Iterated modalities and modal voluntarism

Descartes endorses modal voluntarism, according to which all necessary truths are products of God's free will. Modal voluntarism threatens to lead into a deeply problematic view: universal possibilism, according to which contradictions are in some bizarre sense possible. Edwin Curley has argued that by appealing to iterated modalities, Descartes would be able to defend modal voluntarism without falling prey to universal possibilism. In this paper I argue that Curley's approach fails: it in fact leads to universal possibilism, failing precisely where it is supposed to be useful.