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Saturday, June 06, 2009

A Divided Front: Libertarians at odds with each other on the doctrine of PAP

In the many debates we've had with Arminians here, every singly one of them has brought up PAP (principle of alternative possibilities) as necessary for moral responsibility, and an obvious intuition that only one committed to determinism could deny.

However, many indeterminists deny PAP. Increasingly more and more, in fact.

Here's a few representative samples:

William Lane Craig: "But as you note, I’m a libertarian who thinks that causal determinism is incompatible with freedom. That doesn’t imply that I hold to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP), which states that a free agent has in a set of circumstances the ability to choose A or not-A. I’m persuaded that so long as an agent’s choice is not causally determined, it doesn’t matter if he can actually make a choice contrary to how he does choose. Suppose that God has decided to create you in a set of circumstances because He knew that in those circumstances you would make an undetermined choice to do A. Suppose further that had God instead known that if you were in those circumstances you would have made an undetermined choice to do not-A, then God would not have created you in those circumstances (maybe it would have loused up His providential plan!). In that case you do not have the ability in those circumstances to make the choice of not-A, but nevertheless your choice of A is, I think, clearly free, for it is causally unconstrained—it you who determines that A will be done. So the ability to do otherwise is not a necessary condition of free choice."

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5827

Michael Bergmann: "One thing that makes Frankfurt’s proposed counterexample to PAP interesting is that it is supposed to be successful even if the sort of moral responsibility at issue is fairly robust – i.e., of the sort in which an incompatibilist and not merely a compatibilist is interested. Recently, however, Frankfurt’s criticism of PAP has come under attack precisely because it (supposedly) fails when the focus is full-blooded moral responsibility of the sort that incompatibilists care about.[ii] The suggestion is that such counterexamples to PAP are successful only if one assumes the falsity of incompatibilism.

In this paper, I will defend Frankfurt’s criticism against this charge. My aim is to design a Frankfurt-style counterexample to PAP that doesn’t take for granted the falsity of incompatibilism."

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~bergmann/frankfurt.htm

David Hunt: "For example, if I murder someone, and in so doing satisfy the most exacting conditions for free will, except that an irresistible power (a demon, crazed neurologist, etc.) would have forced me to murder the person if I hadn’t done so on my own, this last factor does not appear to mitigate my responsibility in the least. Here no alternative to murder is available to me (so PAP is unsatisfied), but I am nevertheless free and responsible for what I do, since the factor excluding alternatives makes no causal contribution to my actions, and indeed makes no difference to what actually happens. The same can be said in cases involving divine foreknowledge. God’s foreknowledge of the murder may make it unavoidable, but it does so without making any causal contribution to murder, which would have occurred just as it did in the absence of divine foreknowledge."

--David Hunt, ‘On Augustine’s Way Out’, Faith and Philosophy, Volume 16, Number 1, (January 1999), 17.

Linda Zagzebski: some philosophers have argued that PAP is false even if we have libertarian free will. I have given such an argument (Zagzebski 1991), as has David Hunt (1999). Hunt (1996b, 1999) argues that the rejection of PAP from the perspective of a defender of libertarian freedom can be found in Augustine, but even if that is true, it is not a position historically associated with Augustine. The literature that clearly distinguishes the claim that free will requires alternate possibilities from the claim that free will requires the falsehood of determinism is contemporary. The former is a thesis about events in counterfactual circumstances, whereas the latter is a thesis about the locus of causal control in the actual circumstances. Aside from the foreknowledge literature, support for the rejection of PAP from the perspective of a free will/determinism incompatibilist can be found in Stump (1990, 1996), Zagzebski (2000), and Pereboom (2000).

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/

Eleonore Stump: "Some defenders of the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) have responded to the challenge of Frankfurt-style counterexamples (FSCs) to PAP by arguing that there remains a flicker of freedom -- that is, an alternative possibility for action -- left to the agent in FSCs. I argue that the flicker of freedom strategy is unsuccessful. The strategy requires the supposition that doing an act-on-one''s-own is itself an action of sorts. I argue that either this supposition is confused and leads to counter-intuitive results; or, if the supposition is acceptable, then it is possible to use it to construct a FSC in which there is no flicker of freedom at all. Either way, the flicker of freedom strategy is ineffective against FSCs. Since the flicker of freedom strategy is arguably the best defense of PAP, I conclude that FSCs are successful in showing that PAP is false. An agent can act with moral responsibility without having alternative possibilities available to her."

