Moral conversion and Hume on freedom

According to Hume, for one to be responsible for an action, the action must flow from one’s character. But the actions that we praise people for the most include cases where someone breaks free from a corrupt character and changes for the good. These cases are not merely cases of slight responsibility, but are central cases of responsibility.

A Humean can, of course, say that there was some hidden determining cause in the convert’s character that triggered the action—perhaps some inconsistency in the corruption. But given determinism, why should we think that this hidden determining cause was indeed in the agent’s character, rather than being some cause outside of the character—some glitch in the brain, say? That the hidden determining cause was in the character is an empirical thesis for which we have very little evidence. So on the Humean view, we ought to be quite skeptical that the person who radically changes from bad to good is praiseworthy. We definitely should not take such cases to be among paradigm cases of praiseworthiness.

God's hiddenness

If God is closer to me than I am to myself, how can he be hidden from me?

But don't I learn from Hume that my self is also hidden from me?

Comparing the resurrection rate of humans to the resurrection mendacity rate

Hume argues against miracles by means of his balancing principle:

• (HBP) You should believe p on the basis of testimony only if p is at least as probable as the falsity of the testimony.

There are two interpretations of HBP, depending on whether “probable” refers to the prior probabilities (the probabilities before the evidence of the testimony is accounted for) or posterior ones (the probabilities after the evidence has been weighed). On the posterior interpretation, HBP is almost completely obvious (at least if the “should” is that of epistemic normativity). On the prior interpretation, HBP is well-known to be false: the standard counterexample is that it’s reasonable to believe that you won the lottery on the basis of a newspaper report of the winner even if the chance of a newspaper error exceeds your chance of winning the lottery.

I think the prior interpretation fits Hume’s text better, even if it’s bad epistemology.

In this post I want to suggest that there could be reasonable assignments of priors for a theist on which the prior probability of the falsity of the testimony is less than the prior probability of the miracle.

Assume we are theists. Take the resurrection of Jesus. First, let’s say something about the prior probability of the resurrection of a human. Given theism, there is a good God, and it wouldn’t be surprising at all if there were resurrections. In fact, we might expect it from a loving God. But how often would they happen? What is the resurrection rate in human beings? Well, here we need to turn to empirical data. Let’s grant Hume that apart from the case under examination, there are no resurrections. There have been approximately a hundred billion human deaths, so we have an upper bound on the resurrection rate of less than one in 10¹¹. It’s not unreasonable, I think, given the moderate prior probability that someone would be resurrected, and the lack of resurrections in 10¹¹ cases, to suppose the probability of a particular person getting resurrected would be something like (1/2) ⋅ 10⁻¹¹.

But what is the probability of false testimony? Well, as an initial back of the envelope calculation, suppose we have 11 witnesses, and each has an independent 1/20 chance of lying or being mistaken that Jesus was resurrected. So, the chance that they all lied or were mistaken would be (1/20)¹¹ or (1/2048) ⋅ 10⁻¹¹.

With these numbers, the prior probability of Jesus getting resurrected is about 100 times bigger than the prior probability of the 11 witnesses lying that he was resurrected. And so even in its prior probability formulation, HBP doesn’t destroy the testimony to the miracle.

Of course the numbers are made up. Probably the main problem has to do with the assumption of the independence of the witnesses. But that problem is to some degree balanced by the fact that 1/20 is way too high for a probability of lying or being mistaken that they witnessed a resurrection. (What percentage of the people you know testified to witnessing a resurrection?)

In any case, I think the above shows that it is far from clear that, assuming theism, a reasonable estimate of the resurrection rate of humans would be lower than a reasonable estimate of the resurrection mendacity rate for groups of 11 people.

Now what if we don’t assume theism, but assume, say, a 1/10 chance of theism? Well, that approximately cuts our estimate of the resurrection rate of humans by a factor of 10. But that’s still not enough to make it clear that the resurrection rate of humans is less than the resurrection mendacity rate for groups of 11.

A cosmological argument from the Hume-Edwards Principle

The Hume-Edwards Principle (HEP) says:

1. If you’ve explained every item in a collection, you’ve explained the whole collection of items.

This sounds very plausible, but powerful counterexamples have been given. For instance, suppose that exactly at noon, cannonball is shot out of a cannon. The collection C of cannonball states after noon has the property that each state in C is explained by an earlier state in C (e.g., a state at 12:01:00 is explained by a state at 12:00:30). By the Hume-Edwards Principle, this would imply that C is self-explanatory. But it plainly is not: it requires the cannon being fired at noon to be explained.

