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Causal History Matters, but Not for Individuation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Kevin Timpe
Kevin Timpe*
Affiliation:
University of San Diego, San Diego, CA92110, USA
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Extract

In ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,’ Harry Frankfurt introduces a scenario aimed at showing that the having of alternative possibilities is not required for moral responsibility. According to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP), an agent is morally responsible for her action only if she could have done otherwise; Frankfurt thinks his scenario shows that PAP is, in fact, false. Frankfurt also thinks that the denial of PAP gives credence to compatibilism, the thesis that an agent could both be causally determined in all her actions and yet be morally responsible. Since its introduction, Frankfurt's original example has generated a voluminous literature, including a plethora of other, more complicated, Frankfurt-style examples (FSEs).

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 77 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2009

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References

1 According to Frankfurt, ‘counterexamples to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities do not actually show that attributions of moral responsibility are compatible with determinism. They do go a long way, I think, to making compatibilism plausible’ (‘Reply to Fischer, John Martin,’ in Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt, Buss, Sarah and Overton, Lee eds. [Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 2002], 28Google Scholar). Similarly, John Martin Fischer writes that ‘the success of the Frankfurttype strategy should not be judged on the basis of whether the Frankfurt-type cases in themselves decisively establish that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism. That they do not do all the work does not show that they do not do some important work’ (‘Frankfurt-Style Compatibilism,’ Contours of Agency, 8f.

2 Vihvelin, Kadri ‘Freedom, Foreknowledge, and the Principle of Alternate Possibilities,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 30 (2000),CrossRefGoogle Scholar 1f.

3 However, some compatibilists still maintain that moral responsibility requires the ability to do otherwise. See Campbell, Joseph Keim ‘A Compatibilist Theory of Alternative Possibilities,’ Philosophical Studies 88 (1997) 319–30;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Vihvelin, Kadri ‘Freedom, Foreknowledge, and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities’; and Bernard Berofsky, ‘Classical Compatibilism: Not Yet Dead,’ in Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities: Essays on the Importance of Alternative Possibilities, McKenna, Michael and Widerker, David eds. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate 2003) 107–26.Google Scholar

4 For representative samples, see Robert Kane, ‘Responsibility, Indeterminism and Frankfurt-style Cases,’ in Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities: 91-105; David, Widerker ‘Libertarianism and Frankfurt's Attack on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities,’ Philosophical Review 104 (1995) 247–61;Google Scholar and Ginet, Carl ‘In Defense of the Principle of Alternative Possibilities: Why I Don't Find Frankfurt’s Argument Convincing,’ Philosophical Perspectives 10 (1996) 403–17.Google Scholar However, compare John Martin Fischer, ‘Frankfurt-Style Compatibilism.’

5 See, for instance, Eleonore Stump, ‘Moral Responsibility without Alternative Possibilities,’ in Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities, 139-58; Stump, Eleonore ‘Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility: The Flicker of Freedom,’ Journal of Ethics 3 (1999) 299–324;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Zagzebski, Linda ‘Does Libertarian Freedom Require Alternative Possibilities?’ Philosophical Perspectives 14, Action and Freedom (2000) 231–48;Google Scholar and Hunt, David ‘Moral Responsibility and Unavoidable Action,’ Philosophical Studies 97, 2 (2000) 195–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 The locus classicus for discussions of the Flicker strategy is chapter 7 of John Martin Fischer's The Metaphysics of Free Will (Cambridge: Blackwell 1994).

7 Fischer, The Metaphysics of Free Will, 134Google Scholar

8 For my rejection of the first strategy, see my ‘Trumping Frankfurt: Why the Kane-Widerker Objection is Irrelevant,’ Philosophia Christi 5 (2003) 485-99. For my rejection of the second strategy, see ‘A Critique of Frankfurt-Libertarianism,’ Philosophia 34 (2006) 189-202. For my defense of the third strategy, see both ‘A Critique of Frankfurt-Libertarianism’ and ‘The Dialectic Role of the Flickers of Freedom,’ Philosophical Studies 131 (2006) 337-68.

9 Pettit, Gordon ‘Moral Responsibility and the Ability to do Otherwise,’ Journal of Philosophical Research 30 (2005) 303–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Actually, Pettit's article is concerned not with a Principle of Alternative Possibilities, but with Principles of Alternative Possibilities. Nothing of significance hangs on the terminology here, though Pettit is certainly right that numerous such principles are advanced in the literature. In what follows, however, I will follow more traditional parlance and speak in the singular. Also note that Pettit is only concerned to those formulations of PAP that contain a historical or tracing clause (see 319, n. 34). I also think that whatever PAP is required by incompatibilism will include a tracing clause. However, for an excellent paper that raises serious challenges for tracing, see Vargas, Manuel ‘The Trouble with Tracing,’ Midwest Studies in Philosophy 29 (2005) 269–91.Google Scholar For a response, see John Martin Fischer and Neal Tognazzini, ‘The Truth about Tracing,’ Nous (forthcoming).

