How ontologically committal is common sense? Is the common-sense philosopher beholden to a florid ontology in which all manner of objects, substances, and processes exist and are as they appear to be to common sense, or can she remain neutral on questions about the existence and nature of many things because common sense is largely non-committal? This chapter explores and tentatively evaluates three different approaches to answering these questions. The first applies standard accounts of ontological commitment to common-sense claims. This leads to the surprising and counter-intuitive result that common sense has metaphysically heavyweight commitments. The second approach emphasizes the superficiality and locality of common-sense claims. On this approach, however, common sense comes out as almost entirely non-committal. The third approach questions the seriousness of ontological commitment as such. If ontological commitment is cheap, it becomes possible both to accept the commitments of common sense at face value and to avoid the counter-intuitive consequences of heavyweight metaphysical commitments.

In this chapter I begin consideration of the claim that divine determinism undermines human free will. I begin with Peter van Inwagen’s Consequence Argument. This argument claims that since humans have no choice about the distant past and the laws of nature—which together determine human actions—humans likewise have no choice about any of their own actions. I argue that although some divine determinists are not threatened by this argument, a revised version of this argument does pose a threat to all divine determinists. This revised argument maintains that since humans have no choice about divine determining activity, they likewise have no choice about their own actions, which are determined but it. After laying out this revised argument, I consider several possible responses to it. In particular, I consider the reply that God’s unique causal activity allows actions to be determined while remaining contingent and the reply that divinely determined agents possess the highest sort of ability to do otherwise that is coherent. I argue that both replies fail, and briefly consider other options for the divine determinist, including semi-compatibilism and hard divine determinism.