But I just realized something. All of the effective counterexamples to the Hume-Edwards Principle involve either circular causation or infinite causal regresses. We can now argue:

2. HEP is necessarily true.

3. If circular causation is possible, counterexamples to HEP are possible.

4. If infinite causal regresses are possible, counterexamples to HEP are possible.

5. So, neither circular causation nor infinite causal regresses are possible.

6. If there is no first cause, there is a causal circle or an infinite causal regress.

7. So, there is a first cause.

Similarly, it is very plausible that if infinite causal regresses are impossible, then causal finitism, the thesis that nothing can have an infinite causal history, is true. So, we get an argument from HEP to causal finitism.

Dialectically, the above is very odd indeed. HEP was used by Hume and Edwards to oppose cosmological arguments. But the above turns the tables on Hume and Edwards!

Objection: Not every instance of causal regress yields a counterexample to HEP. So it could be that HEP is true, but some causal regresses are still possible.

Response: It’s hard to see how there is sufficient structural difference between the cannonball story and other regresses to allow one to deny the cannonball story, and its relatives, while allowing the kind of regresses that are involved in Hume’s response to cosmological arguments.

Final remark: What led me to the above line of thought was reflecting on scenarios like the following. Imagine a lamp with a terrible user interface: you need to press the button infinitely many times to turn the lamp on, and once you do, it stays on despite further presses. Suppose now that in an infinite past, Alice was pressing the button once a day. Then the lamp was always on. Now I find myself with two intuitions. On the one hand, it seems to me that there is no explanation in the story as to why the lamp was always on: “It’s always been like that” just isn’t an explanation. On the other hand, we have a perfectly good explanation why the lamp was on n days ago: because it was on n + 1 days ago, and another button press doesn’t turn it off. And I found the second intuition pushing back against the first one, because if every day’s light-on state has an explanation, then there should be an explanation of why the lamp was always on. And then I realized this intuition was based on somehow finding HEP plausible—despite having argued against HEP over much of my philosophical career. And then I realized that one could reconcile HEP with these arguments by embracing causal finitism.

Two interaction problems

Yesterday I realized something that should have been obvious: there are two separate interaction problems for dualism.

1. Metaphysics: How does the soul manage to cause effects in the body?

2. Physics: Wouldn’t such causation violate the laws of physics?

I used to think of the interaction problem as just (1), and hence I thought it was spurious once one learned from Hume that all cases of causation are equally mysterious.

But problems (1) and (2) are pretty independent: one can have a solution to each without a solution to the other. For instance, an indeterministic physics provides a solution to (2), but says nothing about (1), while occasionalism and hylomorphism provide solutions to (1), but say little about (2).

While I think the questions are interesting, I don’t really think either poses a serious problem for interactionist dualism.

Counting down from infinity

In one version of the Kalaam argument, Bill Craig argues against forming an infinite past by successive addition by asking something like this: Why would someone who had been counting down from infinity have been finished today rather than, say, yesterday? This argument puzzles me. After all, there is a perfectly good reason why she finished today: because today she reached zero and yesterday she was still on the number one. And yesterday she was on one because the day before she was on two. And so on.

Of course, one can object that such a regress generates no explanation. But then the Kalaam argument needs a Principle of Sufficient Reason that says that there must be explanations of such regressive facts and an account of explanation according to which the explanations cannot be found in the regresses themselves. And with these two assumptions in place, one doesn’t need the Kalaam argument to rule out an infinite past: one can just run a “Leibnizian style” cosmological argument directly.

Humean metaphysics implies Cartesian epistemology

Let’s assume two theses:

1. Humean view of causation.

2. Mental causalism: mental activity requires some mental states to stand in causal relations.

If I accept these two theses, then I can a priori and with certainty infer a modest uniformity of nature thesis. Here’s why. On mental causalism, mental activity requires causation. On Humeanism, causation depends on the actual arrangement of matter. If the regularities found in my immediate vicinity do not extend to the universe as a whole, then they are no causal laws or causal relations. Thus, given causalism and Humeanism, I can infer a priori and with certainty from the obvious fact that I have mental states that there are regularities in the stuff that my mind is made of that extend universally. In other words, we get a Cartesian-type epistemological conclusion: I think, so there must be regularity.

In other words, Humean metaphysics of nature plus a causalist theory of mind implies a radically non-Humean epistemology of nature. The most plausible naturalist theories of mind all accept causalism. So, it seems, that a Humean metaphysics of nature plus naturalism—which is typically a part of contemporary Humean metaphysics—implies a radically non-Humean epistemology of nature.

So Humean metaphysics and epistemology don’t go together. So what? Why not just accept the metaphysics and reject the epistemology? The reason this is not acceptable is that the Cartesian thesis that the regularity of nature follows with certainty from what I know about myself is only plausible (if even then!) given Descartes’ theism.

