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\title{Production and Necessity}
\author{Louis deRosset}
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\begin{document}
  \maketitle{} 
  
    It is difficult to overstate the influence of Humean skepticism
    about necessity on latter-day philosophers.  One symptom of this
    influence is the centrality in contemporary philosophical debates
    of the \emph{Humean claim}:
    \begin{description}
      \item[(Humean claim)] There are no necessary connections between
        distinct existences.\linespread{1}\endnote
        %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
        {It is not obvious that this claim expressed any view of the
        historical Hume.  I will remain agnostic on such exegetical
        questions.}
        %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
        \linespread{1.6}
    \end{description}
    
    Philosophers deploy this sweeping claim in the service of a wide
    variety of philosophical projects.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {The Humean claim is not only deployed in debates in metaphysics,
    see, \emph{e.g.}, \citep{Lewis:2001}, \citep{MacBride:2005}; but
    also in philosophy of mind \citep[\S4.1,
    241--6]{Chalmers:2003}; and even meta-ethics
    \citep{Smith:1994}.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} It is advertised as an appropriate starting point
    for theorizing about what is necessary or possible.  David Lewis
    has even suggested that it is \emph{the} starting point: it
    provides us with our best handle on what is
    possible.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {\citep[611]{Lewis:2001}.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6}
    
    The Humean claim is often deployed; it is less often motivated.
    It is sometimes suggested in passing that necessary connections
    between distinct existences would be mysterious and inexplicable.
    Surely some such claims would be puzzling: a necessary connection
    between the Queen and the particular throne on which she happens
    to have sat today, for instance.  But why think that any such
    necessary connections would be mysterious and inexplicable?
    Consider a class of claims that opponents of the Humean claim,
    famously including Kripke,\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {\citep{Kripke:1980}}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} believe present intuitively powerful
    counter-examples.  Kripke claims that there are necessary
    connections between material things and their material origins.
    Call such claims \emph{origin theses}.  One origin thesis Kripke
    endorses is that the Queen had to have been produced from the
    sperm and egg from which she was actually produced.  Why think the
    truth of such a claim would be mysterious or inexplicable?  Some
    intuitive support for the Humean claim is found in the fact that,
    in general, it's very difficult to see why the existence of any
    one thing should depend as a matter of the strictest necessity on
    a connection to a completely different thing, even if the former
    was produced from the latter.  The Queen is one thing, and her
    material origin is another.  (More accurately, the queen's
    material origins are two things: a sperm and an egg.)  Though she
    is actually connected to those particular gametes, it's hard to
    see why this connection should be written into the nature of
    things.  What about her prevents her from coming from other
    gametes, or even from a turnip?
    
    Here's how Hume expressed the point:
    \begin{quote}
      [W]e must now return upon our footsteps to examine that
      question, which first occurr'd to us, and which we dropt in our
      way, \emph{viz. What is our idea of necessity when we say that
      two objects are necessarily connected together}. [...] In order
      to this I consider, in what objects necessity is commonly
      suppos'd to lie; and finding that it is always ascrib'd to
      causes and effects, I turn my eye to two objects suppos'd to be
      plac'd in that relation; and examine them in all the situations,
      of which they are susceptible.  I immediately perceive, that
      they are \emph{contiguous} in time and place, and that the
      object we call cause \emph{precedes} the other we call effect.
      In no instance can I go any farther, nor is it possible for me
      to discover any third relation betwixt these
      objects.\linespread{1}\endnote
      %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
      {(\emph{Treatise}, 1.3.14.1).  All citations from the
      \emph{Treatise} are taken from \citep{Hume:Treatise}.}
      %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
      \linespread{1.6}
    \end{quote}    
    Hume's reflection provides a way of specifying what prompts the
    vague sense than any necessary connection between distinct things
    would be mysterious and inexplicable.  Suppose we examine the
    Queen, cataloguing all of the features our examination reveals.
    Hume claims here that our catalogue will not reveal any feature in
    virtue of which she is connected with certain gametes as a matter
    of necessity.  Our examination of the Queen will reveal her
    height, mass, and age.  We can expand the ambit of our examination
    to include her history, revealing, for instance, how much was
    spent on her coronation, and even that she was, in fact, the
    result of the union of certain gametes.  Let's call this
    exhaustive examination of a particular individual a \emph{Humean
    Examination} of her.  Hume notes:
    \begin{description}
      \item[(Hume's datum)] The Humean Examination of any individual
          does not reveal any feature in virtue of which it is
          necessarily connected to something entirely
          distinct.\linespread{1}\endnote
          %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
          {There is an epistemological interpretation of this line of
          thought, according to which the Humean Examination brings to
          light no evidence or justification for necessary
          connections.  Our discussion will focus on the metaphysical
          interpretation in the main text; the epistemological point
          is beyond the scope of this paper.}
          %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
          \linespread{1.6}
    \end{description}
    
    There is a rough and ready argument from Hume's datum to the
    Humean claim.  Consider again the case of the Queen and her
    gametes.  Hume's datum indicates that there seem to be no features
    of the Queen in virtue of which she is \emph{necessarily}
    connected to particular gametes.  Humean Examination reveals that
    she is in fact so-connected, but it also reveals that she is in
    fact connected to a particular throne in virtue of sitting on it.
    No features come to light in virtue of which any of her actual
    connections are necessary.  Add to these claims a premise
    requiring that the necessity of the Queen's having any feature
    obtain in virtue of some among her further features.  These
    considerations provide an argument that the Queen is not
    necessarily connected to those gametes.  Nothing in this argument
    turns on the peculiar features of the Queen, or the nature of the
    relation she bears to the gametes in question, so this argument
    seems to generalize to the case of any alleged necessary
    connections between wholly distinct things.  Thus, Hume's datum
    appears to motivate the Humean claim.  I will call the view that
    Hume's datum motivates the Humean claim \emph{Humeanism}, and its
    proponents \emph{Humeans}.
    
    The purpose of this paper is to argue that Humeanism is incorrect.
    Hume's datum should not ultimately be taken to motivate the Humean
    claim, for it provides equally good motivation for its rejection.
    The rough and ready argument for the Humean claim has a flaw.  In
    particular, I will argue that Hume's datum supports the crucial
    premise in an argument for certain origin theses.  So, if the
    Humean claim is to stand, it requires alternative motivation.  The
    need to avoid mysterious and inexplicable necessities does not
    ultimately merit the rejection of necessary connections across the
    board.

  \begin{section} {The philosophical significance of Hume's datum}
    What, exactly, does the Humean take Hume's datum to establish?  It
    does not establish the general claim that we should always presume
    that something is possible until shown that it is not.  The
    argument from Hume's datum applies only when we are considering
    alleged \emph{de re} modal features of individual things.  Since a
    Humean Examination is only available when there is a particular
    individual at hand, the argument does not apply to claims of
    necessity that don't involve any particular individual.  So, for
    instance, there's no grounds here for scepticism about the
    impossibility of there being a married bachelor.  Even when a
    necessity for an individual is in question, the claim's proponents
    would presumably admit that the argument does not support the
    possibility of, \emph{e.g.}, some manifest contradiction.  But
    denying central cases of necessary connections, \emph{e.g.} origin
    theses, does not require the possibility of contradiction.
    Further, Hume's datum is applicable only in cases where the
    individuals in question are susceptible of Humean
    Examination.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {For instance, Hume's datum does not support a presumption in
    favor of the possibility of a maximally great Being.  For one
    reason or another, no such Being seems to be available for Humean
    Examination.  For doubts about a general presumption of
    possibility in the absence of countervailing considerations see,
    for instance \citep{vanInwagen:1977}.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} For these reasons, the argument does not motivate
    a principle supporting the presumption of the possibility of any
    claim whatsoever; Hume's datum has no obvious upshot for claims
    that do not require the possession of \emph{de re} modal features
    by individuals available for Humean Examination.
    
    The application of Hume's datum is nevertheless broad enough.  it
    applies whenever we are told that some connection between distinct
    things necessarily obtains.  It has the effect of enlarging the
    space of possibilities.  According to the argument, we should
    presume that both sides of any question regarding the connection
    of some ordinary individual like the Queen with another thing
    represent genuine possibilities until some further feature comes
    to light in virtue of which one side or the other (not both!) is
    impossible.  Consider again the relation between the Queen and the
    gametes from which she actually came.  Applying Hume's datum, the
    Humean concludes both that it is possible that she come from those
    gametes, and that it is possible that she not come from those
    gametes.  Similar comments apply to gametes from which she does
    not actually come.  Thus, Hume's datum appears not only to
    motivate the Humean claim, but also the further claim that no lack
    of connection between the Queen and another individual is
    necessary.  Suppose that some connection which may hold between
    distinct things does not hold between certain individuals.  We'll
    call this a situation in which a \emph{connection-lack} obtains
    among those individuals.  For instance, a connection-lack holds
    between Elizabeth Windsor and the gametes from which Margaret
    Truman arose.  The Humean position is one according to which there
    are neither necessary connections nor necessary connection-lacks
    between distinct existences.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {Hume himself accepts that necessary connections and necessary
    connection-lacks are on a par, see \emph{Treatise}, 1.3.15.1.  For
    clarity, mention of connection-lacks will usually be suppressed in
    our discussion.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} According to the Humean, the Queen could have
    come or failed to come from any particular pair of gametes.
    
