Libertarian Freedom in an Eternalist World?

Abstract

My students sometimes worry that if eternalism is true then they can't have libertarian freedom. They aren't alone, as this sentiment is also expressed, albeit typically briefly, by various philosophers. However, somewhat surprisingly, those working within the free will literature have largely had nothing to say about libertarianism's relationship to time, with this also being similar in the case of those working in the philosophy of time, apart from some work which has mainly focused on non-libertarian views of freedom. In this short paper I note why I'm currently unconvinced that there's an incompatibility between eternalism and libertarianism, and in doing so one will see why I think they are compatible.In order to do this I will first outline what I take to be the central tenets of both eternalism and libertarianism. I then begin to explore potential avenues of incompatibility, discussing firstly whether an eternalist can make sense of the principle of alternative possibilities, and then if fixity, the fact that how I act in the future is fixed, is an issue for libertarians. After arguing that the libertarian need not be too concerned by these difficulties, I turn to two further potential issues, namely that eternalism cannot allow for a type of causation that libertarianism requires, and also that it fails to allow for a view of change libertarians may favour. Once more, I find both of these supposed difficulties wanting.Given my discussion of the issues, I conclude that there are some plausible reasons to think that libertarian views of freedom are compatible with eternalism, or at the very least some variants of libertarianism are. As such, I take it that my students, and those like them who worry that there is such an incompatibility, are wrong to do so.