Randomness and compatibilism

The randomness objection to libertarian free will holds that undetermined choices will be random and hence unfree. Some randomness-based objectors to libertarianism are compatibilists who think free will is possible, but requires choices to be determined (e.g., David Hume). Others think that free will is impossible (cf. Galen Strawson). I will offer an argument against the Humeans, those who think that freedom is possible but it requires determinism for the relevant mental events. Consider three cases of ordinary human-like agents who have not suffered from brainwashing, compulsion, or the like:

1. Gottfried always acts on his strongest relevant desire when there is one. In cases of a tie between desires, he is unable to make a choice and his head literally explodes. Determinism always holds.
2. Blaise always acts on his strongest relevant desire when there is one. In cases of a tie between desires, his brain initiates a random indeterministic process to decide between the desires. Determinism holds in all other cases.
3. Carl always acts on his strongest relevant desire when there is one. In cases of a tie between two desires, his brain unconsciously calculates one more digit of π, and if it's odd the brain makes him go for the first desire (as ordered alphabetically in whatever language he is thinking in) and if it's even for the second desire (with some generalization in case of an n-way tie for n>2). Determinism always holds.

Gottfried isn't free in cases of ties between desires--he doesn't even make a choice. Our Humean must insist that Blaise isn't free, either, in those cases, because although Blaise does decide, his decision is simply random. What about Carl? Well, Carl's choices are determined, which the Humean likes. But they are nonetheless to all intents and purposes random. A central part of the intuition that Blaise isn't free has to do with Blaise having no control over which desire he acts on, since he cannot control the indeterministic process. But Carl has no control over the digits of π and these digits are, as far as we can tell, essentially random. The randomness worry that is driving the Humean's argument that freedom requires determinism is not fundamentally a worry about indeterminism. That is worth noting.

Now let's go back to Gottfried. Given compatibilism it is plausible that in normal background conditions, all of Gottfried's choices are free. (Remember that if there is a tie, he doesn't make a choice.) Suppose we grant this. Then there is a tension between this judgment and what we observed about Carl. For now consider the case of closely-balanced choices by Gottfried. Suppose, for instance, Gottfried's desire to write a letter to Princess Elizabeth has strength 0.75658 and his desire to design a better calculator has strength 0.75657. He writes a letter to Princess Elizabeth, then, and does so freely by what has been granted. But now notice that our desires always fluctuate in the light of ordinary influences, and a difference of one in the fifth significant figure in a measure of the strength of a desire will be essentially a random fluctuation. The fact that this fluctuation is determined makes no difference, as we can see when we recall the case of Carl. So if we take seriously what we learned from the case of Carl, we need to conclude that Carl isn't actually free when he chooses between writing to Princess Elizabeth and designing a better calculator, even though he satisfies standard compatibilist criteria and acts on the basis of his stronger desire.

What should the Humean do? One option is to accept that Gottfried is free in the case of close decisions, and then conclude that so are Carl and Blaise in the case of ties. I think the resulting position may not be very stable--if compatibilism requires one to think Carl and Blaise are free in the case of ties, then compatibilism is no longer very plausible.

Another option is to deny that Gottfried is free in the case of close decisions. By parallel, however, she would need to deny that we are free in the case of highly conflicted decisions, unless she could draw some line between our conflicts and Gottfried's fifth-significant-figure conflict. And that's costly.

Finally, it's worth noting that the objection, whatever it might be worth, against the incompatiblist that we shouldn't need to wait on science to see if we're free also works against our Humean.

Is a necessary being inconceivable?

Consider this argument:

1. Obviously necessarily, if N is a necessary being that exists, it is impossible that N doesn't exist.
2. It is conceivable that N doesn't exist.
3. So it is inconceivable that N exists.

For this argument to work, we need to be able to make the inference from:

4. Obviously necessarily, if p, then necessarily q.
5. Conceivably not q.
6. So, not conceivably p.

Suppose that p just is the statement that necessarily q. Then (4) is uncontroversial. If the above argument form is good, then so is this one:

7. Conceivably not q.
8. So, not conceivably necessarily q.

But why can't we conceive both of not q and of necessarily q? Why should the ability to conceive of one thing, viz., the necessity of q, preclude the ability to conceive of another, viz., not q?

The principle that conceivability is defeasible evidence of possibility may seem relevant, but I don't think it establishes the point. That I can conceive of necessarily q is evidence of the necessity of q. That I can conceive of not q is evidence if the possibility of not q. So, if both, then I have evidence for two contradictory statements. Nothing particularly surprising there: quite a common phenomenon, in fact!

Suppose A and B are contradictory statements. It may be that evidence for A is evidence against B. But is evidence for A evidence against there being evidence for B? If it is, it is very weak evidence. Likewise, even given the principle that conceivability is evidence for possibility, the argument from (7) to (8) is very weak, much weaker than the inferential strength of this principle.