11 Pettit, ‘Moral Responsibility and the Ability to do Otherwise,’ 304

12 Ibid., 304

13 John Martin Fischer, ‘Frankfurt-Style Compatibilism,’ 6. Similar comments are made by Mele, Alfred another opponent of PAP, in ‘Soft Libertarianism and Flickers of Freedom,’ in Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities, 253.Google Scholar

14 Elsewhere, I have used the term ‘Frankfurt-Incompatibilism’ to describe this position (see my ‘A Critique of Frankfurt-Libertarianism’). John Fischer calls this view ‘hyper-incompatibilism’ (The Metaphysics of Free Will, 180), though more recently he prefers the term ‘actual-sequence incompatibilism’ (‘Recent Work on Moral Responsibility,’ Ethics 110 (1999), 93).

15 Stump, Eleonore ‘Libertarian Freedom and the Principle of Alternative Possibilities,’ in Faith, Freedom and Rationality, Howard-Snyder, Daniel and Jordan, Jeff eds. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield 1996), 88.Google Scholar

16 Stump, ‘Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,’ 302Google Scholar

17 Ibid., 314

18 Stump says as much in a recent article, where she defines PAP as ‘the principle that alternative possibilities for action are required for moral responsibility’ (‘Moral Responsibility without Alternative Possibilities,’ 139). Keep in mind that both Stump and Pettit understand the principle at issue to implicitly contain a historical or tracing clause.

19 Frankfurt, Harry ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,’ Journal of Philosophy 66 (1969), 836CrossRefGoogle Scholar (emphasis added).

20 See my ‘A Critique of Frankfurt-Libertarianism.’

21 See Inwagen, Peter van ‘Ability and Responsibility,’ Philosophical Review 87 (1978)Google Scholar 201-24 and An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1983), particularly 169.

22 The discussion here assumes that actions are a sub-species of events. For contrary views, see Wright, Georg Henrik von Norm and Action (New York: Humanities Press 1963);Google Scholar Bach, Kent ‘Actions are Not Events,’ Mind 89 (1980) 114–20;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Grice, Paul ‘Actions and Events,’ Philosophical Quarterly 67 (1986) 1–35.Google Scholar However, insofar as Pettit also assumes that actions are events, I will ignore these competing views here.

23 Pettit, ‘Moral Responsibility and the Ability to do Otherwise,’ 309Google Scholar

24 Ibid.

25 Davidson, Donald ‘The Individual of Events,’ Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2001) 163–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In the introduction to Keith Lehrer, Radu Bogdan, ed. (Dordrecth: D. Reidel Publishing 1981), Lehrer suggests that he advocated a similar view before Davidson's influential paper.

26 Pettit, ‘Moral Responsibility and the Ability to do Otherwise,’ 310Google Scholar

27 Ibid. Van Inwagen also grants that he cannot conclusively argue that events should be individuated on the basis of their causal histories: ‘I do not know how to justify my intuition that this criterion is correct, any more than I know how to justify my belief in the causal-genesis criterion [of material substances]. But, of course, arguments must come to an end somewhere. I can only suggest that since substances (such as human beings and tables) should be individuated by their causal origins, and since we are talking about events that, like substances, are particulars, the present proposal is plausible’ (An Essay on Free Will, 169). For a criticism of this analogy, see Bennett, Jonathan Events and Their Names (Hackett: Indianapolis 1988), 59.Google Scholar

28 In personal correspondence, Pettit writes that his ‘position on event individuation is not the result of a mere slide from a weaker claim to a stronger one as implied by at least one portion of your response. Rather, it was an explicit conclusion drawn from an argument to the best explanation (see 310).’ Nevertheless, it still seems to me that Pettit's example only establish the thesis that causal origin matters, and not the stronger conclusion that causal origin matters for individuation. For example, the historical origins of a plane's crashing will be important for resolving who, if anyone, is causally responsible for that crashing, and similar comments hold for his other examples. I fail to see that Pettit has shown any ‘important questions’ that would be ‘impossible to answer’ (310) if his thesis regarding causal origins of events is false.

29 Christopher, Hughes ‘The Essentiality of Origin and the Individuation of Events,’ Philosophical Quarterly 44 (1994), 42Google Scholar

30 See, for example, his discussion of negligent omissions on 313f. For a more explicit endorsement that omissions can be causes, see Pettit's doctoral dissertation, Conditions for Moral Responsibility (University of Notre Dame 2000), 87, n. 43.