--Eleonore Stump, 'Alternative possibilities and moral responsibility: The flicker of freedom.' (1999) Journal of Ethics 3 (4):299-324.

28 comments:

  1. Hmm... Some of those views are sounding very close to compatibilism.

    I'm trying to tease out: Where is the exact point of difference between those "undetermined" views and a compatibilistic, "determined-but-free-because-I-make-it-according-to-my-desires" view?

    Craig talks about God putting someone in particular situations in order to bring about the world in which they make the decision He wants. There is a particular choice that they will make in those circumstances. Meaning... They're making it according to their nature/desires? According to their "will"? That part's pretty indistinguishable from compatibilism. (Especially since we Calvinists talk about how God uses means. Craig is identifying the means God uses to bring about various decisions.)


    The major difference seems to be this part of libertarianism:
    For some people, regardless of what God does[1], they will not make the decision He wants. There are some outcomes that God cannot bring about. (Or: Putting them through the necessary situations would entail circumstances that lead other people away from God's will. Getting the outcome He wants would entail other outcomes He doesn't want.)


    Or...
    [1] Maybe it's not "Regardless of what God does". Maybe it's, "He could do it, but only with a method that would destroy freedom/choice/meaningful love."

    I.e., maybe God would have the power to directly act in someone's heart in order to bring about the decision He wants. But the direct action is the kind of determination that libertarians reject.


    Hmm... Is that an accurate summary of the distinction?

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  2. Hmm... Another piece:

    Compatibilists and Craig-type-libertarians might agree that a decision is free if it is made according to our desires/nature/wills/whatever-internal-factors-contribute-to-our-decisions.

    But we differ on what is allowed to influence our wills. Compatibilists allow, "God does X to our will/nature, so we later make the decision he wants." Craig requires, "God does X to our situations".

    (Which makes me wonder why Craig doesn't allow for God creating us with the initial personality/desires/will that He knows would lead to the decisions He wants. If the objection is to God tweaking our wills once we exist, where is the objection to God creating us in particular ways? A PAP-libertarian has an answer, but what about the others?)

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  3. Jugulum,

    I don't use (or like) the "I'm free because I chose according to my desires" language. Craig doesn't either. Mentally insane people choose "what they desire," yet I wouldn't call them free or responsible (at least civically responsible. Responsible before God would entail a larger story, Adam, the fall, headship, so forth).

    I think the main difference between the libertarian and the compatibilist comes down to sourcehood and ultimate responsibility. Regardless of PAP, libertarians feel that true freedom and responsibility can be had only if we are the ultimate source or cause of our actions (the "we" doesn't mean "our characters," "desires," or even vaguer, "our nature," etc).

    Essentially, the "causal buck" must stop at us if we are to have done a free and morally responsible action.

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  4. To add to the above:

    Kane allows for people to be free and responsible actions that may flow from their characer, be caused by their character ir their wills. However, he claims that at some point the agent had to self-form his own will. This self-forming had to be an indeterministic happening. So, since the agent sef-formed his will, the agent can be responsible for later actions necessarily caused by that will.

    So, ultimate responsibility the causal buck stopping with you and you alone, is what matters.

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  5. Paul said:
    ---
    Mentally insane people choose "what they desire," yet I wouldn't call them free or responsible (at least civically responsible. Responsible before God would entail a larger story, Adam, the fall, headship, so forth).
    ---

    Just to show that not all us T-bloggers are in lockstep.....

    I would disagree in that I WOULD call such actions "free." However, I would agree that an insane person would not necessarily be "responsible."

    In other words, I simply don't view freedom and responsibility as going hand-in-hand. I believe you can be responsible for something you have no freedom in, in other words.

    Not to sidetrack the combox or anything :-)

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  6. Peter,

    The reason I say he's not free is because freedom requires a kind of control over your actions. I don't think severly mentally insane people have the relevant control required for freedom. As a semi-compatibilist, I'd say guidance control is sufficient. Furthermore, when you build in reasons-responsive constraints (and all the other goodies), the case becomes more compelling. Sure, the mentally insane person does what he or she wants to do, but the control and reasons-responsive mechanism make this useless for freedom (at least any freedom worth having). Finally, I view freedom and moral responsibility as flip sides of the same coin. If an agent S, did some action, A, freely, then S is morally responsible for A. Likewise, if S is morally responsible for A, S did A freely.

