Frankfurt Counter Examples, Begging the Question, and Open Theism

Victor Reppert has been blogging on Frankfurt counter examples recently. Many claim that Frankfurt counter examples beg the question against libertarianism. This is because these examples assume a prior tell sign that the Frankfurt controller can use to know for certain how an agent will act (and we'll leave aside Frankfurt cases that do not assume this, such as Mele or Bergmann's, for example). No controller could know for certain how an agent will act because there is no tell sign that always guarantees a specific action to result. If there were, then we'd have determinism. This move is known as the Kane-Widerker response to Frankfurt (aka the indeterminist worlds objection).

But what if we leave out the "tell sign" and claim that the controller "just knows." That is, he has infallible foreknowledge of how Frankfurt-type subjects will act. More specifically, he knows propositions like this: S will do A unless I were to intervene and prevent S from A-ing.

So, we might have a situation like this (inspired by David Widerker in "A problem for the Eternity Solution," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 1991):

Consider a scenario where Smith wants to murder Jones at t5. Suppose God, however, has different plans for Jones than for him to die at t5. So God reveals to Jones at t3 that Smith will try to shoot him at t5. Suppose further that Smith has LFW at t4. If so, Smith is free at t4 to refrain from trying to kill Jones at t5. But, since God is infallible, Smith cannot refrain. Is Smith responsible for his attempted assassination?

In this case, there are no "tell signs" and so the worry over question begging is gone. This puts Frankfurt counter examples right back into the game and the libertarian must deal with them. There doesn't seem to be anything about this Frankfurt counter example that begs the question and so we have a case where PAP isn't necessary for moral responsibility.

It turns out that there's a way to bring question begging back into the picture--the way of Open Theism. Here's what David Widerker has to say about the controller being omniscient:

"Examining now the previous examples from this point of view, it is not at all clear to me that they describe situations in which Jones can be said to be acting on his own. Since in them God is assumed to be infallible, the fact D(B) occurs at T is entailed (in the broadly logical sense) by the prior act of God's believing at T' that D(B) occurs at T (T' is metaphysically necessitated or metaphysically determined by the belief of God. Now, if a libertarian rejects as an instance of an agent's acting on his own a scenario in which an agent's decision is nomically necessitated by a temporally prior fact (or a conjunction of such facts), why wouldn't he reject the one in which the decision is metaphysically necessitated by a prior event? What, in my opinion, is crucial to the libertarian's conception of free decision is that such a decision is not necessitated or determined in any way by any antecedent fact. . . . Now, one may object that metaphysical necessitation is not nomic necessitation. But why should this difference be relevant? If a decision is rendered unfree by the fact that its occurrence at T is entailed by the conjunction of some temporally prior facts together with the laws of nature, then why would it not be rendered unfree if its occurring at T is entailed by God's prior belief that it will occur at T? If the critic still thinks that there is a difference between the two cases, it is incumbent upon him to explain why." (Widerker, Responsibility and Frankfurt Examples, Oxford Handbook of Freewill, 328, emphasis original).

Interestingly enough, in Robert Kane's review of Linda Zagzebski's book on foreknowledge problem (Mind, December 1991), he has this to say,

I have reservations about some of her arguments against [the solution to the freedom/foreknowledge problem], but on the whole I think the case against the three traditional solutions to the freedom-foreknowledge dilemma is strong. My critical comments will therefore be directed at two of the alternative solutions to the dilemma which she presents.

The first is an attempt to combine some Boethian insights of Aquinas with those of the Ockhamists-a Thomistic Ockhamism, as she calls it. Its difficulty is that it relies on the controversial doctrine of divine simplicity. Following Aquinas, she says "there is no distinction in God's knowledge between his knowledge of one fact and ... of another, since both are contained in the same simple vision of his own essence" (p. 89). Yet "in his simple ... intuition of his own essence, God knows secondarily everything else" which is "reflected" in the divine essence. To explain this, she introduces the analogy of directly viewing a young man's face and at the same time indirectly seeing the features of the man's mother reflected in his features. All God's knowledge is combined in one vision of the divine essence, and all other things are reflected in that vision as the mother's face in that of her son. It would follow that God's state of knowledge at t, that I will do S at t2 is numerically the same state as God would have been in had I not done S at t2, though that single divine state would have indirectly "reflected" different contingent states depending on what I actually did. Thus, God's foreknowledge would not rule out my doing otherwise. One problem with this inventive solution is that such foreknowledge, if it were consistent with either outcome, would seem to be merely knowledge of future possibilities, not of actualities. If it were more than that-if it were a "reflection" of my actually doing S at t2 rather than not, or vice versa-then it is not clear how I could have done otherwise. And if it did not reflect either outcome until t2, it would not be foreknowledge.

