Fantastic New Paper on Fine-Tuning as Evidence for a Multiverse

Yoaav Isaacs, John Hawthorne, and Jeffrey Sanford Russell. "Multiple Universes and Self-Locating Evidence", Philosophical Review (forthcoming).

Abstract:

Is the fact that our universe contains fine-tuned life evidence that we live in a multiverse? Hacking (1987) and White (2000) influentially argue that it is not. We approach this question through a systematic framework for self-locating epistemology. As it turns out, leading approaches to self-locating evidence agree that the fact that our own universe contains fine-tuned life indeed confirms the existence of a multiverse (at least in a suitably idealized setting). This convergence is no accident: we present two theorems showing that in this setting, *any* updating rule that satisfies a few reasonable conditions will have the same feature. The conclusion that fine-tuned life provides evidence for a multiverse is hard to escape.

Fantastic New Critique of Molinism by Climenhaga and Rubio

 Climenhaga, Nevin and Rubio, Daniel. "Molinism: Explaining Our Freedom Away", Mind (forthcoming).

Abstract:

Molinists hold that there are contingently true counterfactuals about what agents would do if put in specific circumstances, that God knows these prior to creation, and that God uses this knowledge in choosing how to create. In this essay we critique Molinism, arguing that if these theses were true, agents would not be free. Consider Eve’s sinning upon being tempted by a serpent. We argue that if Molinism is true, then there is some set of facts that fully explains both Eve’s action and everything else Eve does that influences that action; and that if this is the case, Eve does not act freely. The first premise of this argument follows from the explanatory relations the Molinist is committed to, and the second premise follows from libertarian intuitions about free will.