    Let us turn from the applicability of the argument for the Humean
    claim to the import of its conclusion.  Some connections among
    distinct existences are very clearly not necessary.  Consider Bill
    and Ted, who are shaking hands.  Bill is contiguous with Ted, but
    evidently this circumstance is not metaphysically inevitable.
    They might never have touched at all.  Likewise, some connections
    among identical existences clearly are necessary.  The relation of
    identity holds of necessity between each thing and itself, but
    this is only one case.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {Some qualification may be necessary to take account of contingent
    existence.  Thus, it may be contingent that $x$ is identical to
    itself, on the grounds that it is contingent whether $x$ exists,
    and if it does not exist, then it is not identical to itself.  No
    position on this matter is here assumed, and nothing in our
    assessment of the Humean claim will turn on the metaphysics of
    nonexistence.  For the purposes of the paper, the claim that $x$
    necessarily has a certain connection to $y$ should be understood
    weakly, as equivalent to the claim that it is necessary that, if
    $x$ exists, then $x$ is so-connected to $y$.  A similarly
    qualified reading of the claim that $x$ necessarily bears some
    connection-lack to $y$ is assumed.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} The relation of \emph{being indiscernible from},
    also holds of necessity between each thing and
    itself.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {The consistency of such facts with the Humean claim may also be
    overdetermined, since the Humean might argue that identity and
    indiscernibility are not connections in the relevant sense.  The
    distinction between connections and other relations is briefly
    discussed below.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} All of these claims are consilient with the
    Humean claim.
    
    One version of the Humean claim also allows necessary connections
    between things that are numerically distinct, but which are not
    ``distinct existences'' in the intended sense.  For instance, it
    is consistent with this version of the Humean claim that there be
    necessary connections between sets and their members, or between
    mereological sums and their parts.  To take the latter example,
    the sum need not be construed as a ``distinct existence'' from its
    parts.  Apart from such mathematical examples, this version of the
    Humean claim does not on its face rule out necessary connections
    between ordinary physical things and their physical
    parts.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {Are an individual thing and one of its qualitative features
    always ``distinct existences'' in the relevant sense?  If so (and
    if instantiation is a connection), then the Humean claim somewhat
    surprisingly implies that there are no necessary qualitative
    features of any particular thing.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} Another, stronger version of the Humean claim
    rules out necessary connections between any distinct things, even
    if they are related by parthood or
    membership.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {This stronger version is the interpretation favored, \emph{e.g.}
    by \citep[126]{MacBride:2005} and \citep{Cameron:2008}.  Thanks
    to an anonymous referee for alerting me to the fact that some
    authors favor the stronger interpretation.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} I will say that two things are \emph{wholly
    distinct} if they are not merely numerically distinct, but also
    ``distinct existences'' in the intended sense.  For instance, sets
    and their members, sums and their parts, and ordinary physical
    things and their physical parts provide examples of numerically
    but not wholly distinct individuals.  Our discussion will focus on
    the weaker version of the Humean claim, which allows necessary
    connections among things which are numerically distinct but not
    wholly distinct.
    
    The Humean claim's defenders may also allow that there are
    necessary relations between distinct things.  Indeed, they must.
    The Queen is actually numerically distinct from the Eiffel Tower.
    These two things are related by numerical distinctness.  And it
    seems as if this is no mere contingency; it is impossible that the
    Queen and the Eiffel Tower should have failed to be distinct.  So
    it looks as if there are two wholly distinct things that are
    necessarily connected by numerical distinctness, contrary to the
    Humean claim.  Perhaps a defender of the Humean claim would reject
    the necessity of distinctness.  Some Humeans
    have.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {See, for instance, \citep{Lewis:1968}.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} But we have to hand even more compelling cases.
    The Queen is self-identical; so is the Eiffel Tower.  So they
    stand in the relation \emph{being both self-identical}.  Indeed,
    they necessarily stand in this relation.  On pain of incoherence,
    then, defenders of the Humean claim must distinguish such
    relations as distinctness and \emph{being both self-identical}
    from the kinds of necessary connections targeted by the Humean
    claim.  The position must then be that there are necessary
    \emph{relations} but no necessary \emph{connections} among
    distinct things.  So the Humean claim relies on the vague but
    compelling distinction between mere relations and
    connections.\linespread{1}\endnote{
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    As a measure of how compelling the distinction is, it is used
    without comment by Kit Fine in \citep[5]{Fine:1994}, when he
    asks us to ``[c]onsider two objects whose natures are unconnected,
    say Socrates and the Eiffel Tower.''  Presumably Fine would admit
    that the natures are related (by distinctness).}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} Difficult as this distinction is to explain
    clearly, it is as indispensable as it is intuitively compelling.
    
    Drawing the distinction between relations and connections provides
    a useful warning against a crude formalism that one might
    naturally bring to a consideration of the Humean claim.  A crude
    formalism of this sort would hold that, just because we have a
    metaphysical truth of the form, `it is necessary that $\phi$',
    where $\phi$ contains terms for wholly distinct things, that we
    have a counter-example to the Humean claim.  The distinction
    between mere relations and connections provides an argument
    against this view.  The assessment of the Humean claim requires
    more delicate handling: we must bring to bear our intuitive
    insight into the import of a putative counter-example rather than
    simply checking it against a formal template.
    
    If we focus our attention on such mathematical things as, for
    instance, numbers, then the Humean claim seems implausible.
    Surely it is no mere contingency that 9 succeeds 8.  Perhaps a
    defender of the Humean claim might argue that, like a singleton
    and its member, 9 and 8 are not ``distinct existences'' in the
    required sense.  Perhaps it might be argued that the
    \emph{successor} relation is not a connection, but rather a mere
    relation.  However such a defense might work out, questions
    regarding the Humean claim's application to mathematical things
    are moot for present purposes.  I will focus instead on its more
    plausible application to less abstract things.  In particular, our
    focus will be on things which obviously participate in the causal
    order of the universe: human beings, artifacts, \emph{etc.}
        
    The Humean claim is clearly intended, despite all of our
    qualifications, to rule out necessary connections between causes
    and their effects.  Thus, one of Hume's conclusions in the
    \emph{Treatise} (1.3.15.1) is that ``[a]ny thing may produce any
    thing''.\linespread{1}\endnote{
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    As an historical matter, Hume may have been more concerned with
    defending the epistemological claim that it is neither intuitively
    certain nor demonstrable from intuitively certain principles that
    a certain causal relation obtains.  In a word, Hume is concerned
    to show that \emph{de re} causal relations are not knowable
    \emph{a priori}.  This epistemological thesis is not here under
    discussion.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} This claim is literally echoed by Hume's
    latter-day follower, David Lewis.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {\citep{Lewis:1997}.  It should be noted that Lewis is not a
    whole-hearted partisan of the Humean claim.  For a brief
    discussion of complications in application to origin theses see
    \citep[88]{Lewis:1986}.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} As the quote indicates, productive relations,
    such as those which obtain between the Queen and her gametes, are
    explicitly intended to be connections, rather than mere relations.
    Hume thinks they are a species of causal
    relations.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {See, for instance, the discussion of the Principle of Sufficient
    Reason at \emph{Treatise} 1.3.3.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6}
    
    If anything can produce anything, then a turnip can produce Nixon.
    Everybody knows that, with enough ingenuity, we can construct a
    long story in which, through some complex turn of events, a turnip
    is eventually responsible for Nixon's conception and birth.  If we
    are careful, we can be confident that the story describes a real
    possibility.  The poem ``For Want of a Horseshoe Nail'', about how
    a careless farrier indirectly caused the collapse of a nation,
    shows the way.  But clearly the import of the claim in Hume and
    Lewis's hands is more interesting: the turnip can somehow be
    directly responsible for Nixon's creation.  Perhaps the idea is
    that it is possible for Nixon to have sprung full-formed from his
    turnip, like Athena from Zeus's head.  According to the Humean
    claim, productive relations among distinct existences are as
    contingent as height relations among people.  Just as there is no
    metaphysical law against the re-arrangement of height-relations
    among people, there is no metaphysical law against the
    re-arrangement of productive relations among things.  All such
    relations among distinct things are
    contingent.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {Hume writes in the \emph{Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding},
    that ``[a]ll events seem entirely loose and separate.  One event
    follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them.
    They seem conjoined, but never connected.''
    \citep[49]{Hume:Enquiry}.  Notice that Hume assumes in this
    passage a distinction between connections and other relations.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6}
    