We see that the proponents of the Kane-Widerker objection seem to think that the Frankfurt controller could not "just know" what libertarian free agents will do.

So, yes, there is a way out against the beefed-up Frankfurt controller, a controller on epistemic steroids, and that way lies Open Theism. The up side is that it can be said that Frankfurt counter examples beg the question. The downside is that this way out is not available to classical Christian theists. They must find another way out besides the indeterminist worlds objection.

Red herrings on sale

http://www.arminianchronicles.com/2009/07/rabbit-trail-on-pap-and-frankfort.html

"The Frankfort example has numerous problems, such as 1) there is no 'sign' beforehand indicating what the choice will be"

Irrelevant to a thought-experiment. It’s not designed to illustrate how the action can be foreknown. A thought-experiment needn’t be consistent or realistic in every respect to achieve its purpose.

"2) there's no such thing as a 'forced choice' so no device could trigger a choice"

i) That simply begs the question. Consider William James on forced options.

ii) Moreover, it's implausible. Even a choice made at gunpoint is still a choice. You could choose to be shot.

Forced choices, because they’re forced, may mitigate the responsibility of the agent, but it’s still a genuine choice.

"3) the will is part of our immaterial soul, so no physical device could monitor and manipulate it."

Once again, irrelevant to a thought-experiment. It’s not designed to illustrate dualistic interactionism. Whether or not it's consistent with dualistic interactionism is beside the point.

Dan is hawking red herrings. I prefer crab and lobster.

“For me, it's enough to choose A or not - I don't need to extend things to the ability to choose A or B."

i) A distinction without a difference. Either choosing A or not choosing A is the same as choosing between A or non-A. Which is equivalent to choosing between A or B.

ii) Moreover, if the only choice at your disposal is to choose A or not, then that can often be a classic case of a forced option. I can either give the bank robber the combination of the safe or I can refuse to give him the combination–on pain of being shot in the head.

Dan's Wrong . . . Again

Dan the Arminian still refuses to deal with my citations of numerous dictionaries which define "choose" without containing the "essential element" he says "the" dictionary contains. Again, his argument is kaput and since he doesn't want to deal with the obvious refutations, might there be another Arminian who lauded Dan's argument that wants to try? Anyway, he's still responding to a post I did a while back, and in the meantime I've responded to all of his responses. In his latest post he again shows his unfamiliarity with his own side of the debate as he speculates about PAP, AP, W.L. Craig, and Frankfurt, all from his armchair. For those who are familiar with the literature, his post is simply something of a train wreck. I don't really have much to say, but will comment on just a few things that demonstrate my above claim:

1. Dan thinks there's a problem with Frankfurt counter examples and immaterial souls (but then grudgingly admits that Molinism can deal with this). Well, not just Molinism. That's not the relevant point. God is. But besides this, it is far from obvious that a Frankfurt mechanism could not affect an immaterial soul. Christians (those who believe in souls, and it is indeed ironic that many libertarians are resorting and turning to anthropological physicalism these days) believe in a tight unity between body and soul. A deep interaction. Why does heavy drinking, drug use, and blows to the head affect our "personality"? Affect things that are supposed to aspects of the "immaterial soul"? So it is far from obvious that Molinism or God is needed to deal with the immaterial nature of man and Frankfurt controllers. In fact, my point seems sufficiently strong enough to rebut Dan's repeated claims that mysterious souls somehow rule out Frankfurtian neurological-manipulating mechanisms.

