free will hunting

FREE WILL HUNTING By Ken Michael Levy

A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers. The State University of New Jersey

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Philosophy

Written under the direction of Professor Colin McGinn And approved by

New Brunswick. New Jersey October 1999

UMI Number: 9947603

Copyright 1999 by Levy, Ken Michae1 All rights reserved.

UMl Microronn 9947603 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microfonn edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Tide 17, United States Code.

Ul\fl 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103

0 1999 Ken Levy ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

,-.·

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Free Will Hunting By KEN M. LEVY

Dissertation Director: Colin McGinn Philosophers misleadingly speak of'"the problem of free will ... This is misleading because there is notjust one but several different problems of free will. ""The problem'· to which philosophers usually refer is the question: is free will even possible? I address this question in Chapters 2 and 3. In Chapter 2. I argue that that if free will entails ultimate self-causation. then free will is indeed impossible. But (then argue in Chapter 3 that free will does not entail ultimate self-causation. It doesn't follow from these two conclusions. however, that free will is possible. For there is yet another threat to free will: we may not have something that is necessary for itnamely, the power to do otherwise. I investigate this issue in Chapters 4 through 6. In Chapter 4. l do my best to remove cwo key threats to the power to do otherwise - logical fatalism and divine foreknowledge. Chapters 5 and 6 then constitute a joint effort to undermine Peter van Inwagen's "Consequence Argument". an argument designed to show that the power to do otherwise is incompatible with detenninism. In Chapter 5, (argue that there is no good reason to accept the incompatibilist interpretation of the power co do othenvise, on which the Consequence Argument implicitly depends. ln Chapter 6, ( argue that there are at least four different plausible compatibilist responses to the Consequence Argument. Finally, in Chapters 7 and 8, I explore

ii

Harry Frankfurt·s famous attempt to divorce moral responsibility from the power to do othenvise.

his argument against the ..Principle of Alternative Possibilities'" (PAP, which says that moral responsibility entails the power to do otherwise). [n Chapter 7. [argue that Frankfurt's argument against PAP raises a number of different explanatory questions and then do my bestto answer them. In Chapter 8, l use Frankfurt's argument against PAP to raise a problem for the traditional distinction between the addict and the weak-willed non-addict. ( then draw from the literature six possible solutions to this problem. argue that all of them fail. and propose my own in their place.

Ill

'I

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is trite to say that I couldn't have written and finished this dissertation without the help of others. ln my case, it is also false. I could have written and finished this dissertation even if everybody else around me had fallen off the face of the earth (except for the food industry,

notably the Douglass Student Center Pizza Hut. the paper industry, and the electric company). AfteT' al~ I wrote and ~wrote and re-wrote again the entire thing myself. Still. it would have '

been a lot more difficult to complete chis endeavor without the intellectual, ernotiona~ and/or

institutional support that several people and dogs provided me over the past three years (in alphabetical order): Vivian Abreu. the Atzmon family (Shira. Raffi. Elaine, Danna, Roni, and Moose), the Ben-Merrc family {Aaron, Diana, David, and Spooner), Christina Bisulca. Alexis Bruzzi. Joe and Delphine Campbell, Cowboy, Carole Dachowicz. Lenore. Steven, and Margot Day, Elisa Gal gut. Jorge Garcia. Carl Ginet. Millie Hakim, Liz Harding. Doug Husak, Doug Kutach, Nancy and Stuart Levy (my parents), Brian Loar. Ron Mallon, Molly Malone, Bob Matthews, Ginny Mayer. Howard McGary? Colin McGinn, Catherine McKeen. Keith McPartJand. Martin Montminy and Sherri Irvin, Ollie, Dave O'Sullivan, Leo (now deceased) and Florry Redlick, Ken and Leslie Richman, Cara Simonetti. Kun Spellmeyer, Sylvester (now deceased), Liz Vlahos, Bany Ward, Ted Wacfield, Robin Wurl, and Julie Yoo. I would also like

to thank Rutgers University for providing me with eight years of funding and with the kind of environment and resources necessary to engage myself in a project that has very little to recommend itself on utilitarian grounds: it tortured me for over three years, and the final product

will do very little for the public at large. Still, for some strange reason that violates not only utilitarianism but also Freud's Pleasure Principle, ifl could do it all over again. r would.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract

II

Acknowledgements

IV

Introduction The Main Problem with USC Libertarianism

14

Does Free Will Entail Ultimate Self-Causation?