To summarize: The strength of the inference from (1) and (2) to (3) in the original argument is about equal to the strength of evidence that the existence of evidence for A provides against the existence of evidence against A. But the existence of evidence of A provides very little evidence against the existence of evidence against A. So the original argument is a very weak one. It would be improved if the conclusion were weakened to the claim that it is impossible that N exists, and then I would focus my attack on (2).

Two kinds of desire strength

Suppose I am designing a simple vacuuming robot not unlike a Roomba, but a little more intelligent. I might set up the robot to have multiple drives or "desires" including the drive to maintain well-charged batteries and to maintain a clean floor. The robot, then, will use its external and internal sensors to obtain some relevant pieces of information: how much dirt remains on the floor, how low its battery charge is and how far away from its charging station it is. I now imagine the processor uses the dirt-remaining value to calculate how much it "wants" to continue vacuuming and the battery charge sensor and the distance from the charging station to calculate how much it "wants" to recharge. These two want-values, together with any others, then go to a decision subroutine, whose specifications are as follows:

1. When one want-value is much greater than the sum of all the others, go for that one.
2. When (1) is false, choose randomly between the want-values with choice probabilities proportioned to the want-values.

(Why not simply go for the strongest desire? Maybe because some randomization might prevent systematic errors, like areas distant from the charger that never get cleaned.)

Suppose now that the robot suffers from a hardware or software failure that in high temperature conditions makes the decision subroutine count the floor-cleaning want at double weight. Thus the robot cleans the floors more when it's hot in the house, even when it is short of battery charge.

Suppose it's a hot day, and the robot's sensor calculations give respective values 2.2 and 4.0 to the floor-cleaning and battery-recharge wants. Then in one perfectly intelligible sense the battery-recharge want is almost twice as strong as the floor-cleaning want. But most of the time in this state, the robot will continue to clean the floor, and in that sense the floor-cleaning want is somewhat stronger than the battery-recharge want.

We can and should distinguish between the nominal desire strengths, which are 2.2 and 4.0, and the effective desire strengths, which are 4.4 and 4.0, due to the buggy way the decision procedure handles the cleaning want when the temperature is high. We might also, in a more theory-laden way, call the desire strengths as they feed into the decision subroutine the "content strengths" and the desire strengths as they drive the decision the "motivational strengths."

In fact, what I said about nominal and effective strengths can be generalized to nominal and effective desires full stop. After all, we can imagine a bug where in the decision procedure under some conditions the memory location holding the cleaning-want value is overwritten with the memory location holding the present temperature. In positive temperature situations, this can result in the creation of an effective desire to clean the floors in the complete absence of a nominal desire for that, and in negative temperature situations, it can create an effective desire not to clean the floors, even though there is a nominal desire to clean them.

Surely our own decisions are subject to a similar distinction. Even if in fact the nominal and effective strengths of our desires are always equal—a very implausible hypothesis, especially in light of the apparent ubiquity of akrasia—the two could come apart.

By definition, one does tend to act on the effective desires and the effective desire strengths. But surely it is nominal desires and nominal desire strengths that more affect how one should act by one's own lights. When a discrepancy happens, it is a malfunction, a failure of rationality.

If one wants to connect this post with this one, the distinction I am making here is a distinction between two kinds of degrees of preference on the content side. So if that post is correct, we really have a three-fold distinction: the conscious intensity, the content (or nominal) strength and the motivational (or effective) strength.

I suspect that when we think through this, some Humean theses about action and morality become much less plausible.

Infinite regress explanations

Consider Thomson's toggle lamp—each time the button is pressed, the lamp toggles between on and off—but suppose it existed from eternity and every January 1 the switch has been pressed once, and only then. Why is the lamp on now? Consider the regress explanation: It's on in 2014 because it was off in 2013 and toggled on January 1, 2014. And it was off in 2013 because it was on in 2012 and toggled on January 1, 2013. And so on.

Hume will say that this is a complete explanation. But surely not. Surely the whole story does not explain why the lamp is on in even numbered years and off in odd numbered years.

Notice an interesting thing. The following are perfectly fine explanations:

1. The lamp is on in 2014 because it was off in 2013 and toggled at the beginning of 2014.
2. The lamp is on in 2014 because it was on in 2012 and toggled at the beginnings of 2013 and 2014.
3. The lamp is on in 2014 because it was off in 2011 and toggled at the beginnings of 2012, 2013 and 2014.