31 For a discussion of light cones and their relation to events, see Hawking, Stephen A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantham Books 1988),Google Scholar particularly 24f.

32 Bennett, Events and Their Names, 59. In personal correspondence, Pettit writes that ‘your objection related to Bennett's views about omissions is a concern for me. But you should note that my account of omissions for which someone is responsible always trace back to an action of the agent (see 313). Omissions are only relevant for moral responsibility when they can be traced to an action that involved alternatives for the agent, so are limited temporally in a way that Bennett's example is not.’ While I concede that Pettit limits moral responsibility for omissions to only those that can be traced back to a free action or decision on the part of the agent in question, Bennett's point remains untouched. In order to avoid the force of Bennett's objection, Pettit would need to develop an account that would place a historical-temporal boundary on the essentiality of causal origin.

33 Instead, most metaphysicians who have written on the subject embrace a property-exemplification view of events. See, among others, Kim, Jaegwon ‘Causes and Events: Mackie on Causation,’ Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971) 426–41;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kim, ‘Events as Property Exemplifications,’ in Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings, Hales, Richard ed. (Belmont, CA: Wordsworth 1998) 336–47;Google Scholar Kim, ‘Events: Their Metaphysics and Semantics,’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51 (1991): 641–6;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Jonathan Bennett, Events and Their Names; Lombard, Lawrence Brian Events: A Metaphysical Study (London: Routledge and Keegan Paul 1986);Google Scholar and Carol Cleland, ‘On the Individuation of Events’ Synthese (1991) 229-54.

34 Ekstrom, Laura Free Will: A Philosophical Study (Boulder, CO: Westview 2000)Google Scholar, 215f., n. 14. I return to the second of Ekstrom's points in the next section. For another incompatibilist rejection of van Inwagen and Pettit's approach, see Ginet, Carl On Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990), 70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 Fischer, ‘Frankfurt-Type Examples and Semi-Compatibilism,’ in The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, Kane, Robert ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002), 287.Google Scholar Fischer also responds to individuating events in virtue of their causal origins in The Metaphysics of Free Will, 131-59 and Fischer, and Ravizza, Mark Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998), 95–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Pettit, ‘Moral Responsibility and the Ability to do Otherwise,’ 307Google Scholar

37 Ibid., 304. As Pettit notes, the second stage of the argument presupposes success in the first stage: ‘there has to be an alternative possibility if there is a robust alternative’ (304).

38 Ibid., 313

39 Ibid.

40 Mele, Alfred ‘Flickers of Freedom,’ Journal of Social Philosophy 29 (1998), 154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Rocca, Michael Della makes a similar point in his ‘Frankfurt, Fischer and Flickers,’ Nous 32 (1998), 102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This response is what I refer to as the Weak Strategy in my ‘The Dialectic Role of the Flickers of Freedom.’

41 Pettit, ‘Moral Responsibility and the Ability to do Otherwise,’ 315Google Scholar

42 Linda, Zagzebski ‘Does Libertarian Freedom Require Alternative Possibilities?’ Philosophical Perspectives 14 (2000), 243f.Google Scholar

43 This isn't to suggest that sourcehood is independent of matters of alternative possibilities. In my Free Will: Sourcehood and its Alternatives (London: Continuum Press 2008), I argue that an agent who satisfies the sourcehood condition for moral responsibility will also satisfy an alternative possibilities condition.

44 Kane, Robert ‘Two Kinds of Incompatibilism,’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (1989), 254CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 See, for instance, Stump, Eleonore ‘Augustine and Free Will,’ in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, Stump, Eleonore and Kretzmann, Norman eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001), 125–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 Otsuka, Michael ‘Incompatibilism and the Avoidability of Blame,’ Ethics 108 (1998), 686CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Ibid., 688

48 For further arguments for this claim, see chapters 6 and 7 of my Free Will: Sourcehood and Its Alternatives.

49 Pettit, ‘Moral Responsibility and the Ability to do Otherwise,’ 309

50 Cf. Stump, ‘Moral Responsibility without Alternative Possibilities,’ 151: ‘it is up to [the agent] whether or not he does what is blameworthy. But it need not be up to Jones in virtue of the fact that alternative possibilities for action [i.e., numerically distinct actions] are open to him.’

51 Fischer, John argues against the incompatibilist understanding of sourcehood in ‘Problems with Actual-Sequence Incompatibilism,’ The Journal of Ethics 4 (2000), 326Google Scholar and ‘Frankfurt-Style Compatibilism,’ 9-18. However, he embraces a compatibilist version of the sourcehood condition on moral responsibility. See also the discussion in chapter 5 of my Free Will: Sourcehood and Its Alternatives.

52 I would like to thank Gordon Pettit, Dan Speak, Neal Tognazzini, and two anonymous referees for very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.