Let (leeway) incompatibilism be the thesis that causal determinism is incompatible with the freedom to do otherwise. Several prominent authors have claimed that incompatibilism alone can capture, or at least best captures, the intuitive appeal behind Jorge Luis Borges's famous “Garden of Forking Paths” metaphor. The thought, briefly, is this: the “single path” leading up to one's present decision represents the past; the forking paths that one must decide between represent those possible futures consistent with the past and the laws of nature. But if determinism is true, there is only one possible future consistent with the past and the laws and, hence, only one path to choose from. That is, if determinism is true, then we are not free to do otherwise. In this paper, I argue that this understanding of the Garden of Forking Paths faces a number of problems and ought to be rejected even by incompatibilists. I then present an alternative understanding that not only avoids these problems but still supports incompatibilism. Finally, I consider how various versions of (leeway) compatibilism fit with the Garden of Forking Paths as well as the broader question of whether metaphors, however intuitive, have any dialectical force in the debates over freedom.

中文翻译：

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不相容性和分叉路径的花园

让（余地）不相容论成为因果决定论与不做其他事的自由不相容的论点。几位著名作家声称，仅靠不相容论就可以捕捉或至少最好地捕捉豪尔赫·路易斯·博尔赫斯著名的“分叉路径花园”隐喻背后的直观吸引力。简而言之，这个想法是这样的：导致一个人当前决定的“单一路径”代表了过去；人们必须选择的分叉路径代表了与过去和自然法则相一致的可能的未来。但如果决定论是正确的，那么与过去和规律相一致的未来只有一种可能，因此只有一种道路可供选择。也就是说，如果决定论是正确的，那么我们就不能自由地做其他事情。在本文中，我认为这种对分叉小径花园的理解面临着许多问题，甚至应该被不相容论者所拒绝。然后我提出了另一种理解，它不仅避免了这些问题，而且仍然支持不相容主义。最后，我考虑了各种版本的（回旋余地）相容论如何与分叉小径花园相适应，以及更广泛的问题，即隐喻无论多么直观，在自由辩论中是否具有辩证力量。