    A natural picture of the metaphysical structure of the universe
    emerges from these reflections.  The universe is populated with
    lots of distinct things.  Each thing is actually connected to the
    others in a host of ways.  But each thing is sovereign, capable of
    existence independently of whether and how it it is connected to
    the other things.  So each of its connections is metaphysically on
    a par: each is contingent.  In particular, the causal connections
    among things in virtue of which some things are produced from
    other things are completely contingent.  In short, the universe is
    a loose agglomeration of completely independent things.
  \end{section}
  
  \begin{section} {Kripke's response}
    This metaphysical picture met determined resistance near the end
    of the last century in the work of Saul Kripke.  Nixon was not, as
    a matter of fact, produced from any turnip.  Kripke argues that,
    given how Nixon was actually produced, this is no mere
    contingency: Nixon could not have been produced by a turnip.  In
    general, Kripke claims that, given that a material object had its
    origin in a particular hunk of matter, it could not have had its
    origin in any other hunk of matter.  Taken together with the facts
    about how the multitude of material objects had their respective
    origins, this implies that necessary connections and
    connection-lacks among distinct existences are thick on the
    ground.  Consider the last turnip you ate.  If Kripke is right,
    Nixon is not the only one who could not have been produced from
    that turnip.  Neither could you, nor I, nor Descartes, nor your
    desk, nor the Space Shuttle \emph{Endeavor}, nor the Antarctic ice
    sheet.  And that's just one turnip.  If Kripke is right, there is
    a vast, complicated nexus of metaphysical necessities outlawing
    various re-arrangements of productive relations among things.
    
    This suggests a picture of the metaphysical structure of the
    universe that stands in stark contrast to the Humean picture.  In
    both pictures, various things are actually connected to a host of
    other things.  But in the Kripkean picture, unlike the Humean one,
    these connections are not fungible.  Most of the ordinary things
    in the universe could not exist without being connected in various
    ways to other material things.  The Queen, for instance, had to
    originate from the gametes from which she actually developed.  Her
    existence is not independent of her connections to any other
    things.  Instead, she is bound by the strictest necessity to
    particular gametes.  In the Kripkean picture, ordinary things are
    not loosely agglomerated, but tightly integrated into an extensive
    network of the strictest dependencies.
    
    If Kripke is right, then the Humean claim is wrong.  That much is
    obvious.  How does Kripke justify rejection of the Humean picture?
    He focuses his discussion on the alleged necessity of the
    connections we have been discussing so far: the connection between
    an ordinary produced thing and its material origin.  Kripke's
    rejection is bolstered by an argument in favor of the necessary
    connections at issue.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {In addition to providing an argument in favor of his position,
    Kripke also criticizes arguments in favor of the other side.  See
    especially \citep[112-3]{Kripke:1980}.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6}
        
    Kripke's argument appears in footnote 56 of \emph{Naming and
    Necessity}.
    \begin{quote}
      A principle suggested by these examples is: \emph{If a material
      object has its origin from a certain hunk of matter, it could
      not have had its origin in any other matter.}  Some
      qualifications might have to be stated (for example, the
      vagueness of the notion of hunk of matter leads to some
      problems), but in a large class of cases the principle is
      perhaps susceptible of something like proof, using the principle
      of the necessity of identity for particulars.  Let `$B$' be a
      name (a rigid designator) of a table, let `$A$' name the piece
      of wood from which it actually came.  Let `$C$' name another
      piece of wood.  Then suppose $B$ were made from $A$, as in the
      actual world, but also another table $D$ were simultaneously
      made from $C$.  (We assume that there is no relation between $A$
      and $C$ which makes the possibility of making a table from one
      dependent on the possibility of making a table from the other.)
      Now in this situation $B\neq D$; hence, even if $D$ were made by
      itself, and no table were made from $A$, $D$ would not be $B$.
    \end{quote}

    Kripke switches the origin thesis under discussion from the
    connection between the Queen and her gametes to the connection
    between a table and the hunk of wood from which it is
    made.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {Importantly, when I say ``made from'', I have in mind the
    relation between a thing and the portion of raw materials used to
    produce it.  This is a different relation than that between a
    thing and the hunk of matter which constitutes it.  A thing may
    change constitution over time; but it can never change which raw
    materials were used to produce it.  Further, there are cases in
    which raw materials are used to produce something but never
    constitute it.  Perhaps the Queen and her gametes are an example.
    Another example is the production of a plastic ashtray from a
    certain quantity of ethylene.  The ashtray is not constituted by
    the ethylene at any point in its history, despite the fact that it
    is produced from it.  See \citep{Barnett:2005} for discussion of
    similar cases.\label{fn:ProdVsConst}}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} Let us do the same.  Consider the table, call it
    \emph{\Tone{}}, on which this paper is being
    written.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {I borrowed this use of the name \emph{Abel} from Ben Caplan and
    David Sanson, though it is also used in this way by
    \citep{Gendler:2000}.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} This table, let us suppose, was actually produced
    from a certain hunk of wood, call it \emph{\Hone{}}, grown in a
    forest in Tennessee.  There is another hunk of wood, call it
    \emph{\Htwo{}}, which, we may suppose, was grown in a pine forest
    in Australia.  According to the origin thesis that will be our
    focus, it is impossible that \Tone{} should have been produced
    from the Australian hunk \Htwo{}.  This is only an instance of the
    more general claim Kripke aims to establish, that \Tone{} could
    not have been produced from \emph{any} hunk other than \Hone{}.
    But the instance is no less opposed to the Humean picture than is
    its generalization, and so suffices for
    illustration.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {There is one interesting wrinkle introduced by switching the
    example under discussion.  It is plausible to deny in cases of
    table production that the source hunk and the final product are
    wholly distinct, on the grounds that the hunk initially
    constitutes the table.  Thus, a necessary connection between
    \Hone{} and \Tone{} is consilient with the version of the Humean
    claim under discussion.  This problem is a peculiarity of the
    particular case of production under consideration.  The Queen is
    plausibly never constituted by her gametes, and a plastic ashtray
    is never constituted by the quantity of ethylene used to produce
    it.  Since the arguments of this paper could be mounted using such
    cases, I will ignore this wrinkle in what follows.  Thanks to an
    anonymous referee for noting both the wrinkle and the accompanying
    problem.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} Kripke notes that it might have been that \Tone{}
    is produced from \Hone{} just as it actually is, while \Htwo{} is
    used to produce some table \Ttwo{}.  \Ttwo{} and \Tone{} are
    distinct in such a case, and hence, by the necessity of identity,
    actually distinct as well.  Kripke concludes that any table that
    might be made from the Australian hunk \Htwo{} would be distinct
    from \Tone{}.
    
    But this argument fails to establish the origin thesis.  It only
    shows that \Ttwo, one among the tables that might have been made
    from \Htwo, is distinct from \Tone{}.  It needs to show more.  It
    has to establish that \emph{any} table that might have been made
    from \Htwo{} is distinct from \Tone.  The argument as stated thus
    does not rule out the possibility that \Tone{} be made from
    \Htwo{}, so long as nothing is made from
    \Hone{}.\linespread{1}\endnote{
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    This very brief criticism of the argument as reconstructed here is
    derivative of Salmon's, \citep{Salmon:1979}.  As I acknowledge in
    n. \ref{fn:exeg}, one might interpret Kripke's footnote as a
    statement of the argument for the origin thesis mounted in
    \S\ref{sec:arg} below; see, \emph{e.g.}, the discussion in
    \citep{Cameron:2005}.  If this is correct, then the reconstruction
    of the argument in the main text is off target and the criticism
    beside the point.  I take no stand here on this exegetical matter,
    though Kripke's discussion did inspire the work that led to the
    articulation of that argument here and in
    \citep{RohrAnddeR:2004}.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6}
    
    Kripke's argument, as I've reconstructed it, does not adequately
    support the origin thesis.  But that thesis seems in need of
    support.  The table is one thing, and its source hunk is a
    different thing.  Thus, the Humean Examination of the table
    reveals nothing in virtue of which it is bound to its source hunk
    with the force of necessity.  Kripke's argument does not help us
    isolate an ``active ingredient'' in virtue of which the source and
    its product are necessarily connected.  The intuitive
    attractiveness of the Humean claim seems to be here, in Hume's
    datum: the Humean looks for the ``active ingredient'' in virtue of
    which one thing is necessarily connected to another, and finds
    nothing.  A more satisfactory confrontation with the Humean claim
    would tell us why Hume's datum does not support the denial of
    necessary connections.
    