35

Three Arguments Against the Power to Do Otherwise

73

Six (Unsuccessful) Arguments for the lncompatibilist Interpretation of the Power to Do Otherwise

97

Four Compatibilist Responses to Van lnwagen 's Consequence Argument

128

Frankfurt's Argument Against the Principle of Alternative Possibilities

160

Weakness of Will. Addiction, and Frankfurt's Argument Against the Principle of Alternative Possibilities

t89

References

2ll

Vita

217

v

1

1

Introduction

The title of my dissertation is Free Will Hunting, a somewhat tongue-in-cheek title that was inspired by the movie Good Will Hunting. Along with hundreds of other philosophers (past and present). I too am in the pursuit - the hunt - for free will. l too want co know: { I ) what free will is {2) whether or not it is possible

and (3) whether or not we actually have it. l have a rather quick answer to (I) and a somewhat longer answer to (2) and (3). Regarding (I), free will generally applies to actions. choices (decisions, willings), efforts (tryings). deliberation (reflection), and reasons {desires. motivations. intendons. the psychological roots or "springs" of my actions, choices. efforts. and deliberations). Actions are physical efforts. and deliberation are

psychn!c:;!~!

events~

choices.

.!vents; and reasons are properties or constituents of my

psychological state. We say that these events or properties are free - or that I am free with respect to these events or properties - when I bear a certain relation to them. There is a rather long list of terms and expressions that have been used to characterize this relation: control. responsibility, autonomy. self-determination. ultimate self-causation, the power to do otherwise. its being the case that I can

be reasonably expected to do otherwise, preference-satisfaction. willingness, identification. my not

2

being sufficiently compelled or coerced or forced or threatened. Of course. this list only generates the obvious next question: what do these terms and expressions mean? But rather than answering this question here, I hope that the rest of my dissenation will make clear not only what these tenns mean but how they relate to one another. Regarding (2) and (3). the short answer is that l have not yet decided. When I started \.vriting my dissertation. I had strong libertarian intuitions. I believed that (4) free will is possible and

(5) that free will is incompatible with detem1inism (the thesis of incompatibilism; determinism is the thesis that every state of. or event in. the universe is causally necessitated by the previous state of. or a previous event in the universe. except perhaps for the very first state or event). But that has changed. Three years later. (now believe that the intuitions initially motivating me to accept (5) don't entail libertarianism but are actually, as it turns out, perfectly compatible with one of the principal alternatives to libertarianism - i.e., compatibilism (the thesis that free will and determinism are compatible). So my dissertation is largely designed to show that libertarianism is misguided. lt takes what are otherwise reasonable intuitions in the "vrong direction. My overall position. however. is not necessarily compatibilist. I am currently torn between compatibilism and hard determinism (the thesis that free will is impossible). The most I am willing to say at this point is that if free will is possible. then it is compatible with determinism. But l have not yet decided whether or not free will is possible. This is, [think, the main bone of contention between compatibilists and hard determinists. My reason for indecision here is fairly straightforward. On the one hand, I want to be a compatibilist. For I want to believe that we have free will. And this is the case only if free will is