    Or, to put it in a crass way: I'm not inclined to think that a man who mumbles the primes to himself while he repeatedly bangs his head into the wall, all while defecating on himself, doesn't do those things of his own free will. :-)

    Put simply, his actions are not under his control, but, rather, the control of the illness.

    Thoughts?

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  7. Well, let me give an example of where I think there is civic responsibility without freedom (since I think you're wanting to look at it more civically than theologically, at least so far!). I have a responsibility to obey the laws of America because I was born in America, an action I had no control over whatsoever. Granted, you may argue that we do not prosecute children who break the law; but that we do not prosecute them does not imply they have no responsibility to obey those laws.

    I will grant you, however, the general case that freedom and responsibility tend to be flip sides of the same coin, but with the caveat that there are very important (and, IMO, relevant) instances where this is not the case.

    As to your example, I think we would need to distinguish between people who's action lack "relevant control" due to an illness and those who lack "relevant control" due to other reasons (i.e., an alcoholic/pot-head who is unable to drive safely). In the second case, we of course still find the individuals responsible for whatever they did in an impaired state.

    Perhaps a better example at this point would be the example of a diabetic who has a sugar low, because those symptoms are almost exactly like intoxication. Since the symptoms are the same, and the behavior is the same, yet we'd find the intoxicated man responsible for his actions while we'd not hold the diabetic responsible (barring, of course, finding out that he intentionally put himself into a sugar low or something of that nature), then I think at this point we cannot say that the inability to take control is sufficient.

    More to follow...

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  8. (continued)

    I think at this point it might be relevant to take a page from Edwards (although as I am going from memory, perhaps we can just call this a page from Peter's Reconstruction of Edwards) and say that the difference is in terms of moral (in)ability and natural (in)ability.

    In this instance, we would say that the insane person is doing what he wants but he lacks the full range of abilities that a normal person would have access to. Just as we wouldn't hold someone responsible for being unable to flap his wings and fly, we wouldn't hold the insane person responsible for being unable to pay his bills on time because he lacks the mechanism to understand the concept of monetary value, or whatnot. (Of course, I would maintain that he is still acting freely, but is not responsible at this point because of his inability to naturally choose the responsible course.)

    On the other hand, a man who is fully aware of monetary value but who becomes a compulsive gambler and is addicted to that behavior remains responsible for his actions because he has the moral inability to refrain from wasting his money and causing ruin to his family, but he still retains the natural ability to stop at any time. In this case, though he is still bound to his addiction and is in that sense not free, he remains responsible.

    I'm not sure that at this point I've fully developed everything that I want to say here, but as time is fleeting I hope it's sufficient for you to at least find something to respond to :-)

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  9. Peter,

    My claim was that a mentally insane person was not free or responsible. You said he was free but not responsible. It seems, though, that you now agree with me about the specific case I brought up.

    You wrote;

    "I have a responsibility to obey the laws of America because I was born in America, an action I had no control over whatsoever".

    That doesn't have anything to do with whether you're a free agent. Place of birth is not relevant to the metaphysics of free will.

    "As to your example, I think we would need to distinguish between people who's action lack "relevant control" due to an illness and those who lack "relevant control" due to other reasons (i.e., an alcoholic/pot-head who is unable to drive safely). In the second case, we of course still find the individuals responsible for whatever they did in an impaired state".

    Those people put themselves in those circumstances freely, thus though they may not be free while blithering drunk, that is irrelevant to the freedom/responsibility point I've made.

    Furthermore, my claim was about the "mentally insane." So, I did make the distinguishment. You said that's what you were responding to. Do you now deny that the mentaly insane are free?

    "I think at this point it might be relevant to take a page from Edwards (although as I am going from memory, perhaps we can just call this a page from Peter's Reconstruction of Edwards) and say that the difference is in terms of moral (in)ability and natural (in)ability".

    I generally find Edwards unhelpful in this area. I think hypothetical compatibilism is false.

    I find the moral inability and natural ability distinctions likewise problematic.


    "In this instance, we would say that the insane person is doing what he wants but he lacks the full range of abilities that a normal person would have access to".

    Are you assuming that "doing what you want to" means "you're free." Are you claiming that the insane man who "wants" to defecate on himself is acting freely? Anyway, the abilities he lacks are control and the rational faculties required for freedom.