2. Dan writes, "Thus, rejecting PAP harmonizes with my choose arguments." Besides the small defect that his "choose argument" has been shown to be obviously false, Dan seems to think there's some big difference between PAP and AP (alternative possibilities). But it's time to bring in an expert, again. Thus Kane, "Frankfurt-style cases (FSCs) were introduced to undermine 'the principle of alternative possibilities' or PAP. They were designed to show that a person could be morally responsible even though the person had no alternative possibilities (APs) or could not have done otherwise." (Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibility: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities, eds. Widerker & Mckenna, Ashgate, 2006, Kane, p. 91, emphasis mine).

3. Dan writes, "Further, PAP seems to be interpreted too specifically for my taste. You must be able to vote Democrat or Republican. You must be able to do good or evil. You must be able to eat chocolate or vanilla...For me, it's enough to choose A or not - I don't need to extend things to the ability to choose A or B" (emphasis mine).

So, Dan claims that PAP is set up as, say, needing to be able to choose P or Q or R, but not P or ~P. He says P or ~P is his position, which is not PAP, he says. This is getting old, but time to bring in some more libertarian experts:

"PAP: An agent is morally responsible for performing a given action A only if he could have avoided performing it" (ibid, Widerker, p.53).

"PAP: An agent S is morally responsible for its being the case that p only if S could have made it not the case that p." (ibid, Ginet, 75).

Notice that there's no talk of P or Q or R or n. It's just P or ~P. In other words, what Dan says is the reason he rejects PAP: "because it's enough [for his libertarianism] to choose A or ~A", looks just like he's citing the definition of PAP!

So far in our debate I've got layman Dan to disagree with leading libertarian action theorists: R. Kane, W. L. Craig, C. Ginet, D. Widerker, D. Hunt, A. Plantinga, W. Hasker, Kevin Timpe, &c! What hubris. Dan, an everyman theologian/blogger, who reads a few internet sources on libertarian action theory now and then, knows more about libertarian action theory than all the experts. Forgive me if I find this hard to swallow.

Not to be mean, but Dan just seems ignorant of much of the relevant literature. But I'm sorry to report that this isn't what's bad. Dan is ignorant that he's even ignorant. A dangerous combination indeed.

(P.S. I'd also suggest Dan read Timpe's book Free Will: Sourcehood and its Alternatives, for an argument that libertarianism demands acceptance of the PAP maxim, here's the abstract. It also seems like ought implies can demands acceptance of PAP, and Dan holds to ought implies can).

William Lane Craig on freewill

Now as for your argument, I think two of its premisses are false. First, it seems to me that (2) is false, both on philosophical and on theological grounds. Philosophically, I’m persuaded by arguments such as have been offered by Harry Frankfurt that free choice does not entail the ability to do otherwise. Imagine that a mad scientist has secretly wired your brain with electrodes so that he can control your choices. Suppose that in the last Presidential election, he wanted you to vote for Obama and had determined that if you were going to vote for McCain he would activate the electrodes and make you cast your vote for Obama. Now as it turns out, you also wanted to vote for Obama, and so when you went into the polling booth you marked your ballot for Obama, and therefore the scientist never activated the electrodes. I think it’s clear that you freely voted for Obama, even though it was not possible for you to do otherwise. What this thought experiment suggests is that the essence of free choice is the absence of causal constraint with respect to your choices; it is up to you alone how you choose.

Now in the case of God, if God is essentially good, then there is no possible world in which He does evil. But does that imply that God does not freely do the good? Not if Frankfurt’s analysis is right. For God acts in the complete absence of any causal constraint whatsoever upon Him. It is up to Him and Him alone how He acts. He therefore acts freely in doing the good. That God is acting freely is evident in the fact that His will is not inclined necessarily toward any particular finite good; He chooses to do whatever He wants.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/is-god-morally-praiseworthy/

Why Classical Arminianism Needs to Become Open Theistic to Use Rebutting Defeaters to Frankfurt Counter Examples

I take it that Classical Arminianism at least affirms the thesis that God has exhaustive foreknowledge, where this means he knows the future actions of libertarian free (indeterministically free) agents.