3

possible. On the other hand. l think that the arguments for hard determinism - arguments purporting to demonstrate that free will is impossible - are very strong. I There are at least two ways to adjudicate this conflict. First. we might simply try to refute the arguments for hard determinism. There are two different kinds of arguments for hard determinism. One kind argues that (6) free will is incompatible with determinism and (7) determinism is true. The other kind argues that (6) free will is incompatible with determinism (8) free will is incompatible with indeterminism and (9) determinism and indeterminism are logically exhaustive. Since the truth of determinism is neither confirmable nor falsifiable, the first kind of argument for hard determinism ends in a stalemate and is therefore not Cl very productive issue for either side to pursue. The second kind of argument. however, is more difficult to refute and therefore the kind of argument with which I am more concerned. Because I hold no brief for (8) -- indeed. my arguments against libertarianism do not focus so much on problems with indeterminism per seas on the libertarian's motivations for believing that indeterminism is a necessary condition of free will -- the primary focus of my attacks shall be ( 6). That is. I will be concentrating much of my philosophical energy on refuting arguments for incompatibilism. A second way to adjudicate this conflict between compatibilism and hard detenninism is to figure out why I (and most others) want free will and then to see whether or not these motivations

for wanting free will can be reconciled with hard determinism. [fthey can, then it seems that we can have "free will on the cheap" - i.e .• the satisfaction of our motivations for wanting free will without free will itself. If they cannot. then we must see which are better- our motivations for wanting free will or the arguments for hard determinism. What, then, are the motivations for my wanting free will? I think that there are two. First phenomenology. It often just seems that actions/choices/efforts/deliberations (henceforth. I shall use either actions or choices to represent the whole list) are fully up to me, completely in my control. Of course. one problem we will come across for the phenomenological motivation is that this self - this me to which these choices are up - is not itself fully up to me. And this seems to suggest that my choice is not fully up to me after all. Instead. while it is immediately up to me. it is ultimately up to whatever made me the way I am. And whatever ultimately made me the way I am is not me. Still. when we are faced with choices, even this consideration doesn't seem to affect

our phenomenology and therefore. to a large extent, our beliefs about free will. Despite our theoretical apprehension of the fact that this choice-making I is not itself fully self-determined, it still seems when we shift from philosophical reflection back into the first person that whatever choice I am faced with is fully up to me and that my choice's being fully up to me is all it takes to have free will. In this way. our first-person experience of choice-making eclipses our philosophical reflections. The second reason why I want free will is that (I 0) responsibility seems to entail free will and (1 l) I want to preserve responsibility. If(lO) is false, then - as l mentioned above -- we can have free will on the cheap, responsibility

5

without free will. But it seems that this is a hard product to deliver. The strongest argument for divorcing responsibility from free will is Harry Frankfurt's ( 1969) argument against the thesis that moral responsibility entails the power to do otherwise (the "principle of alternative possibilities" or

"PAP"). Frankfurt asks us to consider situations in which the following three conditions are satisfied: ( 12) [fl decide to X. I will X. ( 13) Unbeknownst to me.. ifl decide to Y. another object or agent will frustrate my decision and force me to X anyway. ( 14) As it happens. I decide to X. Frankfurt argues that in such situations - now typically called "Frankfurt-style situations" - I am morally responsible for X-ing. I am responsible because I was not actually forced to X but decided on my own to X. Yet, given (12) and (13).1 could not have done otherwise. Whichever way ( decided. I would end up X-ing. So we have a kind of situation in which I am morally responsible for my action even though I could not have done otherwise. Therefore PAP is false. Moral responsibility does not entail the power to d~ef\y)se:

J ' ' i'

I shall argue in the course of chapt/2

3 l '\ f rankfurt's argument has only limited

success. While it succeeds in refuting PAPt ~ 5J1iJ }a· ',

to show that there isn't a very close

'-/

relationship between responsibility and free will in most situations - i.e.• "non-Frankfurt-style situations". In a non-Frankfurt style situation. either ( 15) ( could not have done otherwise, and my inability to do otherwise is causally or motivationally relevant to my failure to do otherwise or

( 16} I could have done otherwise. But all else being equal. if it had been the case chat I could not

