Resolution Theory: The Hindsight and Displacement Fallacies

This note identifies three recurring errors in debates about free will and responsibility. The first hindsight fallacy treats the author, during action, as though he occupied the retrospective standpoint of completed history. The second hindsight fallacy mistakes the completed appearance of an act in hindsight for evidence that can settle the metaphysics of freedom, even though a finished act would look the same whether reality were determined or indetermined. The Displacement Fallacy mistakes richer causal explanation for reduced authorship, as though motives, pressures, history, or mechanism could by themselves erase the fact that a live evaluative field was closed into commitment through the person. Against these errors, the note distinguishes the In-Time Perspective from the Retrospective Perspective and argues that explanation and authorship are not rival verdicts. Under Resolution Theory, causal explanation tracks inputs and evaluation, while authorship attaches at resolution. These three mistakes are distinct, but when stacked together they have often contributed to the reduction or deletion of human meaning.