Dispositional essentialism and the fine-tuning argument

Abstract The Fine-Tuning Argument for God’s Existence (FTA) claims that certain recent discoveries in physics—such as the boundary conditions of the universe and the physical laws and constants which characterize it—are precisely fine-tuned for the possibility of intelligent life. In this paper, I defend the necessitarian response to FTA. In particular, I defend dispositional essentialism, the view that all fundamental natural properties are essentially dispositional. This view entails that the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary and thus are not fine-tuned for the possibility of intelligent life. In the course of defending this view, I consider and respond to five objections: (i) that it is possible for the laws of nature to be different because we can conceive of them being different, (ii) that metaphysically necessary life-permitting laws still render God’s existence more likely than it would otherwise be, (iii) that FTA can still be framed in terms of deviant causal properties (such as schmass), (iv) that dispositional essentialism succumbs to a vicious regress of powers, and (v) that hyperintensional contexts create insuperable problems for the view. I argue that none of these objections succeed.