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Fine-tuned of necessity?

Abstract:
This paper seeks to explicate and analyze an alternative response to fine-tuning arguments from those that are typically given—namely, design or brute contingency. The response I explore is based on necessity, the necessitarian response. After showing how necessity blocks the argument, I explicate the reply I claim necessitarians can give and suggest how its three requirements can be met: firstly, that laws are metaphysically necessary; secondly, that constants are metaphysically necessary; and thirdly, that the fundamental properties that determine the laws and constants are necessary. After discussing each in turn, I end the paper by assessing how the response fares when running the fine-tuning argument in two ways, as an inference to best explanation and as a Bayesian argument.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

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Publisher copy:
10.11612/resphil.1659

Authors


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Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
HUMS
Department:
Philosophy Faculty
Role:
Author


Publisher:
Res Philosophica
Journal:
Res Philosophica More from this journal
Volume:
95
Issue:
4
Pages:
663-692
Publication date:
2018-08-31
Acceptance date:
2018-02-20
DOI:
EISSN:
2168-9113
ISSN:
2168-9105


Language:
English
Keywords:
Pubs id:
1204170
Local pid:
pubs:1204170
Deposit date:
2021-10-19

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