6

have done otherwise. my inability to do otherwise would have been causally or motivationally relevant to my failure to do otherwise. ln non-Frankfurt-style situations. then. whether or not I am morally responsible for these actions and to what extent is very much determined by whether and to what ex.tent my inability to do otherwise played a causal role in my action. Assuming. then. that ( l 0) is very close to true, we tum to ( l l ). The main question ( 11) raises is: why do I (and so many others) want to preserve responsibility? There are several reasons - most of them clearly spelled out by P .F. Strawson ( 1962}. Strawson talks about what he dubs the "personal" (interpersonal, participanL other) and "self-reactive" attitudes. The personal reactive attitudes are the attitudes that others bear toward me and that l bear toward them. They are the quality of others' will toward me. They determine or constitute what others think of me and how they act toward me - i.e., whether they show me regard, disregard, or no regard. Examples of personal reactive attitudes include: resentmenL approbation. indignation, pride, guilt. approval. disapproval. respecL contempt, demand, regret, smugness. hurt feelings, esteem. love. compunction. remorse, envy, forgiveness, reproach, malevolence. shame. vindictiveness, recrimination, vengeance, indifference. "Vicarious analogues" of the personal reactive attitudes include my concern with how others treat others, my concern with the quality of others' will toward other people. Self reactive attitudes include my attitudes toward the quality of my owp will toward others and of my own will toward myself. Finally, our society engages in certain practices to reflect and reinforce these attitudes: praise, blame, reward, punishment. retribution, condemnation. Given this. Strawson argues as follows. Most, if not all, of these attitudes and practices presuppose (moral) responsibility. And to abandon these attitudes and practices would be both ( 17) "practically inconceivable"

7

and ( 18) irrational. [n this way. Strawson reverses the form of some uadicional compatibil ist arguments. Compatibilists typically have attempted co save responsibility by attempting co save free will. In other words. they give arguments purporting to show that we do have free will or that free will is I

, possible. And they conclude from this that we are responsible or that responsibility is possible. Strawson. however. attempts to save free will by attempting to save responsibility. Why does Strawson think that abandoning these anirudes and practices would be ( 17) practicaJly inconceivable and ( 18) irrational? Regarding ( 17). Strawson argues that we are so fundamentally embedded in a social framework., a society in which these attitudes and practices detenninc and constitute such a large part of our social interactions and experiences. that we could

j.

not possibly give them up. We simply can't help treating and regarding each other as if we are

if

morally responsible. )·

Regarding (18). what is rational and irrational is it.self determined by this framework and therefore relative to the standards of this framework. So we can't ask about the rationality of the framework. itself. To do so is to presuppose the very standards that we are questioning. Put another way. we could not possibly conclude that it might be rational to assume that most people generally aren't responsible. The very standards of rationality presuppose that most of us are morally responsible and should therefore be regarded and treated accordingly. So even if we could somehow entertain the hard detenninist thesis that we are not morally responsible for our actions (because we are detennined and/or because free will is impossible). it would not be rational to subscribe to it. I have not yet written anything on Scrawson's paper. This is so because 1 need to think

8

about three things in greater depth. First. (need to think more about the relation between society. social conditioning. free will, and our beliefs about free will. Second, I need to consider what more I can possibly add to Susan Wolfs ( 1981) brilliant analysis of Strawson's paper. Wolf does an excellent job of following out the many interesting strands in Strawson's paper to their ultimate logical conclusions. Finally. ( need to consider a new possibility that recently has been laid out by Saul Smilansky ( i 993 ). Smilansky argues that the free will debate has for too long been operating under the assumption that compatibllism and hard determinism are incompatible and therefore that. if we reject libertarianism, we must choose between them. But, according to Smilansky. this assumption is false. We need to recognize that neither thesis is entirely false. Both are true to a certain extent. Once we recognize this, we will no longer be forced co choose between them. Instead, we will be able to accept both - compatibilism to one extent, hard detenninism to another. Because I have not yet staked out a position on Strawson's paper (for the reasons just given). and because (as I suggested above) the debate between compatibilists and hard detenninists ultimately rides on the success or failure ofStrawson's attempt to save free will by saving responsibility. lam not yet in a position to determine the answer to my question above: which is better- our motivations for wanting free will or the arguments for hard determinism? This is really the next question that (need to explore in my research. So far I have dwelled upon what I haven't done and still need to do. But I hardly mean to imply that I haven't done that much or am not happy with whatever [ have done. I have actually accomplished what l take to be a great deal and am quite happy with it. Moreover. everything that I have done up to this point has prepared the ground for my exploration of the compatibilism-vs.hard-determinism question above. At this point. then. let me tell the reader what I have accomplished so far. My dissertation

