RELIGION AND MORALITY 313party to the dispute will simply put forward examples that exhibit their
view of the matter, and claim – neither more nor less cogently than the
other – that these are the genuinely parallel cases.
The other and better strategy involves looking very closely at what the
Control Principle says and endeavoring to find clear counterexamples to it.
Suppose X obtains at time T is necessarily true of some fact X – that
seventeen is prime, or that necessary truths are necessarily necessary. (Such
facts will obtain at any time you please.) In such a case, X’s obtaining, let us
say, is logically inevitable. Note that if the occurrence of some state of affairs
A is logically inevitable, then A’s non-occurrence is logically impossible.
Suppose that State of affairs Y obtains at time T2 is contingently true, as is
State of affairs X obtains at T1, where T1 is a time before any human being
existed and T2 is a time well after the first human beings came to exist.
Suppose, finally, that the conjunct (X obtains at T1 and The laws of logic are
true and The laws of nature are true and Y does not obtain at T2) is a
contradiction. Then let us say that, given X, Y is in fact inevitable. When this
is so regarding some state of affairs, let us say that it is in fact inevitable.
Note that if state of affairs A is in fact inevitable, then A’s non-occurrence is
in fact impossible – A does not occur is logically inconsistent with the very
complex conjunct composed of the truth about the past, the laws of nature,
and the laws of logic. Even the staunchest compatibilist should grant that
whether something obtained or not before any human being existed was not
something any human being could do anything whatever about, and the
same goes for the laws of logic and the laws of nature. Then given things true
in our world that we had nothing to do with making true and could not have
altered, what occurs now (if determinism is true) is in fact inevitable. So we
could do nothing about whether any thing that obtains now did so or not –
not even any of our thoughts or actions. What the Control Principle claims is
that, regarding things that are either logically or in fact inevitable, and what
these things entail,^12 we do not have any control. If determinism is true,
whatever occurs is in fact inevitable. So if determinism is true, and the
Control Principle is true, there is nothing whatever that we have control
over.
Given this understanding of the Control Principle, consider its
application to a simple case. Suppose that there is a golden retriever Fairy
who makes sure that (R) is true:
(R) Every golden retriever in the world is well fed.
Ruth, who owns a golden retriever, has no control over whether (R) is true
or not. Obviously (given that Ruth has a golden retriever) (R) entails:
(GR) Ruth’s golden retriever is well fed.