    "Just as we wouldn't hold someone responsible for being unable to flap his wings and fly, we wouldn't hold the insane person responsible for being unable to pay his bills on time because he lacks the mechanism to understand the concept of monetary value, or whatnot".

    I'm not talking abour responsibility. We agreed that the insane man wasn't responsible, you claimed he was free.

    "On the other hand, a man who is fully aware of monetary value but who becomes a compulsive gambler and is addicted to that behavior remains responsible for his actions because he has the moral inability to refrain from wasting his money and causing ruin to his family, but he still retains the natural ability to stop at any time".

    Well, it's debatable about whether he has the "natural ability to stop at anytime." At any rate, this desn't show that mentally insance people are free. In your case, the man may not be free, but he is responsible for freely putting himself in that position. If he cannot control himself, then he lacks a necessary requirement of freedom.

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  10. Here's one reason to doubt the merits of Edwardsian compatibilism, or, hypothetical compatibilism, or, classical compatibilism:

    Suppose Mary has been scarred by a terrible childhood accident involving a blond Labrador retriever. This accident rendered her psychologically incapable of wanting to touch a blond-haired dog. Imagine that, on her sixteenth birthday, unaware of her condition, her father brings her two puppies to choose between, one being a blond-haired Lab, the other a black-haired Lab. He tells Mary just to pick up whichever of the two she pleases and that he will return the other puppy to the store. Mary happily and unencumbered does what she wants and picks up the black Lab.

    Was she free to do otherwise? It doesn't seem so. Given her childhood experience, she cannot even form a want to touch a blond-haired Lab, thus she couldn't pick one up. But in this case the hypothetical classical compatibilism, HCC, analysis would be true. That is: IF Mary had wanted to pick up the blond-haired Lab, then she could have done so. This is clearly false, though. The problem brought out here is that HCC isn't enough. We need more than just: S could have done otherwise if S had wanted to do otherwise. We need, rather, something like this: ..."and S could also have wanted to do otherwise." And this pushes the question back to whether the agent could have wanted to do otherwise. To answer that requires another 'could' statement: S could have wanted or chosen to do otherwise. This requires anotherhypothetical analysis: S would have waned or chosen to do otherwise, IF S had wanted or chosen to want or choose otherwise. The same question would arise about this analysis, needing another 'could' statement to be analyzed, and so on ad infinitum... (cf. Kane, Intro to Free Will, pp. 28-31).

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  11. Paul said:
    ---
    My claim was that a mentally insane person was not free or responsible. You said he was free but not responsible. It seems, though, that you now agree with me about the specific case I brought up.
    ---

    I'm not sure how you got that, since I'm still saying he is free but not responsible. :-)

    You said:
    ---
    That doesn't have anything to do with whether you're a free agent. Place of birth is not relevant to the metaphysics of free will.
    ---

    But it is relevant as to whether you can have responsibility without freedom, which was my point. You are responsible to follow the laws of the land regardless of whether you had the freedom to pick those laws.

    You said:
    ---
    Those people put themselves in those circumstances freely, thus though they may not be free while blithering drunk, that is irrelevant to the freedom/responsibility point I've made.
    ---

    But I think it is quite relevant to the discussion, since we have people who are most assuredly not in control of their behavior being held responsible for their actions. That's why I think the illustration of the diabetic is more germane to our discussion, because we have identical actions but with differing views of responsibility. In other words, I think it helps clarify what needs focused on by getting rid of ambiguities.

    You said:
    ---
    Are you claiming that the insane man who "wants" to defecate on himself is acting freely?
    ---

    In a word, yes.

    You said:
    ---
    Anyway, the abilities he lacks are control and the rational faculties required for freedom.
    ---

    But I disagree that those are required for freedom. I say they are required for responsibility, not freedom. [I think this is the heart of our disagreement.]

    You said:
    ---
    In your case, the man may not be free, but he is responsible for freely putting himself in that position.
    ---

    I think you misread my examples; the above was in reference to the person who was *NOT* insane, and thus was responsible because he freely put himself in that position.