9

consists of seven chapters. Each of these chapters is a self-contained paper. I have written them in this way because l hope to publish them in the next two or three years. let me briefly walk you through them: :,,----'\

Chapter.. 1.,,-'7 "The Main Problem with USC Libertarianism". Most anti-libertarians suggest that the l

, principal problem with libertarianism has co do with indeterminism. Indeterminism either doesn't contribute any more to free will than does determinism or is actually incompatible with free will. L however, suggest that there is a deeper. more serious problem with libertarianism. Libertarians generally believe that I am responsible for my action only if I am its ultimate cause. [ argue that, whether or not libertarians care to accept it. the logical extension of this position is that I am · responsible for my action only if I am the ultimate cause of myself (my psychological nature or at least part of my psychological nature like a value. desire, personality trait. etc.). But the ultimate cause of myself- the ultimate cause of all or any parts of my psychological nature - is whatever is the ultimate cause of the self with which (started ouL And this just isn't and possibly can't be me. The empirical and possibly necessary fact is that we all 5ta!f out with selves that are non-selfdetermined. So iflibertarianism does indeed rest on the possibility of ultimate self-causation. then libertarianism is unworkable.

Chapf'fr ~·"Does Free Will Entail Ultimate Self-Causation?". A key libertarian premise is that free ·, } will entails responsibility for my self (the self that chooses or acts). So if libertarianism is to be refuted, one thing anti-libenarians need to show is that this premise is false. Perhaps the strongest argument in the literature for this conclusion is given by Susan Wolf. Bue since Wolfs position is

10

rather counterintuitive - or. conversely. since this libertarian premise is so intuitive - I do my best to help Wolf out. I do my best. that is. to make the proposition that free will does not entail responsibility for self more plausible.

Chap~~r 3, "Three Arguments Against the Power to Do Otherwise".

I argue that the three strongest

threats to our having the power to do otherwise are the argument from logical fatalism. the argument that divine foreknowledge is incompatible with the power to do otherwise. and van Cnwagen's Consequence Argument. I argue first that all three arguments share three common premises: (I) the Fixed Past Constraint (one cannot render true statements about the past (hard facts) false); (2) my having the power to do otherwise entails that [have the power to render true statements about the past false; and (3) the incompatibilist interpretation of the power to do otherwise. Second, I argue that the "Soft Fact Response" - i.e .. the argument that certain facts about the past are not "hard" (strictly about the past) but "soft" (in pa.rt about the present or future) - helps to refute only the argument from logical fatalism and not the argument from divine foreknowledge or the Consequence Argument. Third. I propose a way in which the Soft Fact Response can be modified to refute the argument from divine foreknowledge. Finally. (argue that this modified Soft Fact Response cannot be used to refute the Consequence Argument.

Chapter 4. "Six (Unsuccessful) Arguments for the lncompatibilist Interpretation of the Power to Do Otherwise". The incompatibilist interpretation of the power to do othenvise suggests that I could have done otherwise iff it is the case that I might have done othenvise under the very same circumstances. where "circumstances" include not only my history. physical state, environmental surroundings, and the laws of nature but also my psychological state. l then ask why any

!!.

philosopher would think that free will entails that my action be underdetermined by my psychological state. I come up with six possible arguments for this conclusion. But. I argue. all of them fail in the end. So we have no good reason to subscribe to the incompatibilist interpretation of the power to do otherwise. Chapter 5. I

~'Four Compatibilist J

Responses to Van [nwagen's Consequence Argument. [ argue that

-,

there aie~~~ least four prima facie plausible responses to van [nwagen's Consequence Argument: ( l) ,

..

an extension of Frankfurt's argument against PAP. (2) wha{we ¢al1 "Stop Compatibilism". (3) what " D (Assuming determinism is true)

(30) :. (S :::::> (L :::> Dl (from elementary modal and sentential logic) (3 l) N(S :::> (L :::::> D) (from (30) by (A)) (32) NS (Premise)