Frequently, in debates against Calvinists, Classical Arminians claim that Calvinism cannot be true by the conjunction of a biblical premise with an extra-biblical premise. First, the biblical premise. (1) The Bible clearly teaches that men are morally responsible for their actions (all sides agree to this). Now the extra-biblical premise (Stuart Goetz recently told me via email that you cannot prove a libertarian action theory strictly from the Bible and people who think you can are sophomoric). (2) To be morally responsible for your actions requires the ability to do otherwise, otherwise known as, the principle of alternative possibility (PAP). To get a handle on PAPs I will cite some expressions of this intuition given by prominent libertarians.

The below expressions of PAP are taken from, Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibility: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities, (eds. Widerker & Mckenna, Ashgate, 2006):

• "PAP: An agent is morally responsible for performing a given action A only if he could have avoided performing it" (Widerker, p.53).

• "PAP: An agent S is morally responsible for its being the case that p only if S could have made it not the case that p." (Ginet, 75).

• "Frankfirt-style cases (FSCs) were introduced to undermine 'the principle of alternative possibilities' or PAP. They were designed to show that a person could be morally responsible even though the person had no alternative possibilities (APs) or could not have done otherwise." [Kane, p. 91, see fn. 4 for an elaboration. Kane agrees that in *particular* cases FSCs show that an agent was morally responsible even though he could not have done otherwise just in case he had some libertarian free choices in his past that shaped his character.]

• "PAP3: A person is (libertarian) free in what he has done (= A) only if there is something he did (= B) which is such that (i) he could have done otherwise than B and (ii) it is (at least in part) in virtue of his doing B that he is (libertarian) free in doing A" (Hunt, p.167). [NOTE: Hunt, though a libertarian nevertheless rejects the PAP constraint on moral responsibility.]

Since PAPs are inconsistent with there being only one future given a past divine decree (determinism), Arminians feel that, based on the intuitive strength PAPs yield, a Calvinism that posits a divine determinism cannot be the case.

Yet, there is a response. Many determinists have claimed that there are equally strong intuitions against PAP brought out by what are called in the literature, Frankfurt Counter Examples. Many libertarian free will theorists have agreed. For example, David Copp, a libertarian, writes, "Frankfurt's argument is troubling and puzzling because it brings intuitively plausible counterexamples against an intuitively plausible principle. It forces us to deal with clashing intuitions" (Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibility: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities, (eds. Widerker & Mckenna, Ashgate, 2006), p.265).

In a nutshell, Frankfurt Counter Examples propose some kind of controller that will ensure that an agent cannot do otherwise than some action A, if he were to physically try to, or even if he were about to think to try to do otherwise than A. As the story goes, though, the agent proceeds to A, and never even wavers, and so the controller does not need to "push the button" that will ensure he A's. So, the agent is morally responsible while being unable to do otherwise than A. There have been thousands of pages written on Frankfurt Counter Examples, this was intended as just an initial sketch. These counterexamples represent a defeater for PAPs, and thus a defeater to the objection to Calvinism based on the conjunction of the above (1) and (2).

Frankfurt examples seem to have escaped unscathed from almost every response to them, and thus it looks like the critique against Calvinism based on PAP has little merit, indeed, it looks false.

Yet, there are Arminians who still think Frankfurt Counter Examples do not falsify PAP. But, it seems that more and more libertarian philosophers have realized the strength of Franfurt Counter Examples. Things have funneled down to an objection libertarians think is pretty strong: the indeterminist world objection.

Bill Vallicella recently made mention of this objection, he writes:

But if we think about it, we see that these Frankfurt examples give an incompatibilist who believes in free will no reason to abandon PAP. Incompatibilists hold that (libertarian) free will and (causal) determinism are logically incompatible: they cannot both be true. So if free will exists, then determinism is false. And if determinism is false, then indeterminism is true. If indeterminism is true, then free choices are not determined by earlier events and the laws of nature. Jones choice is determined only at the instant at which Jones chooses, and is determined by Jones. How then could Black control Jones' choice? Suppose Black has all the powers of a Laplacean demon: in a deterministic universe he can predict any state from any temporally prior state. These powers won't help him, however, in an indeterministic universe. Before Jones chooses, Black cannot predict what he will choose. He cannot foresee (by observing electrical activity in Jones' brain, say, that Jones will choose A rather than B. Black must wait for Jones to choose before he can know what he chooses. But then it is too late for Black to interfere. Jones will have made a choice, and indeed one that he might not have made. For Black to ensure that Jones will make the choice that Black desires him to make, Black must act prior to the time at which Jones chooses so as to bring it about that Jones chooses as Black desires. But then Jones is not responsible for his choice. Jones cannot be responsible for his choice if Black is part of the cause of the choice. (Emphasis mine)

