Is Free Will Compatible with Lewis’s Account of Time Travel?

Abstract

Time travel may be possible but whether time travellers are free to do what they want isn’t so clear. It is generally thought that free will isn’t compatible with the possibility of backwards time travel because of the things that time travellers can’t do. Since they can’t create logical contradictions, it seems they can’t do anything to change the past. What does this say about a time traveller’s free will and free will more generally? This paper aims to look through the different views of philosophers to come to a conclusion.

To prove that free will is compatible with Lewis´s account of time travel we will go through incompatibilism and compatibilism, which hold different views about whether causally determined things (like the past) can be compatible with the existence of free will. I will show why a compatibilist view is defensible when talking about free will in the context of time travel.

Through this paper, I will start by looking at some models of time travel. Then I will examine how the logic of time travel commits us to an unsatisfying view of free will. Afterward, I will discuss distinct models of free will and how those may help us understand the problem and then conclude with discussion of a common objection to Lewis’s account of time travel and free will.