    In short, The Kripkean position seems vulnerable.  Hume's datum
    motivates the Humean picture of the metaphysical structure of the
    universe.  Kripke thinks that picture is wrong, and supplies a
    contrasting picture.  But the argument for that conclusion does
    not provide an adequate defense of his view.  A better argument
    for origin theses is available, however.  Understanding why Hume's
    datum should not be taken to motivate the Humean claim requires
    tracing that argument.
  \end{section}
    
  \begin{section} {Grounds for the origin thesis} \label{sec:arg}
    \Tone{} was originally produced (we assume) from a particular hunk
    of wood \Hone{} grown in Tennessee.  We are attempting to ground
    an origin thesis to the effect that \Tone{} could not have been
    produced from our Australian hunk \Htwo{}.  Why couldn't \Tone{}
    have come from \Htwo{}?  The answer to this question requires
    consideration of another question in the metaphysics of
    production: in general, what does it take to prevent the
    production of a particular material object from a particular hunk?
    What, for instance, does it take to prevent \Tone{}'s production
    from \Hone{}?\linespread{1}\endnote{
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    I am indebted to Guy Rohrbaugh for his collaboration on many
    points made in this section and the next.  The argument of this
    section is drawn from \citep{RohrAnddeR:2004} and
    \citep{RohrAnddeR:2006}, where it is discussed in much more
    detail.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6}
    
    It is a contingent fact that \Hone{} gives rise to \Tone{}. There
    are many ways it might not have come to pass. We might have made
    \Hone{} into a chair; we might have burned \Hone{} for warmth; we
    might have seized the means of table production; we might just
    have decided to leave \Hone{} alone. In all of these cases, some
    factor prevents the production of \Tone{} from \Hone{}.  By
    assumption, \Tone{} emerged from \Hone{} in the actual
    circumstances.  The factors that prevent \Tone{}'s production in
    each case are those divergences from the actual circumstances
    responsible for \Tone{}'s not coming from \Hone{} in that
    case.\linespread{1}\endnote{
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    Although it is a sufficient condition on a factor's responsibility
    for an effect that it causes the effect, this need not be a
    necessary condition. Many cases of prevention need not be thought
    of as strictly causal.  It is plausible to hold that absences
    cannot be causes, but often the absence of a certain event is
    responsible for the absence of another.  Consider the following
    contrasting pair of cases. First, \Tone{} fails to eventuate
    because \Hone{} has suffered dry rot and has been rendered
    unsuitable for table-making. Here, the connection between the dry
    rot and \Tone{}'s failing to eventuate involves an identifiable
    causal process involving \Hone{}. Second, \Tone{} fails to
    eventuate because life failed to evolve and there are no trees
    and, thus, no \Hone{}. Here, there may be no identifiable causal
    process involving \Hone{} or the production process, but in both
    cases, `because' expresses a relation of responsibility.  (It
    should be noted that many philosophers, see \emph{e.g.}
    \citep{Sartorio:2005}, think absences can be causes, in which case
    causing an effect may be both necessary and sufficient for being
    responsible for it.)}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6}
    
    We should notice an important feature of these examples; each
    preventing factor is responsible for some effect on \Hone{}, or
    the people, tools, or facilities involved in the productive
    effort.  A factor cannot prevent \Tone{}'s production from \Hone{}
    without being responsible for some effect on the individuals ``on
    the scene'' of that production.  In this sense, the preventions
    are \emph{local}.  What is unconnected to the existence of \Hone{}
    or the making of \Tone{} from \Hone{} is irrelevant to \Tone{}'s
    production and cannot interfere.  These reflections suggest that
    processes of table-creation are governed by a principle of
    \emph{locality of prevention}:
    \begin{description}
      \item[(LOP)] For any possible factor $F$, necessarily, if $F$
        prevents \Tone{}'s coming from \Hone{}, then $F$ makes a
        difference to \Hone{}, the people, tools, or other components
        of the actual production of \Tone{} from
        \Hone{}.\linespread{1}\endnote{
        %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
        (LOP) requires qualifications in light of difficulties brought
        to light by \citep{RobertsonandForbes:2006} and
        \citep{CameronandRoca:2006}.  See \citep{RohrAnddeR:2006} for
        discussion of the qualifications.  The unqualified version of
        (LOP) is used here for simplicity of exposition.  Note that
        (LOP) states a necessary condition for preventing the
        production of \Tone{} from \Hone{}.  (LOP) does not imply the
        implausible converse claim, that any factor which makes some
        local difference prevents the production of \Tone{}.  A
        productive effort using \Hone{} as raw material may result in
        \Tone{} even though there are significant differences from the
        actual circumstances in the locale of the production.  Suppose
        local authorities arrest the table-makers.  In this case, one
        might expect the arrests to prevent the production.  But other
        factors may allow this interference to be overcome.  If the
        table-makers are quickly released, it stands to reason that
        they might continue their productive efforts with \Tone{} as
        the eventual result.}
        %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
        \linespread{1.6}
    \end{description}
    According to (LOP), any possible case in which some factor
    prevents the production of \Tone{} from \Hone{} differs from
    actual circumstances with respect to the features of what we might
    call the \emph{locale} of the productive effort: \Hone{} and other
    elements of the process by which \Tone{} actually emerged.  This
    idea bears a strong affinity to the Humean's motivation for the
    Humean claim.  According to the Humean, a necessary connection
    between \Tone{} and \Hone{} would be mysterious and inexplicable
    because it cannot be traced to features of \Tone{} revealed by a
    Humean Examination.  Our discussion brings to light a similar
    idea: the prevention of \Tone{}'s production from \Hone{} by a
    factor responsible for no local effects would be mysterious and
    inexplicable, because by hypothesis it cannot be traced to any
    features of \Hone{} or other elements of the productive effort.
    Thus, the locality of prevention, while independently plausible,
    should be particularly tempting for the Humean.
    
    The locality of prevention provides grounds for the origin thesis.
    But before tracing how it manages this feat, it is worthwhile to
    dwell on its import.  The locality of prevention expresses what
    looks like a general truth about processes of table-production:
    they are essentially local phenomena. The causal-historical path
    leading to this table runs through quite specific materials and
    processes of assembly which are distinct from those leading to
    your table, or, indeed, to anything constructed from completely
    different materials, at other times, or in other places. Because
    the actual production of this table from its source hunk is solely
    a matter of what happens along a particular causal-historical
    path, any factor that interferes with that production must make a
    difference along this path. Factors that make no difference along
    that path do not prevent the table from coming into existence just
    as it actually does. Running the productive process which actually
    leads from \Hone{} to \Tone{} in the presence of factors which
    make no local difference \emph{can} still lead to \Tone{}.
    
    Despite their generality, the restrictions imposed by the locality
    of prevention are not trivial. There are kinds for which these
    restrictions do not hold. Call something a {\em prototypical
    table} if it is the first table ever made in the universe.  We may
    prevent the production of a prototypical table from a source hunk
    simply by constructing another prototypical table at some earlier
    point in time. Such prevention need not be
    local.\linespread{1}\endnote{
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    The prevention is not just of the existence of a particular
    prototypical table, say, \PTone{}, nor of its creation from some
    hunk or other, but of the production of \PTone{} from, say,
    \Hone{}.  I am thinking of productions as individuated in part by
    the kind of thing the product is.  So, supposing \PTone{} to be a
    prototypical table constructed from \Hone{}, the production of
    that prototypical table from \Hone{} may fail in some other world,
    even though the right table is produced from \Hone{} in that
    world. The prototypical table production fails because the product
    is not a {\em prototypical} table.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} It is also easy to find examples of kinds for
    which prevention might occur `after the fact.'  Call something a
    {\em lonely table}\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {Thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting this terminology.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} if it is the only table ever to exist in the
    universe.  What produces a lonely table in one circumstance may
    fail to do so in another.  The construction of a second table,
    even after the first is completed, will spoil it.  Productions of
    prototypical and lonely tables are vulnerable to forms of
    competitive interference.  What prevents their production is our
    running the very same sort of process on another hunk somewhere
    else.
    
    The contrast with ordinary tables is instructive, for ordinary
    tables do not seem vulnerable to the same sort of non-local,
    competitive interference.  As far as making \Tone{} from \Hone{}
    goes, it just doesn't matter what you do with some other hunk of
    wood somewhere else in the universe.  Make it into a table or
    don't.  As long as the second process doesn't infringe on the
    process which actually makes \Hone{} into \Tone{}, this process
    may well run as it actually did, resulting in \Tone{}.  The
    reasoning is symmetric.  Suppose we do make that second hunk into a
    table.  Whether we make \Hone{} into \Tone{} or not is irrelevant
    to the success of our new endeavor, unless the two processes
    locally interfere with one another.
    
    The locality of prevention has the following consequence: if one
    table production need not have effects in the locale of another
    and \emph{vice versa}, then it is possible for both productions to
    succeed.  Table productions from the Tennesseean and Australian
    hunks can be isolated from one another.  The upshot is that
    productions of tables from our two hunks seem to enjoy a form of
    {\em independence} from one another.  A process that turns one of
    the hunks into a table \emph{need not} interfere with a process
    operating on the other, though there are cases in which they do,
    in fact, interfere.  Suppose we burn \Htwo{} in order to power the
    machine which makes \Hone{} into a table.  In this situation, we
    can no longer make any of the tables we might otherwise have made
    from the burned hunk \Htwo{}.  But this connection between the
    processes is contingent.  Had we found another source of power,
    the Australian hunk \Htwo{} would have remained available for
    table-manufacture.  The form of independence is one which rules
    out only necessary interference between table productions.
    