And as we go down this list of explanations, our explanations get more and more ultimate. However, we can't take this to infinity. Each of the explanations in the list has wo conjuncts: a fact about the state of the lamp in year n, and then facts about the lamp being toggled in successive years. The facts about the lamp being toggled in successive years can be taken to infinity, but aren't enough to explain it. The following clearly isn't enough to give us an ultimate explanation of why the lamp was on in 2014:

4. The lamp was toggled at the beginnings of ..., 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Can we take the first conjunct in explanations (1)-(3) to infinity? Well, we certainly can't in general say that the lamp was on, or that it was off, in year −∞, since even if such a year existed, dubious as that is, the lamp need not have existed then—it need only be supposed to exist in all finite-numbered years. So what can we say? Well, we could let the lamp state in year n be L(n)—0 being off and 1 being on—and then say:

5. The limit of L(2n) is 1 as n→−∞ and the limit of L(2n+1) is 0 as n→−∞ (both limits over the integers only).

So if we think about how to complete our regressive explanation, it seems that it will need to be something like this:

6. The lamp is on in 2014 because of (4) and (5).

Very good. But even if (4) were to be ulitimately explained (maybe there is some mechanism where each toggling is caused by the preceding, which according to Hume would give an ultimate explanation of (4)), it is clear that (5) calls out for an explanation as well, and so the regressive explanation just isn't ultimate explanation.

So infinite regresses aren't enough for ultimate explanations, pace Hume.

Fine-tuning and best-systems accounts of laws

According to best-systems accounts of laws, the laws are the theorems of the best system correctly describing our world. The best system, roughly, is one that optimizes for informativeness (telling us as much as possible about our world) and brevity of expression.

Now, suppose that there is some dimensionless constant α, say the fine-structure constant, which needs to be in some narrowish range to have a universe looking like ours in terms of whether stars form, etc. Simplify to suppose that there is only one such constant (in our world, there are probably more). Suppose also, as might well be the case, that this constant is a typical real number in that it is not capable of a finite description (in the way that e, π, 1, −8489/91907^4/7 are)—to express it needs something an infinite decimal expansion. The best system will then not contain a statement of the exact value for α. An exact value would require an infinitely long statement, and that would destroy the brevity of the best system. But specifying no value at all would militate against informativeness. By specifying a value to sufficient precision to ensure fine-tuning, the best system thereby also specifies that there are stars, etc.

Suppose the correct value of α is 0.0029735.... That's too much precision to include in the best system—it goes against brevity. But including in the best system that 0.0029<α<0.0030 might be very informative—suppose, for instance, that it implies fine-tuning for stars, for instance.

But then on the best-systems account of laws, it would be a required by law that the first four digits of α after the decimal point be 0029, but there would be no law for the further digits. But surely that is wrong. Surely either all the digits of α are law-required or none of them are.

Reasons and desires

A plausible theory of desire is that x desires A if and only if x is disposed to pursue A (perhaps we should add "as such", to get around Daniel Stampe's worries, or maybe do a functionalist tweak on it and add some "typically" qualifiers). Now it seems that I am disposed to pursue A explains why I pursue A but does not directly justify or give reason for pursuing A. (It could indirectly do so if, say, I promised you to act on my dispositions in some case, or if my therapist told me that it would be good for me to act on more of my dispositions.) Moreover, dispositions to pursue are precisely the sort of thing that itself calls out for reasons. So even if desires, on this view, were reason-giving, that would only be shifting the bump under the rug in an unhelpful way.

That said, there is a view on which one could hold fulfilling because it is good for an entity to be active in accordance with its nature, and it is in the nature of desiring beings to act on their desires. On this Natural Law view, one could hold to something like a dispositional theory of desire (with teleological tweaks) and still think that desires are reason-giving. But it would be very odd to think in a case like this that desires are the only reason-givers. After all, there are other ways of being active in accordance with our nature.

The main alternative to dispositional theories of desire is to see desires as an awareness of, belief in or attention to normative (putative) states of affairs, such as there being a reason to do something or something's being good. On such a view, the reason-giving force of desires is parasitic on the reason-giving force of something else. In fact, this is true in the Natural Law view I offered above, too.

So it really does seem very plausible that if desires are reason-giving, their reason-giving power is parasitic on the reason-giving force of something other than desires.

Acting otherwise and choosing otherwise

The traditional Humean compatibilist position, prior to Frankfurt's examples, is that a deterministic agent who is free could still have acted otherwise because

1. had she wanted to, she would have acted otherwise.

But the question relevant for determination of responsibility isn't whether one could have acted otherwise (uncontroversial Frankfurt cases, where Black acts only after the choice has been made, show that), but whether one could have chosen otherwise.

I wonder if a similar conditional-type of story can be told about the ability to choose otherwise? The obvious analogue to (1) is to say that

2. had she wanted to, she would have chosen otherwise.

But actually this condition is often false despite the agent being free. For it often, perhaps even always, happens in the situation of a free choice that the agent both wants to choose A and wants to choose B, but because she cannot go for both, she must choose between them. Suppose the agent chooses A. It is surely false that had she wanted to, she would have chosen B. For she did want to choose B, and did not—what better refutation is there of the subjunctive conditional than that the antecedent is true but the consequent is false?

But presumably in this case the agent didn't on balance want to choose B. So perhaps our compatibilist-friendly alternate possibilities condition is:

3. had she on balance wanted to, she would have chosen otherwise.