(33) N(L :::> D (From (31) and (32) by (B)) (34) NL (Premise) (35) NT (From (33) and (34) by (8))

If van Inwagen's Third Argument is correct. then it succeeds in showing that moral responsibility is incompatible with determinism. And if moral responsibility is incompatible with detenninism. then Frankfurt's argument for the compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism went wrong. But where? In my response to this question. I will offer the response that l believe most incompatibilists (including van Inwagen) would endorse. It went wrong. the incompatibilist argues. at (3). According to (8). preference-satisfaction and self-determination are not sufficient for moral responsibility. Something else is also needed. And I can think of no other candidate but responsibility for the preferences and self behind my action) 1 In other words. in addition to preference-satisfaction and self-determination. (B) suggests that responsibility for preferences and self is also necessary for moral responsibility. Not only must the agent's action be in accord with her preferences (preference-satisfaction) and be her own preferences (self-determination). These preferences themselves must also be up to her (responsibility for preferences and self).38 But if determinism is true. the incompatibilist continues, then these preferences can't be up to her. [f determinism is true. then even if my actions are motivated by my selflmy own preferences and therefore self-determined, my self/my preferences themselves are not self-

182

detennined. By the definition of determinism. they are ultimately determined not by me but by factors that preceded my conception/birth and therefore factors outside my control. As a result, l could not help having the preferences and self that [have and therefore could not help identifying with my action. So even though I act. I am still not responsible for my action. The incompatibilist concludes from this that moral responsibility for self/preferences -- and therefore moral responsibility for my actions - entails indeterminism.39 Importantly. van (nwagen's Third Argument doesn't rest on the power to do otherwise. Rather, it goes right around it. That is. van lnwagen here is not arguing: (36) Moral responsibility for my action entails responsibility for self/preferences. (37) Responsibility for self/preferences entails the power to do otherwise. (38) The power to do otherwise is incompatible with determinism. (39) Therefore moral responsibility for my action is incompatible with determinism. Once again. van lnwagen here is arguing: (36) Moral responsibility for my action entails responsibility for self/preferences. (40) Responsibility for self/preferences is incompatible with determinism (whether or not responsibility for self/preferences entails the power to do otherwise). (39) Therefore moral responsibility for my action is incompatible with determinism.40,4 l Van lnwagen is entitled to conclude from this that incompatibilism is consistent with the rejection of PAP.42 So even if Frankfurt is right that PAP is false, he is still wrong to think that this proves that determinism and moral responsibility are compatible.

x. If van lnwagen's Third Argument works, then Frankfurt's argument for the compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism does not. Conversely, if Frankfurt's argument for the compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism works, then van lnwagen's Third

183

Argument does not. So who is right? Frankfurt? Or van Inwagen? These are very big questions. And I don't intend to answer them here.43 But I do wish to point out that if van Inwagen prevails over Frankfurt here, this doesn't necessarily mean that there can't b:! moral responsibility in a Frankfurt world. To assume otherwise is to assume that the Frankfurt world must be determined. But this is false. Indeterminism is perfectly possible in a Frankfurt world. So responsibility for my preferences and/or self may be possible in a Frankfurt world even if the power to do otherwise is not.44

