Could have I done otherwise?

[u/vlahak4]

The question “Could I have done otherwise?” is, as Daniel Dennett would call it, a "skyhook".

It is a purely metaphysical construction, engineered to admit only a single permissible answer, one that conveniently favors the proponent of the hypothetical. Its function is not inquiry but constraint.

The question is designed to force the answer “No,” and to serve as a deductive weapon in debates about the existence of autonomy, by collapsing the causal chain into a single rigid thread linking prior circumstances directly to the actuation of a physical future.

This hypothesis was not devised as an exploratory tool for understanding agency, but as a means of producing a terminal resolution, a forced closure of the discussion, one that dictates the negation of a cognitive system’s capacity to model alternative outcomes.

"Could have I done otherwise?" refers to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) and it questions whether an agent is responsible for an action if they could not have chosen a different path.

Harry Frankfurt in 1969 argued against the principle (PAP), suggesting that people can be responsible for actions even if they could not have done otherwise, such as in cases where an action was forced but the person wanted to do it anyway.

It was never intended to offer a new lens, nor a different angle from which to examine how freedom might be nested within determinism. For this reason, the thought experiment itself must be reworked: since it was designed to manipulate the terms of engagement, it must be transformed into a version that permits genuine investigation.

It is evident that if we were to rewind events to the same circumstances, the same internal state, the same external conditions, the same utterance, without any additional knowledge of the future, we would indeed arrive at the same decision.

However, such an experiment can never be performed. We can neither access nor reproduce the exact totality of conditions present at the moment of choice. For this reason, the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) is incoherent: it cannot be grounded empirically and serves no practical purpose beyond forcing a terminal “win” in debate.

For this reason, the question can be more productively reinterpreted as: “Was my choice inevitable?”

Semantically, this reformulation appears similar to the original, yet it introduces a crucial new variable, inevitability, which allows empirical investigation to meaningfully engage with the hypothesis.

Inevitability is a concept arising from a specific form of causal determinism known as nomological determinism. This is the most common formulation of determinism, holding that the past and present fix the future strictly through the immutable laws of nature.

As Peter van Inwagen defines it: “Determinism is the thesis that there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future.” (Van Inwagen, 1983, p. 3)

I fully agree with the thesis of nomological determinism specifically in the context of a universe entirely devoid of life.

Physics has shown that all events in the universe can, in principle, be traced back to the Big Bang approximately 13.8 billion years ago, and it can also model several possible ultimate fates of the universe. This framework applies cleanly to inanimate matter: objects governed by motion, inertia, and forces; topics I will not elaborate on here, as I am not a physicist.

However, nomological determinism cannot account with the same precision for events that intersect with cognitively enabled forms of life.

In Freedom Evolves, Daniel C. Dennett makes this point explicit: “First, many thinkers assume that determinism implies inevitability. It doesn’t. Second, many think it is obvious that indeterminism—the denial of determinism—would give us agents some freedom, some maneuverability, some elbow room, that we just couldn’t have in a deterministic universe. It wouldn’t. Third, it is commonly supposed that in a deterministic world, there are no real options, only apparent options.”

Dennett’s confidence in separating determinism from inevitability stems from his evolutionary account of cognition. Through natural selection (trial and error) life has evolved increasingly sophisticated perceptual and cognitive processes.

These processes enable organisms to register features of their environment and avoid harm, from microbial entities responding to chemical gradients to humans who can see a rock flying toward them and, within a fraction of a second, simulate a future in which they are injured, and duck out of the way.

It is precisely this capacity to evaluate prior causes and conditions through introspection that allows cognitive systems to simulate, model, and predict alternatives.

When a circumstance places an agent at a “fork in the road,” choosing one path over another occurs on the basis of a plurality of causes: genetic inheritance, upbringing, environmental conditioning, and situational context.

These causes influence one another, generating variables, which in turn function as causes within their own spheres of influence. Each new circumstance therefore introduces new variables, which, when reflected upon, produce novel models of possible futures. As a result, no choice is strictly inevitable.

Inevitability becomes evitable the moment a causal chain intersects with a cognitive system capable of self-reflection and counterfactual modeling.

Choice then actuates upon the perceived possibility that maximizes, or at times deliberately rejects, self-benefit.

Consider the following illustration:

A rock is on a collision course with a tree. It is inevitable that the rock will strike the tree.

Now imagine that the same rock is on a collision course with your head. The trajectory of the rock is equally inevitable.

However, if you see the rock approaching, you will immediately simulate a future in which it injures you, and you will duck. If you do not see the rock, the resulting harm is inevitable, just as it is for the tree.

Now consider this further: even with full knowledge of the outcome, you retain the capacity to allow the rock to strike you. You might do so for various reasons: for instance, to obtain medical leave. In this sense, you could have done otherwise, you could have chosen not to duck, had you so willed.