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  12. Paul said:
    ---
    Was she free to do otherwise? It doesn't seem so. Given her childhood experience, she cannot even form a want to touch a blond-haired Lab, thus she couldn't pick one up. But in this case the hypothetical classical compatibilism, HCC, analysis would be true. That is: IF Mary had wanted to pick up the blond-haired Lab, then she could have done so. This is clearly false, though.
    ---

    I don't think it's clearly false at all. It is certainly the case that if Mary had wanted to pick the blond-haired Lab she could have done so. She'll never want to do so, so the if will never apply; but that's not the same thing as saying the if is false.

    In other words: If I jump high enough, I will go into orbit. This is a true statement, even though it is impossible for me to ever jump that high. It is still a fact that if *DID* jump that high, I would be in orbit.

    So I don't see how your example works other than to say that Mary doesn't have the ability to do otherwise, but that's simply a denial of PAP anyway.

    You said:
    ---
    We need more than just: S could have done otherwise if S had wanted to do otherwise. We need, rather, something like this: ..."and S could also have wanted to do otherwise."
    ---

    I disagree that "S could also have wanted to do otherwise" is relevant, and in any case the fact remains that she still wanted to do what she picked.

    And while you don't like Edwards, I think he applies here too. In other words, Mary most certainly has the ability to frame the words "I choose the blond Lab." She doesn't do so not because she is unable (physically) to do so, but because she is unwilling to do so.

    As such, I think this question is irrelevant to our discussion :-) I also wonder how you synthesize total depravity with that concept of freedom/responsibility.

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  13. Peter,

    " don't think it's clearly false at all. It is certainly the case that if Mary had wanted to pick the blond-haired Lab she could have done so. She'll never want to do so, so the if will never apply; but that's not the same thing as saying the if is false".

    You may be missing the dialectical context. Right, if Mary had wanted to pick up the lab she could have. The problem, though, she couldn't from the want to. The hypothetical analysys says people can do otherwise when they can't. Mary cannot even form the want. So, the "if" makes it so she can, be the *fact* that she can't makes the hypothetical analysis say that she can when she can't. And so actually, if didn't say that the "if" was false, I said it was true. But, the problem is that it tells us she could do otherwise (becaus if she had wanted to she could've), when she in fact could not have done otherwise (because she could not have wanted to).

    So, hypothetical compatibilism needs to say that a person is able to want to do otherwise. But now we've pushed the question back. We have a new "ability" that we need to apply the hypothetical analysis to. And this brings up an infinite regress.

    I grant that classical compatibilists will continue to press the point and dig heels in the sand and opt for the hypothetical analysis of "can do otherwise" (which is a response to the consequence argument). But given the massive amounts of arguments against it, and the fact that more and more compatibilists are dropping the classcal model, with the fact that there are better stories out there (we've progressed in our analytic ability since Edwards :-), it seems to me more trouble than it's worth to hold on to classical compatibilism.

    The problem is, so many Reformed theologians thought learning ended with Edwards and Hume, that they continue to use the classical analysis in their works, and I've never seen a bibliographywhere they indicate that they are up on the current debate or state of compatibilism.

    "So I don't see how your example works other than to say that Mary doesn't have the ability to do otherwise, but that's simply a denial of PAP anyway".

    No, she desn't have the ability to want to do otherwise, which brings up the infinite regress.

    "And while you don't like Edwards, I think he applies here too. In other words, Mary most certainly has the ability to frame the words "I choose the blond Lab." She doesn't do so not because she is unable (physically) to do so, but because she is unwilling to do so".

    That ability is totally meaningless. She doesn't do so because she is unable, not unwilling.

    I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. You're free to hold to classical compatibilism. I'm of the opinion that it's holding Reformed thinkers back in this area.

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  14. Hey Paul,

    Yeah, in the end we'll probably just have to agree to disagree. Still, it's fun thinking about this, so I'll throw out just a couple more points.

    You said:
    ---
    That ability is totally meaningless. She doesn't do so because she is unable, not unwilling.
    ---

    But this just is the crux of the matter. It is not a matter of ability at all, because once again Mary would have the physical ability to do so. It's just like any other time someone is faced with overcoming a fear.

    Suppose I have a deathly fear of heights (which is close to being true anyway). Suppose that I know a bridge that spans a chasm is sufficient to bear my weight and that I can safely walk across it. Because of my fear of heights, I may not go over the bridge. Suppose that there is a reward on the opposite side of the bridge. My fear may be greater than my desire to get the reward, so I would not cross the bridge. It is not that I cannot cross the bridge, but rather that under the circumstances I do not want to cross the bridge. (And suppose for the hypothetical that this "do not want" feeling makes it impossible to ever cross the bridge.) I think you would say that I am "unable" to cross the bridge, while I would say that I am "unwilling" to cross the bridge.