184

NOTES

I.See also Stump (1990. 240-241, 245-249, 255-256). Stump arrives at this conclusion through a different argument. Stump uses Aquinas's theory of the will to argue that there are certain situations in which an agent is morally responsible for her action even though she could not have done otherwise. In such situations, the agent could not have done otherwise because her intellect represents to her one and only one action that is good or reasonable to perform (346n-257n). Stump does. however, reject Wolfs conception of incompatibilism and her notion thac there is an asymmetry between morally praiseworthy and morally blameworthy actions. 2. When ( suggest that my inability to do otherwise is "motivationally relevant" to my action, I mean that I can't do otherwise, know or reasonably believe this. and so don't even try to do otherwise. 3 .Rowe { l 99 I. 277n) and Frankfurt ( 1982, 287) use the first term. Ravizza (1994, 70) the second term. 4.1 draw this kind of example from Fischer ( 1982, 176). 5.It is interesting and surprising that few philosophers who discuss Frankfurt's argument against PAP attempt to answer this question. 6.Preference-satisfaction is the first of three "concepts of free will" for D. Locke (1975. 98-102). Preference-satisfaction may be synonymous with intentional action. But l won't argue for this here. 7.0. Locke (1975, 109) implicitly rejects (3) when he suggests that I don't act freely in Frankfurtstyle situations. 8.See Ginet ( 1983 ), Lamb ( 1977). and van lnwagen ( 1975. 46-58). ( l 983, 68-78). 9.Frankfurt doesn't quite put it this way. He puts it in somewhat different language. 10.D. Locke (1975. l02, 104) suggests that such an action is unfree because it "would be performed whether the agent were willing or not". But this needs refinement. If it is the case that ( would have contributed to the charity even without the coercion., then either my being coerced (in the actual situation) is entirely irrelevant to my action or my being coerced helps to overdetermine my action. (fit is entirely irrelevant, then my contributing is clearly self-determined. If my being coerced helps to overdetermine my action. then it seems that my action is self-determined only to the extent that (a) it depends on my desire to contribute and (b) it is not determined by my being coerced. See Frankfurt(l969. 146). l l .See Neely ( 1974. 38) and Slote ( 1980, 137-138). 12.I shall discuss below whether or not the combination of preference-satisfaction and selfdetermination is sufficient for moral responsibility. Until then, however. I shall simply assume that it is. 13.I don't mean to imply that refrainings are not actions. They are. I mean instead to distinguish refrainings from "positive" actions. 14.This is why Fischer (1982, 181-182) is wrong to assert that control over my actual action (X) entails that ( could have done otherwise where my being able to do othef'\vise means that I would have control over the alternative action available to me if I performed iL Frankfurt-style examples help to show that control over X entails not that I could have done otherwise but only that X is selfdetennined and satisfies my preferences. l5.More sophisticated compatibilists hold that I could have done otherwise if it is the case that ( 14) {13) and I would have chosen otherwise ifl had deliberated otherwise. Even more sophisticated compatibilists hold that I could have done otherwise if it is the case that (15) (14) and (would have deliberated otherwise if [had wanted.

18 5

-- :.-

And soon. 16.And if a counterfacrual analysis of the power to do otherwise is correct. then I most likely do have it. 17.See Fischer (1994. 214); Mele ( 1995. 41); Mele (1996, 129); Haji (1996. 707); Kane ( 1996a. 4243. 143): Wyma ( 1997, 67); Mele and Robb ( 1999, 109-111 ). 18.Since the two worlds - the Frankfurt world and the actual world - are identical in every respect but this counterfacrual one. it turns out that. just like me in the acrual world. my counterpart in the Frankfurt world continues to believe that there have been many occasions on which I (in the Frankfurt world) would have done otherwise if l had chosen. That is. this mental property remains as well. le just so happens that it is false in the Frankfurt world and. as far as we know. crue in the actual world. 19.This is contrary to Lamb (1993. 527) and Kane (1996a. Ch. 3, n8, 40-43). Lamb endorses the "weak principle of alternate possibilities", according to which a "person is morally responsible for doing something only if at some time there is something he could have avoided doing". So by Lamb's weak principle of alternate possibilities. I am not responsible for anything in the Frankfurt world. Bue since l believe that it is fairly dear that l am responsible for many. if not most, of my actions in the Frankfurt world. I cake this to be a reductio of Lamb's principle. 20.fischcr ( 1982. 183) distinguishes between "actual sequence compulsion" and "alternative sequence compulsion". This distinction of his roughly correlates with my distinction between nonFrankfurt-style situations and Frankfurt-style situacions. Because Fischer thinks that determinism amounts to actual sequence compulsion., a Frankfurt-style situation in which I am determined to act as I do involves both acrual and alternate sequence compulsion. 21.From ( 18) and ( l 9) it follows by transitivity and contrapositive that if my action is self-determine