Abstract
Do incompatibilist arguments, like some fatalist arguments, rest on modal fallacies? If Westphal (2012Westphal, J., 2012. “Is There a Modal Fallacy in van Inwagen's ’First Formal Argument’ ?”, Analysis 72 (1): 36-41.) is right, then one popular argument for incompatibilism van Inwagen’s “First Formal Argument” does rest on a modal fallacy. Similarly, Warfield (2000Warfield, T., 2000. “Causal determinism and human freedom are incompatible: a new argument for incompatibilism”, Philosophical Perspectives 14: 167-80.) claims that the standard modal formulation of the master argument for incompatibilism is a modal fallacy. Here, I refute both claims. Contra Westphal, I show that the mistake in van Inwagen’s "First Formal Argument" is no modal fallacy. After that, I argue that Warfield’s charge of modal fallacy can be easily avoided by using a plausible principle concerning actuality. Then, I show that this allows one to put forward a fairly simple argument for fatalism (the thesis that we aren’t able to do otherwise from what we actually do).
Keywords:
Incompatibilism; Fatalism; Nodal fallacy; Actuality; Choice