That may be true, but it is obviously a very weak condition. Perhaps even a trivial one. Indeed, we might reasonably say that what is constitutive of the agent's on balance wanting to choose A is precisely that she is such that given the choice she will choose A. If so, then (3) is trivially true in every case. And even if it's not trivially true in every case, it's going to be true in too many cases of freedom-canceling brainwashing to capture the alternate possibilities intuition.

It may be wiser, then, for the compatibilist to simply retreat from affirming any kind of alternate possibilities condition on freedom. But there is a cost to that.

(I am omitting consideration of the usual finkish objections (of which Frankfurt cases are one of the earliest examples) to conditional analyses. Maybe there is some way around those.)

Anti-Humean intuitions

I asked my six-year-old for an example of a bad reason for an action. Answer: "Someone wants to do it." A good reason: It's right and you know it (or something like that—I don't have the wording quite right).

I asked him if the fact that something is fun and harmless was a good reason to do it. He thought it wasn't, because it could still be a bad action. I asked him if the fact that something is fun and not bad was a good reason. He thought it could still be harmful to you. So I asked if the fact that something is fun, not bad and harmless was a good reason. He said it's neither good nor bad.

Spinoza and reductionistic determinism

According to some presentist theories of time, facts about the future are grounded in facts about the present and in the laws of nature. What grounds the fact, if it is a fact, that tomorrow the sun will rise is that the present conditions together with the laws of nature entail that the sun will rise tomorrow. Alan Rhoda played with a similar view in regard to the past: facts about the past are grounded in facts about God's present memories.

Suppose determinism holds and there is an initial time t₀. Let L be the laws. Then we can imagine a view which we might call initialism in the place of presentism. According to initialism, facts about what happens at a time t>t₀ reduce to facts about what the laws are and what the initial conditions are. More precisely, if I is the initial conditions of the world at t₀, according to initialism, what it is for a state of affairs to obtain at a time t>t₀ is for I and L to jointly entail that it obtains at t. Thus, what it is for there to be humans in the world is for the world to have had initial conditions and laws such as to guarantee the arising of humans.

According to initialism, none of us are substances, because facts about our existence reduce to facts about the initial conditions and laws. In Spinozistic terminology, we are modes of laws and initial conditions or of whatever grounds the laws and initial conditions.

Initialism has some obvious problems. It assumes that determinism holds and that there is an initial time t₀. But determinism is in tension with quantum mechanics, and probably the best interpretation of the Big Bang is that although the universe has finite age, there was no initial moment.

There is a strong resemblance between initialism and Spinoza's metaphysics. To make the resemblance closer, we will make some modifications.

Modification 1: Take time to discrete. Thus, there is a finite number of moments of time between t₀ and the present. If we do this, we can get a nested view closer to Spinoza's. Instead of reducing the conditions at time t_n to the laws and the conditions at t₀, we reduce them to the conditions at t_n−1 and the laws. Now our present time slices are modes of modes of ... modes of the initial conditions and laws.

The second move we can make is to remove the initial time t₀. Instead, there is a doubly infinite sequence of times ...,t₋₂,t₋₁,t₀,t₁,t₂,.... How things are at each time reduces to the laws and how they were at the preceding time. Thus, in Spinozistic terminology, we are modes of modes of modes of ....

The third move is to reintroduce something outside of the whole sequence of modes, in which the sequence of events is grounded. After all, the idea of a sequence of modes without any substance seems absurd. One move would be to take that which is outside the sequence to be the lawmaker of L—that entity in virtue of which L is law, the truthmaker of the proposition that L is law. We may perhaps call this entity "Natura Naturans", nature naturing, or if we are pantheistically inclined like Spinoza, "Deus sive Natura" (though the latter identification would be taking a stand on whether Spinoza's Deus is Natura Naturans or the whole shebang of nature, in favor of the former). If we like, we can call the mereological sum of the modes "Natura Naturata", nature natured. The Natura Naturans, then, is the substance of which the temporal modes are ultimately (though with an infinite chain intervening) are modes.

The final move, to make the view be more like Spinoza's, is to take out the reference to times. Instead, we just have a sequence of entities—objects and/or events—that are each reduced to previous ones.

I think one puzzle about this view is how the Natura Naturans is related to the sequence of temporally qualified, "determinate", modes. We could take this relationship to be one of reduction once again: the whole infinite sequence of times reduces to the laws. This fits with much of what Spinoza says. It is, however, in some tension with Spinoza's idea that from the idea of God qua eternal, and it is this which seems to fit best with this eternal lawmaker, temporally determinate facts do not follow.

This exegetical difficulty can perhaps be overcome.

