Synthese DOI 10.1007/s11229-017-1610-x On the empirical inaccessibility of higher-level modality and its significance for cosmological fine-tuning Cory Juhl 1 · Brian Knab 1 Received: 13 August 2017 / Accepted: 31 October 2017 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2017 Abstract In this paper we propose that cosmological fine-tuning arguments, when levied in support of the existence of Intelligent Designers or Multiverses, are much less interesting than they are thought to be. Our skepticism results from tracking the distinction between merely epistemic or logical possibilities on one hand and nonepistemic possibilities, such as either nomological or metaphysical possibilities, on the other. We find that fine-tuning arguments readily conflate epistemic or logical possibilities with nonepistemic possibilities and we think that this leads to treating the search for an explanation of fine-tuning as analogous to standard empirical theorizing about first-order nomological matters, when in fact the two investigational enterprises are profoundly different. Similar conflation occurs when fine-tuning arguments do not carefully distinguish between different interpretations of probabilities within the arguments. Finally, these arguments often rely on spatial analogies, which are often misleading precisely in that they encourage the conflation of epistemic and nonepis- temic possibility. When we pay attention to the distinctions between merely epistemic versus nonepistemic modalities and probabilities, the extant arguments in favor of intelligent designers or multiverses, or even for the nonepistemic improbability of fine-tuning, consist of empirically unconstrained (beyond what is entailed by facts about the actual universe) speculation concerning relevant nonepistemic modal facts. Keywords Cosmology · Laws of nature · Fine tuning · Modality · Probability · Methodology B Cory Juhl cjuhl@mail.utexas.edu Brian Knab brian.knab@utexas.edu 1 Department of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin, 2210 Speedway, Stop C3500, Austin, TX 78712, USA 123