Or, as Robert Kane puts it,

If free choices are undetermined then a Frankfurt controller could not ensure or control them without actually intervening and making the agent choose what the controller wants. In indeterministic worlds, as Widerker has put it, there will not be a reliable "tell" sign which lets the controller know that the agent will do. In other words, since no one can know what a free agent will do in an indeterministic world, the only way a choice (or action) controller could work is by forcing the choice he wants, which takes away responsibility for the agent (Kane, Introduction to Free Will, Oxford, 2005, p. 87-88), emphasis mine.

So, the indeterminist world objection, OKA, the Kane-Widerker Objection, states that there can be no Frankfurt controller since it is impossible to know the future free actions of indeterministically free agents.

The problem this has for the Classical Arminian should be obvious: it kicks out traditional views of foreknowledge. Another strong intuitions Calvinists have had (well, not just Calvinists, some libertarians too) is that foreknowledge is just as threatening to libertarian free will (though the argument to that conclusions runs slightly different that the determinism argument, mere foreknowledge of an event is not causation of that event). This is why both Calvinists and many non-classical Arminians have claimed that Open Theism (which, among other things, denies God's knowledge of the future actions of libertarian free agents) is the logical outworking of Arminianism. The recent objection to Frankfurt Counter Examples, the Kane-Widerker Objection, has only served to strengthen that intuition. (I should add, though I will not present the arguments, things are not at a stalemate here. Some, like Mele, have claimed that Frankfurt Counter Examples can work against even this objection. Frankfurt Counter Examples have been resilient, if anything, to various rebutting defeaters.)

Thus, it looks like the noose is tightening and Classical Arminianism will eventually be forced, logically, to the Open Theist position. On the other hand, they can drop the PAP objection to Calvinism (libertarian Dave Hunt does not hold to PAP, so that is another viable option). They would just lose a major weapon they have been wielding in the debate between the two systems. Only time will tell which one they will give.

Frankfurt Schmrankfurt II

Last time Victor Reppert thought he had a silver bullet objection to Frankfurt-type counter examples. I pointed out that Frankfurt-cases have been employed that dealt with choice and not only action.

Another objection to Frankfurt-cases we will look at has a strong pedigree. It has been advanced by Kane (who many of our Arminian friends here have lauded ad nauseum), Widerker, Ginet, and Wyma. It goes like this:

If free choices are undetermined then a Frankfurt controller could not ensure or control them without actually intervening and making the agent choose what the controller wants. In indeterministic worlds, as Widerker has put it, there will not be a reliable "tell" sign which lets the controller know that the agent will do. In other words, since no one can know what a free agent will do in an indeterministic world, the only way a choice (or action) controller could work is by forcing the choice he wants, which takes away responsibility for the agent (cf. Kane, Free Will, Oxford, 2005, p. 87-88).

Thus to use this out the Arminian would have to grant Open Theism. A move most Arminians, especially those who come here, don't want to make.

So Victor's answer won't work, neither will this prominent one work for the Christian who wants a traditional view of God's foreknowledge.

(Note: There are other Frankfurt cases that work even in an indeterministic world. Mele's is one such example. But to discuss that would take us beyond the scope of this post.)

Frankfurt Schmrankfurt

In the comments section of Steve's post Victor Reppert asks if his "refutation" of Frankfurt Style Counterexamples, FSCs, was really as easy to refute as he thinks:

Victor Reppert said:

I wrote my master's thesis on free will. It still seems to me that the distinction between the freedom of action of freedom of choice means that we can ask the question "was the choice free" independent of any consideration of whether in a counterfactual situation, a person could have carried out their action had they chosen otherwise. PAP, as I see it, applies to choices, not actions.