    Suppose however that I do not have any fear of heights whatsoever, but rather that I am paralyzed an cannot walk, nor is the bridge able to carry a wheelchair across. Now I would say that I am "unable" to cross the bridge, because I cannot do so even if I want to do so. In this case, I would say that I am "unable" to cross the bridge, and I would expect that you would agree.

    The problem I find with your view is that it treats the inability of me to cross the bridge due to a mental desire as opposed to a physical inability as identical, when IMO these things should be considered as two different things. The effects will be the same--in both cases I remains on the opposite side of the chasm. But the reason why I do so is different; hence I think there is great use in distinguishing between physical inability (i.e. "natural inability") and mental inability (i.e., "moral inability").

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  15. You also said:
    ---
    The hypothetical analysys says people can do otherwise when they can't.
    ---

    I understand where you're coming from with this, but again I am of the opinion that it doesn't really apply. Again, I maintain that Mary has the natural ability to pick the blond Lab, and because she does then (at least in regards to whether her choice was genuine) then it doesn't matter why she does not want to do so.

    In the end, I think that the example of Mary would, if anything, prove too much. Because unless you end up with some kind of random aspect to a choice, all choices will become an "impossible to have chosen otherwise under the circumstances" choice. In other word, if I choose chocolate ice cream over vanilla ice cream, it is because at time t I wanted chocolate for whatever reason. In this case, you could say that it is "possible" in the abstract that I "could" have chosen vanilla, but the fact remains that I did not choose vanilla and I would maintain that under those circumstances I would have always chosen chocolate, which would seem to me to be the same as Mary's inability to choose other than the chocolate Lab.

    Now I suppose you might be able to say that if you change the externals then I could have chosen otherwise; but if you do that, then I would maintain that you could also change the externals with Mary (e.g., she could go through therapy and get over her fear of blond Labs).

    Anyway, we'll probably still just agree to disagree, but thanks for the time I've spent in thought this weekend :-)

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  16. P,

    I'll just end with two things:

    1. No one's denying that people choose according to desires, charcter, etc. My claim, however, is that this is not robust enough to ground freedom. It's not enough, one's analysis needs more. It would be like saying 'belief' is enough for knowledge since everyone who has knowledge obviously believes what is known. (However, even this "desire" thing is in doubt due to cases of akrasia, but we can forget that debate for the our purposes.)


    I tried to make that case with the mentally insane and in my responses to your various examples from drunks and diabetics and such. If your position allows the mentally insane to be acting of their own free will when yelling the primes all day long while urinating on themselves, I guess I don't have much more to say. Seems to me that that's self-evidentaly false. Heck, I'm not even sure that dogs and cats don't "do what they want", hence granting them freedom. The bottom line here is that most good analysis of freedom are going to include more than just "doing what you desire or want." However, you said that since the mentally insane person does what she wants, then she's free. And so I think your view is false for at least that reason.

    2. To do otherwise you have to be able to want to do otherwise (and free will is about abilities, it's about a certain kind of power that agents have to act). If a person cannot even form a want to do otherwise, if she lacks that ability or power, then the CC hypothetical analysis says she can do something other when she clearly can't (notice here the modal language and not the hypothetical language of "ifs"). So, the hypothetical analysys needs to throw in that she be able to want. This new ability is now given a hypothetical reading and sfers from the infinite regress argument I made above.

    I know I may have largely repeated myself, but I wanted to relay the story in more succinct language so that what I think is the truth of the matter maybe becomes more apparent this time around (hopefuly). As I said, I think the Reformed as a whole are really missing the boat here by thinking Edwards is the final say. He says sme good things, but his view is largely wrong, and that's because hypothetical compatibilism is wrong, IMO. I also just wanted to recap.

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  17. Thanks Paul :-)

    I guess I would just sum up my own view as reiterating once again that freedom and responsibility, in my position, are not always flip sides of the same coin, whereas in yours they are. Which is why I think you say that freedom needs more than just acting according to desires, because you have freedom linked to responsibility.

    I, on the other hand, would say that freedom just is acting according to one's desires. And I wouldn't have a problem saying that animals have that freedom too (assuming they have desires). Responsibility, on the other hand, entails those things that you've brought up in addition to acting according to one's desires.