    If this reasoning is correct, we seem to have the following
    situation.  Any possible production of a particular table from the
    Australian hunk \Htwo{} is compossible with the production of
    \Tone{} from the Tennesseean hunk \Hone{}; the production of
    \Tone{} from \Hone{} is compatible, in principle, with the
    production of any table that might otherwise have been made from
    \Htwo.  This is what we may call an \emph{independence
    principle}.\linespread{1}\endnote{
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    Independence principles, and the availability of a valid argument
    from them to the origin thesis, appear to have been first noticed
    by Kit Fine and Robert Stalnaker.  In footnote 11 of
    \citep{Salmon:1979}, Salmon attributes the idea to both Fine and
    Stalnaker.  He also broaches a similar idea in \citep[201,
    212-3]{Salmon:1981}.  Depending on how the argument of footnote 56
    of \emph{Naming and Necessity} should interpreted, the idea may
    originally have been Kripke's.\label{fn:exeg}}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} It expresses the compossibility of
    table-productions from our two hunks.
    
    The link between the locality principle and independence is a key
    element of our discussion, so it is worthwhile to set out the
    reasoning in a little more detail.  (LOP) states a modally
    necessary condition on factors which prevent \Tone{}'s emergence
    from \Hone{}.  Any such condition on preventing factors implies,
    in turn, a necessary condition on \emph{necessarily} preventing
    factors. The inference turns on the fact that necessity operators
    distribute over conditionals. This gives us the necessary locality
    of necessary prevention:
    \begin{description}
      \item[(NLONP)] For any possible factor $F$, if $F$ necessarily
        prevents \Tone{}'s coming from \Hone{}, then $F$ necessarily
        makes a difference in the locale of the original production of
        \Tone{} from \Hone{}.
    \end{description}
        
    I take for granted a conceptual connection between necessary
    prevention and compossibility: a factor $F$ that does not
    necessarily prevent some possibility from being realized is
    compossible with its realization.  So (NLONP) implies an explicit
    compossibility principle:
    \begin{description}
      \item[(COMP)] For any possible factor $F$, if it is not
        necessary that $F$ make a difference in the locale of the
        original production of \Tone{} from \Hone{}, then $F$ is
        compossible with the production of \Tone{} from \Hone{}.
    \end{description}
    
    I noted above an affinity between Humeanism and the motivation for
    (LOP).  The relation is even tighter in the case of (LOP)'s
    consequence (COMP).  Hume's datum can be used to motivate the
    compossibility claim directly.  Someone who denies (COMP) claims
    that there is a possible factor $F$ which might have had no
    effects in the locale of \Tone{}'s production, but necessitates
    its failure nonetheless.  So there are possible situations in
    which $F$ is responsible for no effects in the locale of that
    production, but in no such situation does the productive effort
    succeed.  Notice however that Hume's datum applies in this case: a
    Humean Examination of \Hone{}, the tools, workers, and facilities
    in question would not bring to light any feature in virtue of
    which they could not produce \Tone{} just as they actually did.
    For, by hypothesis, in the situations we are contemplating they
    are all as they actually are; none of the actual features of the
    locale of \Tone{}'s production prevent \Tone{} from being
    produced; so none of the features of that locale in the situations
    at hand do, either.  Thus, if Hume's datum supports the
    possibilities required by the Humean claim, it also supports the
    possibility of \Tone{}'s production from \Hone{} in the presence
    of any factor responsible for no local effects.  (COMP), then,
    enjoys two kinds of support: it is a consequence of the
    intuitively well-motivated locality of prevention, and it can be
    directly motivated by Hume's datum.
    
    From (COMP), we may derive our independence principle.  Consider
    any table \Ttwo{} possibly made from \Htwo{}.  Take \Ttwo{}'s
    production from \Htwo{} as our factor $F$.  (COMP) yields the
    compossibility of both table-productions required by the
    independence principle, so long as we are given the extra premise
    that the two table-productions are isolable: it is not necessary
    that, if \Ttwo{} is made from \Htwo{}, then there is some effect
    in the locale of the original production of \Tone{} from \Hone{}.
    But this extra premise is very plausible.  Further, the
    isolability of causal processes involving distinct hunks is a
    central feature of the Humean metaphysical
    picture.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {(NLONP) reflects one informal formulation of the the locality of
    prevention offered in \citep{RohrAnddeR:2004}.  It was first
    explicitly formulated in \citep{RohrAnddeR:2006}.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6}
    
    Independence is thus the ineluctable result of the locality of
    prevention.  Because the production of a table (or prevention
    thereof) is just a matter of what happens locally along the
    causal-historical path, the paths are compossible when nothing
    requires one to affect the other as a matter of necessity.
    Whenever processes of production are invulnerable to non-local
    interference, there will be an analogous principle of
    independence.  So, independence principles seem to hold no less
    generally than does the locality of prevention.
    
    The origin thesis is a byproduct of independence principles.  Let
    us start with an explicit characterization of the independence
    principle for our \Tone{}--\Hone{}--\Htwo{} test case.  For
    simplicity's sake, let the relation `made from' hold only between
    tables and hunks which contain all and only the matter used as raw
    material for the original production of the table.
    \begin{description} 
      \item[(T-IND)] For any table, \Ttwo{}, which might be made from
	\Htwo{} it is possible that both \Tone{} is a table made from
	\Hone{} and \Ttwo{} is a table made from
	\Htwo{}.\linespread{1}\endnote
	%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
	{Generalizations of (T-IND) may fail in certain special cases,
	including when source hunks share too much material.  This
	sort of problem is discussed at \citep[\S8,
	720-3]{RohrAnddeR:2004}.  The point of assuming that
	\Hone{} was grown in Tennessee and \Htwo{} in Australia is, in
	part, to rule out such special cases.}
	%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
	\linespread{1.6}
    \end{description}
    The argument requires two other premises. The first is a familiar
    logical principle, the (necessary) necessity of distinctness.
    \begin{description} 
      \item[(ND)]Necessarily, if $x \neq y$, then necessarily $x \neq
	y$.
    \end{description} 
    The second is another metaphysical principle. Call it \emph{origin
    uniqueness.}
    \begin{description} 
      \item[(OU)]Necessarily, if $T_1${} is a table made from $H_1${}
	and \Ttwo{} is a table made from $H_2${} and $H_{1} \neq
	H_{2}$, then $T_{1} \neq T_{2}$.
    \end{description} 
    This principle says that a single table cannot entirely originate
    from distinct hunks in a single possible world. Barring the
    existence of distinct, coincident hunks, and given our
    understanding of the `made from' relation, this seems a trivial
    truth. The conclusion is the origin thesis that is our concern.
    \begin{description} 
      \item [(T-NO)] It is necessary that any table, \Ttwo{}, made
	from \Htwo{} be distinct from \Tone{}.
    \end{description} 
    
    Now the argument. Start with our table, \Tone{}, made from the
    Tennesseean hunk \Hone{}.  Suppose the origin thesis is false: it
    is possible that \Tone{} be produced from the Australian hunk
    \Htwo{}.  Since \Tone{} actually comes from \Hone{} and it is
    possible that \Tone{} come from \Htwo{}, the independence
    principle says that both productions are jointly possible, and so
    both occur in some possible world $w$. Since \Hone{} and \Htwo{}
    are distinct, they are distinct in $w$ as well by the necessity of
    distinctness. By origin uniqueness, the distinctness of the hunks
    in $w$ shows that \Tone{} is distinct from itself in $w$, which is
    absurd.  Q.E.D.
  \end{section}
  
  \begin{section}{Resisting the argument}
    \label{sec:objs}
    One natural reaction to this argument is to think that, while
    valid, it simply begs the question because the origin thesis is
    covertly snuck into our formulation (LOP) of the locality of
    prevention.  This is easiest to see when we focus our attention on
    the consequence I drew from (LOP), the independence principle.
    What difference is there, one might ask, between being told that
    \Tone{} could have come from no other hunk and being told that the
    production of any table from another hunk is compossible with
    \Tone{}'s production from \Hone{}?  Strictly speaking, the charge
    is false.  The locality of prevention and the necessity of origin
    do not imply one another.  First, the locality principle, by
    itself, does not imply the origin thesis in the absence of the
    isolability of productive efforts from \Hone{} and \Tone,
    necessity of distinctness, and origin uniqueness.  While none of
    these claims is open to much doubt,\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {At least, their application in the present argument should not be
    doubted.  As I have already noted, the Humean would clearly
    endorse the causal isolability of productive processes from
    distinct hunks.  I discuss the relevant applications of the
    necessity of distinctness and origin uniqueness in
    \S\ref{sec:AncillaryPrems} below.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} the reasons for accepting them come from quarters
    far removed from those which support the locality of prevention.
    Second, the necessity of origin does not imply the locality
    principle.  Even if no table could ever be produced from other
    matter, it might still be the case that the locality principle
    fails for some unrelated reason.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {\citep{Rohrbaugh:2005} for instance, argues that an analogous
    locality principle governing the production of artworks fails on
    the view that, \emph{e.g.}, Modigliani's portrait of Jean Cocteau
    could not have been produced if Cocteau had never existed, though
    an otherwise indiscernible twin was painted in his place.  This
    concession is made in the course of a long argument for an
    analogue for artworks of (T-NO).}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} The necessity of origin only denies the existence
    of certain possibilities, while the locality principle implies a
    positive claim that a certain situation, that containing both
    productions, is possible.
    
