Is Presentism Morally More Desirable than Eternalism? A Dialogue

Orilia, Francesco

According to presentism, only what is present exists. According to eternalism, all past, present and future things exist. Hence, in presentism, although there was pain, past pain does not exist. In contrast, in eternalism, it is not only the case that there was pain; past pain exists. Given the intrinsic obnoxiousness of pain, presentism is therefore morally or existentially more desirable that eternalism. An argument along these lines has been proposed by Orilia and several objections to it have been put forward. A dialogue between a presentist who defends the argument and an eternalist who puts forward the objections is here constructed.

In current philosophy of time there are two main competing ontologies (cf. Emery, Markosian, and Sullivan 2024). One is eternalism, according to which, objects and events of all times equally exist (tenselessly speaking), regardless of whether they are past, present or future. Its most popular version is the so-called B-theory, wherein there is no objective distinction between past, present and future. This appears to be in line with Einstein’s relativity theory. The other is presentism, according to which, there is an objective present and only present objects and events really exist. It is a minority view, which appears to be in tension with relativity theory. It has however many supporters, especially because…

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