Freedom and Explanation: A Defense of the Fixity of the Independent

Author(s): Law, Andrew | Advisor(s): Nelson, Michael | Abstract: In the first three chapters, a novel principle of agency dubbed the principle of the “Fixity of the Independent” (or “FI”) is developed and defended. FI holds, roughly, that if a fact is in no way explained by an agent’s current behavior, then the fact is currently beyond the agent’s control or “fixed.” In the first and second chapter, it is argued that FI is the best explanation of more familiar principles of agency, such as the principle that the past is currently beyond every agent’s control. According to FI, the past is currently beyond every agent’s control precisely because the past is in no way explained by any agent’s current behavior. In the third chapter, it is argued that FI delivers unique results in various debates about freedom: while FI implies that causal determinism would threaten our freedom, it suggests that neither a fully determinate future nor the existence of an essentially all-knowing being would. In the fourth chapter, the notion of explanation is utilized for a slightly different purpose, namely, to answer a pressing challenge to a popular view of freedom, a view strongly supported by FI. The appendix deals with a complication brought out in the third chapter.