    Such logical niceties aside, one might still think there is
    something to the spirit of the charge.  After all, if the locality
    of prevention is true, it rules out any form of necessary
    interference between the making of \Tone{} from \Hone{} and the
    making of any table at all from \Htwo{}, \emph{including \Tone}.
    Haven't we just stipulated away the apparent counter-example to
    the origin thesis, that in which the interference comes from our
    making \Htwo{} into \Tone{}? To see why the answer is `no,' we
    need to go back to the justification of the locality principle.
    Since \Hone{} and \Htwo{} are distinct hunks and we have a way of
    making \Hone{} into a particular table, if we also have a way of
    making \Htwo{} into a particular table, then it seems that we
    could, in principle, run both of these processes together.  The
    distinctness of the hunks seems to guarantee that there is no
    necessary interference between the processes; in at least one
    world, we can run them both and get the very tables we produced
    separately.  Someone who wants to claim that we can make \Htwo{}
    into \Tone{} needs to explain either why we could not also run the
    process which in fact turned \Hone{} into \Tone{} or why that
    process could not result in \Tone{}.  Either sort of explanation
    would appear to involve prevention that makes no local difference.
    It won't do simply to say, `We've already made \Tone{}, so \Tone{}
    can no longer be made,' without also telling us what factor
    necessarily affects \Hone{} or some other element used to produce
    \Tone{} from it.  Without some explanation of why the two
    processes \emph{must} interfere with each other, the objector is
    left baldly claiming some unspecified form of prevention; to
    anticipate a bit, such prevention seems mysterious and
    inexplicable.  One may object to the locality of prevention, but
    the assertion of (LOP) is not just the bald assertion of the
    origin thesis.  The locality of prevention has its own grounds of
    support, and one who objects to the origin thesis must find some
    flaw in these independent grounds.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {This discussion of the charge that the argument begs the question
    is drawn from \citep{RohrAnddeR:2004}.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6}
    
    Even if the argument does not beg the question, however, it still
    seems as if it leaves the Humean an obvious stratagem: simply
    reject independence and with it the locality of prevention.  Once
    the Humean sees how the argument goes, she will realize that the
    conjunction of independence, the necessity of distinctness, and
    origin uniqueness are inconsistent with her contention that
    \Tone{} might have been made from the Australian hunk
    \Htwo.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {Likewise, the conjunction of these three claims is inconsistent
    with anything that implies the possibility that \Tone{} be made
    from \Htwo.  For instance, they are jointly inconsistent with the
    claim that there might have been a table \Ttwo{} both identical to
    \Tone{} and made from \Htwo{}.  Likewise, assuming the necessity
    of identity, they are inconsistent with the claim that \Ttwo{} is
    a table both identical to \Tone{} and possibly made from \Htwo{}.
    Thanks to an anonymous referee for helping me see this point.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} She can stand firm, then, by denying
    independence.  Moreover, the only instance of (T-IND) salient to
    the argument is the one that says that the production of \Tone{}
    from \Htwo{}, if possible, is also compossible with the production
    of the same table from \Hone.  So the Humean need only deny this
    instance to evade the argument.  Ultimately, this stratagem
    amounts to the claim that there is an important exception to the
    locality principle: nothing prevents the production of \Tone{}
    from \Hone{} without \emph{either} having an effect in the locale
    of that production, \emph{or} involving the production of \Tone{}
    from something else.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {See also \citep{RohrAnddeR:2006} for some further, independently
    motivated qualifications to (LOP).}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} This qualified locality claim yields a principle
    very close to (T-IND), but without the anti-Humean consequences:
    the production of \Tone{} from \Hone{} is compossible with the
    production of any \emph{other} table that might otherwise have
    been made from \Htwo{}.
    
    Thus, the Humean may decline the locality of prevention in
    favor of a principle friendlier to her rejection of our origin
    thesis:
    \begin{description}
      \item[(LOP)${}^-$] For any possible factor $F$, necessarily, if
        $F$ prevents \Tone{}'s coming from \Hone{}, then $F$ either
        makes a difference to \Hone{}, the people, tools or other
        components of the actual production of \Tone{} from \Hone{},
        or $F$ involves the production of \Tone{} from some other
        hunk.
    \end{description}
    This weaker principle will accommodate some of the more familiar
    cases of prevention.  For instance, the principle predicts that
    efforts to sabotage the tools used to make \Tone{} from \Hone{}
    will prevent that table production only if they are responsible
    for some local effect.  (LOP)${}^-$ thus accommodates the evident
    fact that if the attempt at sabotage is nipped in the bud, and the
    tools, \emph{etc.}, are unaffected, then that production can still
    yield \Tone{}.
    
    Rejecting (LOP) in favor of (LOP)${}^-$ does have two drawbacks,
    however.  First, it doesn't accommodate the more general intuitive
    idea to which, I've claimed, ordinary cases of prevention all
    point: the actual production of \Tone{} from its source hunk is
    solely a matter of what happens along a particular
    causal-historical path, so that factors that make no difference
    along that path do not prevent the table from coming into
    existence just as it actually does.  A symptom of this difficulty
    is that (LOP)${}^-$ won't capture the intuitive contrast between
    table production and prototypical table production, for
    (LOP)${}^-$ allows preemptive (or even post-emptive) interference
    with the production of \Tone{} from \Hone{}.  For these reasons,
    the locality of prevention has enough support, I would think, that
    an intuitive cost would accrue to such a move, at least in the
    absence of a compelling counter-example.  The second drawback of
    rejecting (LOP) in favor of (LOP)${}^-$ is that it seems \emph{ad
    hoc} to claim without further motivation that there is an
    exception to the general requirement that preventing factors make
    a local difference.  Absent an independently compelling argument
    or independently plausible counter-example to (LOP), it seems odd
    that there should be such an exception to an otherwise uniform
    phenomenon.
    
    Perhaps, however, these apparent drawbacks are illusory.  Perhaps
    what I've called ``the more general intuitive idea'' backing the
    locality of prevention ought ultimately to be rejected.  Perhaps
    the relevant exception to the locality of prevention can be
    motivated more compellingly.  Even so, the stratagem I have just
    sketched is not ultimately available to the Humean.  In the next
    section I will argue that the Humean should not reject the
    locality of prevention, even in favor of embracing its suggested
    surrogate (LOP)${}^-$.  The very considerations she uses to
    motivate the Humean claim also motivate the compossibility
    principle, (COMP).  This compossibility claim still suffices for
    the purposes of our argument for the origin thesis.  Thus, even if
    the stratagem pointed the way to a plausible rejection of the
    origin thesis, this position would be unavailable to the Humean,
    who takes Hume's datum to warrant the rejection of necessary
    connections.
  \end{section}
  
  \begin{section}{Implications of the argument for Humeanism} 
    \label{sec:implications}
    A defender of the Humean claim must reject the origin thesis.  The
    argument shows that she must therefore either reject one of the
    argument's premises or the reasoning used to derive the
    conclusion. Let us suppose that our Humean admits the validity of
    the reasoning, and the truth of both the necessity of distinctness
    and the principle of origin uniqueness.\linespread{1}\endnote{
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    This admission is not trivial.  David Lewis, \citep{Lewis:1968}
    for instance, rejects the necessity of distinctness.  I discuss a
    defense of the Humean claim on the basis of a rejection of the
    necessity of distinctness in \S\ref{sec:AncillaryPrems} below.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} Then the Humean must reject the independence
    principle, and with it (LOP).
    
    It might seem as if the Humean cannot reject the independence
    principle, even if she is willing to bear the intuitive costs of
    rejecting (LOP).  She holds that there are no necessary
    connections between distinct things.  Our independence principle
    says that any table production from \Htwo{} is compossible with
    the production of \Tone{} from \Hone{}.  To deny this appears to
    require a necessary connection among the Australian hunk \Htwo{},
    the Tennesseean hunk \Hone{} and the table \Tone{}, of exactly the
    sort ruled out by the Humean claim.  We appear, then, to have a
    straightforward \emph{reductio} of the Humean position: either the
    origin thesis is correct, and there is a necessary connection
    between \Tone{} and \Hone{}, or the independence principle is
    false and there is a necessary connection among \Tone{}, \Hone{},
    and \Htwo{}.
    