Here is one way. Accept a relationist B-theory of time, and then say that something is determinate insofar as we can delineate the times of its beginning and end. But on a relationist B-theory, sub specie aeternitatis, we just have a doubly infinite sequence without time-as-a-container, and no non-relative, non-arbitrary way of identifying times like "November 15, 2011". Of course, we can stipulate names for beginning and end times of some events, and then with this stipulative delineation in hand, we can delineate temporally when other events will happen. Thus, if a match struck just before noon, it will come on fire just after noon. Thus, to derive facts about when events happen we need facts about when other events happen. We cannot derive when-facts from eternal laws. Spinoza is clear on his view that times are the product of human beings divisions of duration.

If all there was to being a determinate mode was having a beginning and end time, I think that would be a satisfactory answer. But I think temporally determinate modes may be prior on his view to times. Perhaps, though, his thought is this. What we can derive from L is the whole sequence of things, but considered as an undivided sequence, and all divisions and delineations in the sequence are due to us. And from a delineated cause—say, a match's being struck, which is delineated from what comes before (the movement of the match) and what comes after (the fire)—there can be derived a delineated effect. Again, on this reading, the division in the modes is arbitrary.

Actually, I am not sure that Spinoza's mode-to-haver relationship is reductive. But I think it gives an illuminating reading.

Occupation is just a relation

That's my new slogan.  It's aimed at philosophical views on which there is something ontologically special about occupying a location in space or spacetime.  But surely to occupy a location in spacetime is just to stand in some sort of a relation (to a location or to other objects).

Consider for instance claims like the following that many mereologists like:

• If R is any region all the points of which are occupied by x, and R* is any sub-region, then there is a part of x that occupies all and only the points in R*.

(We can also talk without invoking points, but points will be convenient.)  Consider now some parallels for other relations:

• If R is a set of propositions all the members of which are believed by x (think of belief as epistemic occupation!), and R* is any subset, then there is a part of x that believes all and only the propositions in R*.
• If R is a set of people all members of which x is a friend to, and R* is any subset, then there is a part of x such that that part is a friend to all and only the people in R*.

These are absurd, though we may non-literally talk that way.  "The part of Josh that is friends with Trent likes epistemology."

Or consider some claim that nothing can be in two places at once.  Make the claim precise, for instance in the following way:

• It is not possible that there is an object x and disjoint regions R and R* such that every part of x occupies some point (perhaps different points for different parts) in R and every part of x occupies some point (ditto) in R*.

But why think that the occupation relation satisfies this kind of an axiom?  

Here's a broad sweeping thought: Otherwise Humean philosophers who believe in all sorts of very general rearrangement principles for fundamental relations do not extend the same courtesy to the occupation relation.  

Ironically, while I am not happy with general recombination principles (that say that any recombination of possible objects makes for a possible scenario), I am happy to allow for wild and crazy rearrangements of the occupation relation--objects being in more than one place at a time, objects occupying spatiotemporally disconnected regions, etc.  If I thought there were such things as parts, I might even be open to such options as composite objects occupying locations that none of their proper parts occupy, parts occupying locations that the whole does not occupy, etc.

Crime and punishment

Justice demands a punishment proportionate to the gravity of the crimes. In particular, a greater punishment is called for for committing eleven instance of some type of crime than for committing ten of them. But we do not have much reason to think that the person who committed the eleven is a worse person than the one who committed the ten. Hence, pace Hume, punishment is not based solely on the character as evidenced by the crime.

Some remarks on Hume on miracles

1. Let's suppose for simplicity that miracles would violate of laws of nature. Consider then a "modernized" version of Hume's argument against miracles: The laws of nature have always been scientifically observed to hold. Whatever the merits of Hume's original argument, this version is really weak. It is, in fact, not uncommon for scientists to get data that does not fit what is predicted from the laws. When this data can be reproduced, it is taken seriously. But when the data cannot be reproduced, unless it is in some way spectacular, it will, I think, be dismissed as experimental error, an artifact of the particular experimental setup, etc. If only one scientist saw something on one occasion, and repeats do not show it, and no one else sees it, then it will not be taken seriously. The one scientist who saw the effect might investigate and try to find the source of the deviation, estimate to see whether the deviation falls within experimental error. But sooner or earlier, I think, the problem will be put aside, unless the data point was spectacular. However, miracles are not supposed to follow any rule—God is not a vending machine who produces a miracle when the right coins are put in. (God does answer prayers; however, he does not always answer them in the way expected; I think when we sincerely pray in Jesus' name, we will either get what we asked for, or we will get something as good or better.) So bringing science in does not help Hume's case.

