Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: If the laws are deterministic, then standard theories of counterfactuals are forced to reject at least one of the following conditionals: 1) had you chosen differently, there would not have been a violation of the laws of nature; and 2) had you chosen differently, the initial conditions of the universe would not have been different. On the relevant readings—where we hold fixed factors causally independent of your choice—both of these conditionals appear true. And rejecting either one leads to trouble for philosophical theories which rely upon counterfactual conditionals—like, for instance, causal decision theory. Here, I outline a semantics for counterfactual conditionals which allows us to accept both (1) and (2). And I discuss how this semantics deals with objections to causal decision theory from Arif Ahmed.
DOI: 10.1111/phpr.12925
Author: J. Dmitri Gallow
Institution: Australian Catholic University
Language: English
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,550
OpenAlex ID: W4308945973