    Suppose with the Humean that \Tone{} might have been made from the
    Australian hunk \Htwo{}, and so our independence principle (along
    with (LOP)) fails.  She might try to resist the apparent
    \emph{reductio} by noting that the relevant failure of our
    independence principle involves two events which share a
    constituent.  Notice that the conjunction of (OU), (ND), and the
    fact that \Hone{} and \Htwo{} are actually distinct implies that
    there is a necessary relation between two events that are
    separately possible on our suppositions: the production of \Tone{}
    from \Hone{} is not compossible with the production of \Tone{}
    from \Htwo.  This plausible result is consilient with the Humean
    claim: since the two events share \Tone{} as a constituent, it is
    plausible to deny that they are ``distinct existences'' in the
    relevant sense.  Thus, even if it is granted that denying
    independence commits the Humean to a necessary connection between
    numerically distinct possible events, it does not require a
    necessary relation between wholly distinct events.
    
    How might the Humean leverage the necessary relation between
    overlapping events to justify the necessary connection apparently
    required among the distinct individuals \Tone{}, \Hone{}, and
    \Htwo{}?  How can we get from the \emph{events} to the
    \emph{individuals} in this case?  She might hope to qualify the
    Humean claim so that it does not ban a necessary connection among
    distinct individuals so long as it is required by a necessary
    relation among overlapping events or states of affairs.  With this
    qualification in place, the denial of our independence principle
    is allowed.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {A response to the argument along these lines has been suggested
    by the comments of several people, including Ben Caplan,
    D. A. Martin, David Sanson, and an anonymous referee.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6}
    
    However tempting this response might be, it threatens the Humean
    claim with trivialization.  Virtually any claim of a necessary
    connection between distinct individuals can be upgraded to a claim
    of a necessary connection between overlapping events or states of
    affairs.  For instance, let $E_1$ be \Tone{}'s production from
    \Hone, and let $E_2$ be \Tone{}'s production from either \Hone{}
    or \Htwo.  Obviously $E_1$ and $E_2$ overlap by virtue of their
    shared constituent \Tone{}.  The origin thesis can be cast as the
    claim that, as a matter of necessity, $E_1$ occurs if $E_2$ does.
    But this necessary relation requires a necessary connection-lack
    between individuals: \Tone{} could not have been produced from
    \Htwo{}.  More generally, any claim that one individual $x$ is
    necessarily connected to another $y$ can be recast as the claim
    that \emph{$x$'s being connected to $y$} is a modally necessary
    condition for \emph{$x$'s existence}.  Any claim of necessary
    connection turns out to be consistent with the qualified version
    of the Humean claim.  Thus, the proposed qualification yields a
    claim that fails to rule out any case of necessary connections
    between distinct individuals.  The qualified claim is simply not
    strong enough for the Humean's purposes.
    
    We still appear, then, to have a \emph{reductio} of the Humean
    position.  The argument appears to force a choice between the
    truth of the origin thesis and the falsity of the independence
    principle, and so a necessary connection among \Tone{}, \Hone{},
    and \Htwo.  Things are not quite this neat, and for two reasons.
    First, the denial of the independence principle does not really
    require that there actually be a necessary connection among
    \Tone{}, \Hone{}, and \Htwo{}.  All \emph{actual}
    table-productions are of course compossible.  It requires at most
    that there \emph{would} be such a necessary connection among
    \Tone{}, \Hone{}, and \Htwo{} in some situation in which a table
    is made from \Htwo{}.  Since the Humean claim (on at least one
    reading) only says that there are no actual necessary connections
    between actual distinct things, it is not, \emph{strictly
    speaking}, inconsistent with the denial of our independence
    principle.  But the position left open by this consideration, that
    though there are actually no necessary connections between
    distinct things, there might have been, is implausible and
    difficult to motivate.
    
    A second reason why the argument fails to be a straightforward
    \emph{reductio} is more interesting.  Recall that defenders of the
    Humean claim need an obscure but intuitively compelling
    distinction between mere relations and connections.  Relations
    between distinct things that are not connections, \emph{e.g.}
    distinctness, may obtain of necessity on the Humean view.  A
    defender of the Humean claim, then, could deny the independence
    principle, and claim that the necessity required is of a mere
    relation between distinct things.  This position also seems a
    little strange.  The Humean resists the necessity of origin by
    accepting necessary interference between table-productions.
    
    This position is not incoherent.  Indeed, as we saw at the end of
    \S\ref{sec:objs}, it initially appears to be the Humean's best
    response.  I have emphasized, however, that the position initially
    seems both \emph{ad hoc} and implausible in light of the
    motivation provided for (LOP) in \S\ref{sec:arg}.
    
    Perhaps there is a way for the Humean to make such a denial more
    palatable.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {For instance, the following criticism of (LOP) was suggested
    independently by Derk Pereboom and Carolina Sartorio.  Consider
    the case of the Ship of Theseus; see \citep{Salmon:1979} and
    \citep{Noonan:1985a} for discussion.  A ship $S_1$ was originally
    constructed from some planks $p_1, p_2, \dots, p_n$, which have
    all been replaced one-by-one with completely different planks
    $p_{n+1}, p_{n+2}, \dots, p_{2n}$.  After replacement, the second
    group of planks make up a ship $S_2$.  Assume the plausible view
    that $S_1$ is identical to $S_2$, and suppose that the original
    planks $p_1, p_2, \dots, p_n$ were hoarded.  It seems that, after
    replacement, the original ship $S_1$ cannot be produced from the
    hoarded planks, even if they have retained all of their original
    features and so, intuitively, there are no local differences in
    them.  Despite appearances, there is no counter-example to (LOP)
    in the offing here.  Let's distinguish between constitution and
    production (see n. \ref{fn:ProdVsConst}).  The original planks are
    not prevented from \emph{producing} $S_1$; in fact they already
    have produced $S_1$.  They do seem to be prevented by non-local
    factors from coming to \emph{constitute} $S_1$.  Thus, the example
    shows at most that factors that do not locally interfere with
    $p_1, p_2, \dots, p_n$ and the workers, tools, and facilities in
    question may prevent those planks from \emph{constituting} $S_1$.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} But consider instead the compossibility principle
    (COMP).  (COMP) follows from (LOP), and still suffices for
    independence principles like (T-IND).  Indeed, the argument in
    \S\ref{sec:arg} to independence from (LOP) goes via (COMP).  But,
    as I noted in that section, the compossibility principle can also
    be motivated from the Humean's own most powerful tool, Hume's
    datum.\linespread{1}\endnote{
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    The position that accepts (COMP), but rejects the locality of
    prevention strikes me as difficult to motivate.  I concentrate on
    the compossibility principle only to make the point that our
    independence principle should be irresistible to a Humean, even if
    she were willing to bite the bullet on the locality of
    prevention.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} In any situation in which some factor $F$ has no
    effects on \Hone{} or other elements of the actual productive
    process, the Humean Examination of those individuals will not
    bring to light any feature in virtue of which \Tone{} is
    guaranteed not to emerge from them.  The argument from Hume's
    datum to the Humean claim relies on the idea that a connection (or
    its lack) should be deemed possible for an individual if Humean
    Examination reveals no feature of that individual which rules it
    out.  (COMP) is the upshot of the application of very same idea to
    the individuals in the locale of the actual production of \Tone{}.
    Any factor $F$ which fails to have local effects will leave
    \Hone{}, \emph{etc.}, without features that rule out their
    conspiring to produce \Tone{}; this connection to \Tone{} should
    therefore still be deemed possible.  Thus necessary prevention
    that cannot be traced to local effects would be mysterious and
    inexplicable for the same reasons that the Humean adduces to
    support the Humean claim.
    