2. Much of my knowledge of the sorts of regularities that miracles would go against is in fact through testimony. For instance, take the case that interests Hume most: the observation that dead people stay dead. I have never actually seen anyone die. I am sure Hume did. But unless one is a medical professional, a soldier or a witness to tragedy, one is unlikely to have seen very many people die. Moreover, one typically personally only observes a particular dead body for a fairly short time. Observe that once a body is buried, one no longer has direct observational data for the claim that the person stays dead. It could be, for all that one has directly observed, that the person came back to life, clawed at the coffin, and then asphyxiated again. Thus, one has very little direct observational data for the claim that dead people stay dead. But the bulk of our data for the claim that dead people stay dead comes from putting together the testimony of others.

Granted, we may have some indirect observational data. I have never seen graves opening when I visited a graveyard, nor have I driven by a funeral parlor and seen staff running out and screaming, with a formerly dead person walking out after them. However, in the case of most graves in a graveyard, it is through testimony that we know that there is someone in fact buried there. The indirect observational data depends on testimony, too, then.

Our knowledge of the regularity that dead people tend to stay dead depends largely on testimony. However, we only get the universal claim which Hume needs, the claim that all dead people always stay dead, when we dismiss some of the testimony available to us, namely the testimony for cases of resurrection. But it is no surprise that if we dismiss the testimony to the deviations from a regularity, what remains is testimony to the universality of the regularity.

3. In fact, miracle reports are very common, across many cultures. This should undercut one's confidence in any kind of Humean argument that miracles are apparent violations of universally holding regularities. For the sheer volume of miracle reports is strong evidence against the claim that the regularities always hold.

4. Hume himself thought that the ubiquity of miracle reports was evidence against their truth, because he thought that miracles should be confined to the true religion, and at most one of the religions could be true. However, I think we can now have a more ecumenical view of miracles. Moreover, I think we can distinguish between miracles that bear witness to a particular proposition and miracles that do not. A healing can simply be an act of divine love for the person healed and her friends/family, and there is no reason to deny that such miracles might hold quite universally.

But some miracles very clearly bear witness to a particular proposition. Thus, in the fifth century, apparently about sixty Catholics had their right hands and tongues cut out at the roots by an Arian heretic for espousing the doctrine of Nicaea. But these Catholics continued to speak, and presumably to preach the Nicaean doctrine. This seems to be a miracle that is a witness to a particular doctrine. Bishop Victor, writing two years after the alleged event, says:

If however any one will be incredulous, let him now go to Constantinople, and there he will find one of them, a sub-deacon, by name Reparatus, speaking like an educated man without any impediment. On which account he is regarded with exceeding veneration in the court of the Emperor Zeno, and especially by the Empress.

In the case of miracles that bear witness to a particular doctrine, when the doctrines conflict, one has a harder time making the ecumenical move. However, I do not know that there really are that many cases of reliable miracle reports that bear witness to incompatible doctrines. The case of the tongueless sub-deacon is very remarkable, and I do not know of any similar miracles reported on the part of the Arians. It is an interesting bit of religious history that at the time of the Protestant Reformation, one of the arguments adduced by the Catholic side was that claims as sweeping as those of the Reformers should be backed up by miracles—but none, the Catholic apologists alleged, were offered.

So Hume cannot dismiss ubiquitous miracle reports that are not tied to a particular doctrine. He could say something about mutual cancelation in the case of miracles that bear witness to a particular doctrine, but it is not clear that there is actually all that much in the way of reports of such miracles, of equal reliability, bearing witness to incompatible doctrines. And even if there were, it seems to me that the hypothesis that both reports are unreliable is less probable on its face than the hypothesis that only one of the reports is unreliable.

Dependence

Is being dependent an intrinsic property of an entity?

Suppose we say that it is intrinsic. Then we have the following interesting consequence. Assuming there are dependent entities, it is possible to have an intrinsic property, D, whose possession entails the obtaining of a genuine relation (a dependence relation) to another entity, but where D is, nonetheless, not relational. This would force us to deny strong recombination principles in accounts of modality. And that would be a good thing from my point of view. For one, it would force a humility in the move from apparent conceivability to possibility. (The modal problem of evil is one place where this matters.)

Could we say that being dependent is not an intrinsic property? That, I think, would be odd. If being dependent is not an intrinsic property, or at least is not entailed by the intrinsic properties of the entity (all I need for the arguments of the previous paragraph is that being dependent is entailed by the intrinsic properties of a thing), then being dependent is not a matter of some kind of inner need or lack in the entity. If George could survive without water, and without any substitute (natural or supernatural) for water, and without without any intrinsic difference in him, then he is not really dependent on water for his existence. My intuition is that the notion of a dependence that does not supervene on the intrinsic properties of a thing and that (therefore) is merely accidental is a sham dependence. I don't yet have a very good argument here, beyond just restatements of the intuition.

If I am right, then Hume has no conceptual resources to affirm that any entity is genuinely causally dependent. For on his view, "causal dependence" would have to be an extrinsic property of an entity, and hence, if I am right, would at best be just a sham dependence.