I must ask myself, is it that easy to refute Frankfurt arguments? And maybe you guys can help me see why it isn't that easy. Still, I think the examples will all sooner or later founder on this problem.

This kind of philosophical debate is closer to my area of specialization, certainly, than biblical exegesis.

5/10/2008 8:30 PM

Victor,

i) Let me give you four definitions of PAP from prominent libertarians who are *specialists* in this field (quotes taken from Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibility: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities, eds. Widerker & Mckenna, Ashgate, 2006):

"PAP: An agent is morally responsible for performing a given action A only if he could have avoided performing it" (Widerker, p.53).

"PAP: An agent S is morally responsible for its being the case that p only if S could have made it not the case that p." (Ginet, 75).

"Frankfirt-style cases (FSCs) were introduced to undermine 'the principle of alternative possiblities' or PAP. They were designed to show that a person could be morally responsible even though the person had no alternative possibilities (APs) or could not have done otherwise." (Kane, p. 91, see fn. 4 for an elaboration. Kane agrees that in *particular* cases FSCs show that an agent was morally responsible even though he could not have done otherwise just in case he had some libertarian free choices in his past that shaped his character.)

"PAP3: A person is (libertarian) free in what he has done (= A) only if there is something he did (= B) which is such that (i) he could have done otherwise than B and (ii) it is (at least in part) in virtue of his doing B that he is (libertarian) free in doing A" (Hunt, p.167).

ii) So, we must ask why you go against the experts on your own side?

iii) We should note that there are libertarians who think Frankfurt has made his point. Some would be:

a) W.L. Craig
b) Dave Hunt (the philosopher)
c) Robert Kane (for particular cases)

iv) Did you even read my links? Your post at DI implies they left with the above questions unanswered. But Allen concluded in one I gave you: "Thus Frankfurt cases can be constructed involving mental acts such as deciding" (Alan, Re-examining Frankfurt-Cases, pp. 9-13).

v) Apropos (iv), say an omnipotent fiend wants you to kill your wife. He knows you have chosen to do so. He lets you proceed, but just in case you have a change in heart, he makes sure that he will block any choice to do otherwise. It just so happens that you never change your mind. You're resolved. You couldn't have chosen otherwise, though. You hack your wife. Are you not responsible?

vi) The control needed for moral responsibility as defined by libertarianism hasn't been able to answer the luck objection. So it would appear that the presuppositions inherent in libertarian definitions of PAP undercut moral responsibility. So, your "choice" constraint just might actually undermine responsibility (assuming you're using an agent-causation model).

vii) Since God is essentially holy, perfectly good, he cannot choose (or do) evil.

So on your score you just removed God as a proper subject of ascriptions of praise. Can't praise a "robot" for doing what its nature determines it will do.

Frankfurt-Examples and Moral Responsibility

When Reppert gives links for arguments I give links for counter-arguments.

Robert Allen discusses criticisms of Frankfurt counter-examples: "Below, I respond to four recent attempts to show that "Frankfurt cases," as examples structurally identical to Frankfurt’s have come to be known, fail of their purpose. In the first, I expose a misconception of what it is to be disadvantaged. My challenge to the second stems from its reliance upon the notion of "moral luck." The third, while conceding that Frankfurt cases do falsify PAP in regards to "complex" actions like casting a ballot, argues that they can not be used to do the same vis-a`-vis "simple" mental acts such as taking a decision. By appealing to the connection between assessments of character and judgments of moral responsibility, I intend to show that this dichotomy does not hold. I close with a discussion of a libertarian alternative to PAP."

Libertarian Robert Kane agrees that Frankfurt cases show that one can be morally responsible for a particular action even though he couldn't have done otherwise just as long as he was libertarian free in forming is character in the past. Robert Allen responds: "The consensus among free will theorists is that an agent can will freely to * without presently being able to form another volition. Frankfurt cases have helped to secure this agreement. It is still an open question, however, whether someone could be willing freely to * if there was nothing that she could have done to keep from forming that volition, her character having been determined."

John Martin Fischer on Frankfurt-Examples and Moral Responsibility: Fischer's a leading expert in this field.