    Thus, attempting to hold the line against origin theses not only
    incurs the intuitive costs of denying (LOP), but also requires
    denying the application of Hume's datum to yield claims which,
    like (COMP), imply independence principles.  Perhaps the right
    view for a defender of the Humean claim to take is that Hume's
    datum casts its net too narrowly in this case.  Our Humean
    Examination focuses narrowly on a catalogue of features of certain
    individuals: \Hone{} and other elements of the productive process
    by which \Tone{} actually emerged.  If we widen the examination to
    include factors elsewhere, including past, present, and future
    table productions isolated from \Hone{}, \emph{etc.}, then, the
    defender contends, there will be nothing very mysterious about the
    necessary prevention by these factors of \Tone{}'s production from
    \Hone{}.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {I will insert one note of caution.  I doubt that we should accept
    that there is no mystery concerning how, \emph{e.g.}, the future
    production of \Tone{} from \Htwo{} necessitates the failure of the
    present production of \Tone{} from \Hone{}.  To be sure, if it
    turns out to be possible for \Tone{} to be produced from \Htwo{},
    then there is no doubt \emph{that} such a production necessitates
    the failure of \Tone{} to emerge from \Hone{}.  This much is
    guaranteed by the distinctness of the hunks and origin uniqueness:
    there can be only one source hunk for \Tone{} in a given possible
    world, and \Htwo{} is the one in the worlds in question.  But, to
    my mind, the \emph{how} remains mysterious in the absence of
    effects in the locale of the actual production.  Consider, by way
    of analogy, the question of how the New England Patriots lost the
    2008 Super Bowl.  The requisite explanation is not supplied by the
    observation that a distinct team, the New York Giants, won, and
    there can be only one winner.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6}
    
    The important point for present purposes is that, though this
    response may hold the line on our origin thesis, it does not hold
    the line on Humeanism, the view that Hume's datum motivates the
    rejection across the board of necessary connections.  Suggesting
    that Hume's datum casts its net too narrowly admits in effect that
    it does not provide an adequate motivation for the Humean claim.
    In giving this response, the defender of the Humean claim concedes
    that sometimes grounding necessary connections or connection-lacks
    for an individual requires that we look beyond the features
    brought to light by a Humean Examination of that individual.
    Hume's datum, the fact that such an examination brings to light no
    features in virtue of which one thing is necessarily connected to
    another, does not suffice to reject such necessary connections.
    At least sometimes, we need to cast our net wider.  When we do,
    philosophers may differ on what we will find.  The denier of
    origin theses argues that we may find non-local conditions that
    necessarily prevent \Hone{} from producing \Tone{}.  I have
    claimed instead that we find a plausible principle governing the
    causal-historical path leading to the production of \Tone{}, the
    locality of prevention.  In neither case should Hume's datum
    ultimately be taken to lend intuitive support to the Humean claim.
    
    I have argued that, if Hume's datum commits us to the Humean
    claim, then it also commits us to (COMP).  Evidently this
    compossibility principle will still yield our independence
    principle (T-IND).  So resisting the independence principle,
    however motivated, cuts against the grain for the Humean, who
    holds Hume's datum to motivate her denial of necessary connections
    between distinct existences.  The independence principle, then,
    should be irresistible for such a Humean.  Once accepted, this
    principle together with the two ancillary premises leads
    inevitably to the origin thesis, contradicting the Humean claim.
    Humeanism seems to be in trouble, but there are still those other
    two premises to consider.
  \end{section}
  
  \begin{section} {Denying the Ancillary Premises}
    \label{sec:AncillaryPrems}
    We have assumed that the necessity of distinctness and origin
    uniqueness were not disputed.  But perhaps the Humean could deny
    one or the other of those ancillary premises.  In the absence of
    those premises, independence principles cause no trouble for the
    Humean claim.  If this response succeeds, the fact that Hume's
    datum motivates (COMP) does not undermine the claim that it also
    motivates the Humean claim, since the Humean could accept both
    principles without contradiction.  Let's take each ancillary
    premise in turn.
    
    First, a defender of the Humean claim might want to deny the
    necessity of distinctness.  This strategy even has the weight of
    tradition behind it.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {David Lewis \citep{Lewis:1968} forthrightly declares the
    necessity of distinctness false.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} But nothing so strong as the necessity of
    distinctness in its full generality is needed.  Recall how the
    necessity of distinctness is actually used in the argument.  We
    supposed \emph{first} the possibility that \Tone{} be made from
    our Australian hunk \Htwo{}.  We then applied our independence
    principle to infer \emph{second} the possibility that both \Tone{}
    be made from \Htwo{} and \Tone{} be made from the Tennesseean hunk
    \Hone.  The way the necessity of distinctness is used in the
    argument is to infer, from the distinctness of \Hone{} and \Htwo{}
    in the first possibility, their distinctness in the second
    possibility.
    
    Can the Humean claim be defended by denying this application of
    the necessity of distinctness?  Such a position would hold that it
    is possible for \Tone{} to originate from \Htwo{}, which is
    distinct from \Hone.  That, again, is the denial of the origin
    thesis.  This position accepts our independence principle, so it
    is stuck with the possibility that both \Tone{} originate from
    \Htwo{} and \Tone{} also originate from \Hone.  What this position
    denies is that, in the second possibility, \Hone{} and \Htwo{} are
    distinct.  But how does this second possibility, then, differ from
    the first?  Evidently, the only difference our description of the
    possibilities requires is that, in the first, unlike the second,
    \Hone{} is distinct from \Htwo{}.  Otherwise the situations are
    alike: \Tone{} originates from \Hone{}.  Perhaps the denial of the
    necessity of distinctness is somewhat plausible in cases where
    there is some further difference between possibilities which
    warrants the identification of things in one situation, and their
    distinctness in another: futuristic mind-melding is involved in
    one but not the other, say.\linespread{1}\endnote{
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    Note that David Lewis's position, \citep{Lewis:1968} according to
    which identity and distinctness across worlds is determined by
    degrees of qualitative similarity, does not countenance the idea
    that two possibilities could differ only in that in one but not
    the other \Htwo{} is distinct from \Hone{}.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} But the position at hand is more radical and not
    so easily motivated.
        
    Now consider the principle of origin uniqueness.  Might a defender
    of the Humean claim plausibly deny this premise?  She would hold
    \emph{first} that it is possible for \Tone{} to originate from
    \Htwo{}.  That is the denial of the origin thesis.  She accepts
    our independence principle, which yields the \emph{second}
    possibility that \Tone{} be made from \Hone, while \Tone{} is also
    made from \Htwo.  Now suppose the Humean accepts the necessity of
    distinctness, so the two hunks are distinct in the second
    situation.  In \S\ref{sec:arg} I made a simplifying stipulation
    that the relation indicated by ``made from'' would hold between a
    table and a hunk only if no extra material from any other hunk was
    used to make the table.  Under this assumption, then, \Tone{}
    could come from both hunks only if they contained exactly the same
    material.  Perhaps this Humean might thereby resist the origin
    thesis.  The cost seems to be, however, that she embraces the
    claim that \Tone{} could not have come from any hunk which did not
    completely overlap with \Hone{}.\linespread{1}\endnote{
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    I assume that \Htwo{} and \Hone{} contain exactly the same
    material in both of the possibilities countenanced by the defender
    of the Humean claim.  This assumption is warranted, since
    otherwise which material a hunk contained would, as a matter of
    necessity, depend on (i) which tables were produced from it, and
    (ii) which tables were produced from other hunks.  Suppose,
    \emph{e.g.}, that \Htwo{} had to contain different material if
    \Tone{} were produced from \Hone{}.  This seems to be a necessary
    connection of the sort ruled out by the Humean picture.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6} This thesis seems no less opposed to the Humean
    claim than the original origin thesis.
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    
    Our independence principle seems required by any position which
    takes Hume's datum to motivate the Humean claim.  Denying the
    other two premises in the argument for the origin thesis does not
    seem to help.  Together the premises yield the origin thesis,
    anathema to the Humean claim.  The evident conclusion is that
    Hume's datum should not be taken to motivate the Humean claim.
    The argument shows that defenses of the Humean claim on the basis
    of Hume's datum are inadequate.  This result is surprising.  The
    Humean claim, and the corresponding picture of the metaphysical
    structure of the universe, seemed, in the abstract, to be
    well-motivated by Hume's datum.  On the other hand, the Humean
    claim does not seem well-motivated on its own.  Our argument shows
    that, the Humean claim requires alternative support if it is to be
    maintained.
    
    Where does this leave the debate between the Kripkean and Humean
    pictures?  Though this question is not the main focus of this
    paper, I think the discussion leads to a tentative conclusion.  We
    have a valid argument from intuitively plausible principles in
    favor of the Kripkean picture.  The Humean picture can be
    maintained, at some cost in plausibility, by denying the crucial
    premise of that argument, the locality of prevention.  On the
    other hand, Hume's datum, the only intuitive support we have
    considered for the Humean picture, turns out to support locality,
    and so the Kripkean picture, as well.  Importantly, however,
    locality is also independently motivated by a generalization from
    cases in which something prevents the production of a material
    thing.  Indeed, one major upshot of our discussion is that the
    locality-based arguments for origin theses have strong appeal for
    anyone who shares the Humean's suspicion of mysterious or
    inexplicable necessities.  If no other motivation for the Humean
    claim is available and no deep flaw in the argument for origin
    theses comes to light, then it seems to me that the Kripkean
    picture should be adopted.\linespread{1}\endnote
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    {I have benefited from intensive collaboration with Guy Rohrbaugh
    on the argument for the origin thesis.  Previous versions of this
    paper also benefited from extensive discussions with Joseph Almog,
    Roberta Ballarin, Ben Caplan, Kit Fine, David Kaplan,
    D. A. Martin, Derk Pereboom, David Sanson, and Luca Struble.}
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    \linespread{1.6}
  \end{section}
  
  \theendnotes
  
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