Bogdan Dumitrescu
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Philosophy
The problem of free will is often presented as an incompatibility between determinism and freedom. In this presentation I am concerned with a different way of framing the problem: the incompatibility between freedom and certain metaphysics of time. Authors such as Niall Shanks (1994) and Carl Hoefer (2002) have argued that features of certain metaphysical theories of time are either in outright conflict with free will or are even the source of the tension between free will and determinism.
To Shanks (1994), a spatialized theory of time (“S-theory”), in which future events and objects exist just as much as past and present ones, is inhospitable to libertarian free will, because the agent lacks the ability to bring events and objects into existence (existential control). On such a static theory of time nothing truly gets brought into existence since all events are ontologically determinate. No future events get brought into existence if all future events are just as real as past and present events. On the other hand, Hoefer (2002) argued that free will is not in conflict with determinism, but rather it is our basic A-theoretic intuitions about time that make us believe so. Determinism threatens our freedom only because we think that a fixed, past state of the world in conjunction with the laws of nature necessitates our present and future actions. On the B-theory of time, Hoefer argues, such worries are unfounded.
I argue that Shanks is right to affirm that libertarian free will is in conflict with an ontologically determinate world. Eternalism is the claim that past, present and future events are equally real. This seems to negate the openness of the future. Libertarian free will, however, seems to be compatible only with the metaphysical theories of time that assume an open future. Intuitively, such a future is unreal, unfixed, indeterminate and non-actual. Thus, if the thesis of eternalism is incompatible with an open future, then eternalism is also in tension with freedom.
In this talk, I will survey the most popular A-theories and B-theories of time and explore the compatibility between libertarian free will and eternalism. I will also briefly comment on Nathan Oaklander’s (1998) response to Niall Shanks’ main argument.
References:
Hoefer, Carl (2002). Freedom from the Inside Out. Royal Institute of Philosophy, Supplement, 50, pp 201-222. doi:10.1017/S1358246100010572
Oaklander, L. Nathan (1998). Freedom and the new theory of time. In Robin Le Poidevin (ed.), Questions of Time and Tense. Oxford University Press. pp. 185–205.
Shanks, Niall (1994). Time, Physics and Freedom. Metaphilosophy, 25(1), pp. 45-59.
Chair: Leon Isenmann
Time: September 7th, 10:00-10:30
Location: HS.E002
SOPhiA 2026 