    I guess maybe one way to examine this would be to ask, What is the difference between freedom and responsibility? As I read your position, I think you view the two as almost synonymous.

    In any case, no need to drag this out further since now we're just repeating ourselves. One last question would just be: got book recommendations on the subject? :-)

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  18. P,

    First, some respurces I had in a bibliography of a paper I wrote. I will then try to answer a couple of your questions.

    Choi, Sean. "The Libertarian Dilemma, Incompatibilist Transfer Principles, and Agent
    Causation." Diss. Santa Barbara: University of California, 2007.

    Copp, David. "'Ought Implies Can,' Blameworthiness, and the Principle of Alternative
    Possibilities." Ed. Widerker, David and Michael McKenna. Moral Responsibility and
    Alternative Possibilities: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities.
    Burlington: Ashgate, 2006. 265-300.

    Fischer, John Martin. "Compatibilism". Fischer et al. Four Views on Free Will. Oxford:
    Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 44-84.

    ---. "Frankfurt-Type Examples and Semi-Compatibilism." Ed. Robert Kane. The Oxford
    Handbook of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 281-308.

    ---. My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

    Fischer et al. . Four Views on Free Will. Ed. Ernest Sosa. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
    F
    ischer, John Martin and Mark Ravizza. Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral
    Responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

    Kane, Robert. A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will. New York: Oxford Univsersity Press,
    2005.

    ---. "Libertarianism." Fischer et al. Four Views on Free Will. Ed. Ernest Sosa. Oxford: Blackwell
    Publishing, 2007. 5-43.

    van Inwagen, Peter. An Essay on Free Will. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983.

    Vargas, Manuel. "Revisionism." Fischer et al. Four Views on Free Will. Ed. Ernest Sosa Oxford:
    Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 204-219.

    Some of those are papers in edited work. Esp. relevant to our discussion here is Berofsky's paper "Ifs Cans and Free Will" in the Oxford handbook.

    continued below:

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  19. As to me holding the two to be flip sides, it just seems intuitive. One bright side is, in debates with libertarians and such, if one grants that they are flip sides, then showing responsibility (which is easier, IMO, and doesn't get bogged down in free will talk) automatically gets free will (or you can argue vice versa, but it will be near impossible to get a libertarian to grant your hypothetical compatibilism). I also haven't seen any minimalist explanation of free will (like yours) that works. And, the more one builds into it, the more one can see they're flip sides. I guess I just wouldn't know what freedom means if I am free just like the man who sings the star spangled banner naked, and thinks he's Genghis Kahn reincarnated. Also, the Christian tradition has been that man is unique in having freedom will, so I'm hesitant about the animal thing.

    Steve Hays quoted something out of the handbook of free will on classical compatibilism a while back. Thus:

    “To be free, most compatibilists have insisted, means in ordinary language (1) to have the *power* or *ability* to do what we will (desire or choose) to do, and this entails (2) the absence of *constraints* or *impediments* preventing us from doing what we will, desire, or choose. The constraints or impediments they have in mind include physical restraints, lack of opportunity, duress or coercion, physical or mental impairment, and the like”.

    Note the bolded portion. However, once you start building in features to meet these demands (and all have had to do since absence of merely *external* constraints is obviously false), then you'll start to see the flip sides.

    Vallicella gave a good explanation of what Classical Compatibilists need for a plausible theory:

    Some will say that this is all freedom can be. Roughly, one is free to the extent that one can do what one wills. (Of course, this is not to say that one can will what one wills.) We might spell out this relative or comparative freedom as follows. Person P is free to do action A if and only if

    1. P wills (wants, desires, chooses, etc.) to do A.

    2. P's willing (wanting, etc.) A is unencumbered by any internal or external impediment, or subject to any internal or external compulsion.

    Perhaps we should add a third condition:

    3. P's willing (wanting, etc.) A is motivated by reasons rather than passions, and is indeed motivated by good reasons
    .

    And you can see here that the mentally insane are removed. Indeed, it seems here that this makes things flip sides. Someone who meets the above requirements is both free and responsible (though I ultimately part ways with even these more sophisticated expressions of hypothetical/classical compatibilism).

    There are of course differences between freedom and responsibility. However, my claim has been that if did something freely, then one is morally responsible for it, and if one is morally responsible for some action, he did it freely.

