedent conditions or facts might explain a given CCF? The usual answer to the ‘explanation’ question is that true CCFs are brute: nothing explains them. We motivate an alternative answer by arguing that there can be an explanation of CCFs if there can be an explanation of free actions. Our argument reveals that theoretical frameworks, such as Molinism, that make use of CCFs do not automatically carry an explanatory cost.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 193 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, Robert M. (1985) ‘Plantinga on the problem of evil’, in Tomberlin, J. E. & van Inwagen, P. (eds) Plantinga (Dordrecht: Reidel), 225–255.Google Scholar
Hasker, William (2011) ‘The (non-)existence of Molinist counterfactuals’, in Perszyk, Ken (ed.) Molinism: The Contemporary Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 25–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kane, Robert (2005) A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Lewis, David (1986) On the Plurality of Worlds (Blackwell: Oxford).Google Scholar
Merricks, Trenton (2007) Truth and Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Merricks, Trenton (2011) ‘Truth and Molinism’, in Perszyk, K. (ed.) Molinism: The Contemporary Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 50–72.Google Scholar
Perszyk, Kenneth (2000) ‘Molinism and compatibilism’, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 48, 11–33.Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin (1997) God, Freedom, and Evil (New York: Harper & Row).Google Scholar
Pruss, Alexander R. (2006) The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Skiles, Alex (2012) ‘Against grounding necessitarianism’, unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar