30 May 2024 – Adrian Kuźniar (University of Warsaw) – “Compatibilism and the concept of a law-breaking event”

In this talk, I provide and justify a broader definition of a ‘law-breaking event’ than that adopted by D. Lewis who identifies this concept with the notion of an event that falsifies the laws of nature in his sense of ‘falsification’. I argue that the broader definition is the key to answering C. Ginet’s objection against local miracle compatibilism. It also allows a neutral reconstruction of one of the disagreements underlying the compatibilism debate about the ability to do otherwise, i.e., the disagreement over nomological possibility of alternative action in a deterministic world. Under this reconstruction, neither the incompatibilist nor the compatibilist can take advantage of the concept of a law-breaking event to show that their opponent’s view is false.