    I guess I got in some more last words after all :-)

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  20. Thanks for the bibliography. I'll have to see how many of these I can get on inter-library loan (for some reason, I doubt there will be many in my local library already...)

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  21. Paul:

    You've contrasted your position with "classical" or "hypothetical" compatibilism, but is there are label for your view? The closest thing I came to one was "semi-compatibilism"? If one wanted to start reading up on your general position in contrast to the classic Reformed (Edwardian) one, is that the general term for it?

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  22. Peter,

    You're welcome.

    Andrew,

    Right, semi-compatibilism. Though I have some disagreements with him, John Martin Fischer's a good place to start. I'd actually recommend his book "My Way: Essay's on Moral Responsibility" (Oxford). For an overall general introduction to free will, I'd actually recommend libertarian Robert Kane's "Contemporary Introduction To Free will" (Oxford) as possibly the best place to start. Of course, there's always the "Four Views on Free Will" (Blackwell) book.

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  23. Paul and Peter,

    Didn't Edwards ground responsibility in compatibilistic feedom? I also think that Edwards might deny that an insane person is a moral agent (Bruce Reicvhenbach suggests Edwards might think so, perhaps based on Edwards' position that a moral agent "possesses a capacity of 'being influenced in his actions by moral inducements or motives, exhibited to the view of understanding and reason, to engage in a conduct ad=greeable to the moral faculty' " [from Reichenbach's essay in *THe Grace of God and the Will of Man*]). Is that correct? And if either of these is true, isn't Peter departing from traditional Edwardsian compatibilism? He certainly has the right to do so, but the conversation has come off as though he is representing traditional compatibilism.

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  24. Arminian,

    Actually, I've maintained all along that I would hold an insane person non-responsible, which would mean that I would NOT view an insane person as a "moral agent" even though I would view him as behaving freely because he is doing what he wants to do.

    Secondly, my use of Edwards was only in applying the distinction between natural and moral (in)ability. While my philosophy is Edwardian at root, I'm sure he'd disagree with some of my positions too.

    Finally, it's been years since I've read Edwards, so as the caveat I original gave read: "as I am going from memory, perhaps we can just call this a page from Peter's Reconstruction of Edwards."

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  25. Peter,

    Thanks for the clarification.

    Peter and Paul,

    Do either of you know if Edwards would regard an insane person to be acting freely? I would have thought not because of his emphasis on reason in the exercise of freedom. (But I could also see him going the oppsote way because of his basic definition of freedom as the abiloty to act as we desire.)

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  26. Arminian,

    I gave Vallicella's sophisticated expression of Classical Compatibilism, I'd like to think Edwards would agree with that at least.

    However, many have critiqued what I'll call (without offense) "naive hypothetical compatibilism" for percisely the reason that it would allow the insane to be acting of their own free will.

    Above I posted something on hypothetical compatibilism from the Oxford Handbook. As versions of hypothetical compatibilism became morew sophisticated, they included not only freedom from external constraints, but freedom from internal constrants too (which insantiy is a species of). In charity to Edwards, I'd have to say he'd agree with the best expressions of hypothetical compatibilism.

    But Edwards and many older (and even newer) Reformers would need more than just the cleaned up versions of hypothetical compatibilism. From some of my readings, I'm not entirely convinced that some of them didn't (or, don't) hold to a kind of libertarianism. At the very least, Reformed thinkers need to become better in this area.

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  27. The problem I have with internal restraints being relevant to whether or not someone is acting freely is how it would affect Total Depravity. I don't see how you could hold to depravity and responsibility if:

    1) Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand, and

    2) Freedom means you have neither external or internal restraints.

    Depravity, to me, is very similar to mental illness. Men were not created to be evil; we are evil because were are "broken" and want to do evil. In that sense, which is more radical: the person who urinates on himself, or the sinner who slanders God all day long?

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  28. Peter,

    Virtually everyone includes the internal restraints clause, hypothetical or otherwise. I actually know of no person, Reformed or otherwise, who denies this.

    I guess I don't see your argument for why I can't hold to total depravity. You're offering some vague points from analogy that once you try to make them clear I doubt will have the intended force you want for them.

    Of course I could apply everything I said about guidance control, reasonse responsive, (and all the other goodies, cf. Fischer et al.) to the totally depraved sinner but not to the mentallly insane person. The distinction is easy to draw.

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