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Freedom, Foreknowledge, and the Principle of Alternate Possibilities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Kadri Vihvelin
Kadri Vihvelin*
Affiliation:
University of Southern CaliforniaLos Angeles, CAUSA90089-0451
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Extract

For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Few arguments in contemporary philosophy have had more influence than Harry Frankfurt's ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsiblity.’ In that famous paper Frankfurt noted that all parties to the traditional debate about the compatibility of free will and moral responsibility with determinism had subscribed to a common assumption. They had assumed the truth of something Frankfurt called ‘the Principle of Alternate Possibilities,’ which he expressed as follows:

(PAP) A person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise.

In the traditional debate incompatibilists argued that if determinism is true, then no one can ever do otherwise, while compatibilists argued that there is a morally relevant sense in which even a deterministic agent can do otherwise. Frankfurt proposed to show that PAPis false, thereby undercutting the traditional debate.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 2000 , pp. 1 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2000

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References

1 Frankfurt, Harry ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,’ Journal of Philosophy 66 (1969) 829-39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Frankfurt's, The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays (New York: Cambridge University Press 1988), 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Page references are to the reprinted version.

2 At one time, discussions of the free will problem began with G.E. Moore's observation that if determinism is true, then there is one sense of ‘can’ in which no one can ever do otherwise: it is inconsistent with the past and the laws of nature that anyone does other than what they actually do. On the other hand, if by 's can do otherwise,’ we mean something like ‘if S chose to do otherwise, he would’ or ‘if Shad what he took to be good reasons for doing otherwise, he would,’ then the truth of determinism is consistent with its being sometimes true that agents can do otherwise. Until the publication of Frankfurt's article, it had been assumed that the question of the compatibility of freedom and moral responsibility with determinism turned on the question of whether any conditional (or, perhaps, dispositional) analysis of ‘can’ succeeds in capturing what we ordinarily mean when we say, in contexts relevant to moral obligation and responsibility, ‘he could have done otherwise’ (Moore, G.E. Ethics [New York: Oxford University Press 1911], chap. 6).Google Scholar

3 The literature is enormous and shows no signs of slowing down. Here's a partial list: Davidson, Donald ‘Freedom to Act,’ in his Essays on Actions and Events (New York: Oxford University Press 1973)Google Scholar; Heinaman, Robert ‘Incompatibilism without the Principle of Alternative Possibilities,’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 64 (1986) 266-76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haji, Ishtiyaque ‘A Riddle Concerning Omissions,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 22 (1992) 485–502CrossRefGoogle Scholar; O'Connor, Timothy ‘Alternative Possibilities and Responsibility,’ Southern Journal of Philosophy 31 (1993) 345-75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zimmerman, David ‘Acts, Omissions, and Semi-Compatibilism,’ Philosophical Studies 73 (1994) 209-23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mcintyre, Alison ‘Compatibilists Could have done Otherwise: Responsibility and Negative Agency,’ Philosophical Review 103 (1994) 453-88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clarke, Randolph ‘Ability and Responsibility for Omissions,’ Philosophical Studies 73 (1994) 195–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Glannon, Walter ‘Responsibility and the Principle of Possible Action,’ Journal of Philosophy 92 (1995) 261-74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mele, Alfred ‘Soft Libertarianism and Frankfurt-Style Scenarios,’ Philosophical Topics 24 (1996) 123-41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Copp, David ‘Defending the Principle of Alternate Possibilities: Blameworthiness and Moral Responsibility,’ Nous 31 (1997) 441-58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rocca, Michael della ‘Frankfurt, Fischer, and Flickers,’ Nous 32 (1998) 99–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Otsuka, Michael ‘Incompatibilism and the Avoidability of Blame,’ Ethics 108 (1998) 685–701CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a bibliography of more articles, see Fischer, John ‘Recent Work on Moral Responsibility,’ Ethics 110 (1999) 93–139CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the references in subsequent notes.

4 Or at least one kind of Frankfurt story. I will be arguing that this isn't the kind of Frankfurt story that we need.

5 Or at least everyone should agree that there is some natural way of individuating actions, events, and states of affairs such that a person may be responsible for an action, event, or state of affairs despite the fact that she could not have avoided performing that action or causing that event or state of affairs. It is, of course, possible to defend PAP’ by insisting that in overdetermination or causal pre-emption scenarios events (actions, etc.) are individuated more finely and that the agent is responsible only for this more finely individuated event, action, or state of affairs. For an example of this way of responding to Frankfurt, see 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

6 For instance, he says: ‘This, then, is why the principle of alternate possibilities is mistaken. It asserts that a person bears no moral responsibility — that is, he is to be excused -for having performed an action, if there were circumstances that made it impossible for him to avoid performing it’ (Frankfurt, 8-9).

7 See, for instance, Dennett, Daniel Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting (Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books 1984), 132Google Scholar; Fischer, John The Metaphysics of Free Will (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers 1994), chap. 7Google Scholar; Haji, Ishtiyaque Moral Appraisability (New York: Oxford University Press 1998), chap. 2Google Scholar.

8 Cf. Widerker, David ‘Libertarianism and Frankfurt's Attack on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities,’ Philosophical Review 104 (1995) 247-61CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Kane, Robert The Significance of Free Will (New York: Oxford University Press 1998), 142-3 and 191-2Google Scholar.

9 See, for instance, Inwagen, Peter van An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1983), chap. 5Google Scholar, and Naylor, M. ‘Frankfurt on the Principle of Alternate Possibilities,’ Philosophical Studies 46 (1984) 249-58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 See Fischer, The Metaphysics of Free Will, 136 and 145Google Scholar. See also Frankfurt, 6 n.3.

11 See, for instance, Mele, Alfred Autonomous Agents (New York: Oxford University Press 1995), 101, n.l8 and 141-2Google Scholar, and Fischer, ‘Libertarianism and Avoidability: A Reply to Widerker,’ Faith and Philosophy 12 (1995) 119-25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Fischer, The Metaphysics of Free Will, 134-47Google Scholar

13 For one dissenting compatibilist, see Campbell, Joseph Keim ‘A Compatibilist Theory of Alternative Possibilities,’ Philosophical Studies 88 (1997) 319-30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 In my discussions of conditional and counterfactual intervention, I will be using ‘decision’ or ‘choice’ to refer to the mental acts that Black controls. But nothing hinges on this. If you have a different theory about the mental goings-on or acts that ‘ground’ or are relevant to an agent's moral responsibility, then feel free to make the relevant substitutions. Just remember that the difference between conditional and counterfactual intervention lies in the fact that the counterfactual intervener's interventions are causally triggered by something that occurs before the relevant mental act or goings-on even begins to takes place, whereas the conditional intervener's interventions are triggered by the beginnings of the relevant mental act or goings-on.

15 ‘[He] waits until Jones is about to make up his mind what to do, and he does nothing unless it is clear to him (Black is an excellent judge of such things) that Jones is going to decide to do something other than what he wants him to do. If it does become clear that Jones is going to decide to do something else, Black takes effective steps to ensure that Jones decides to do, and that he does do, what he wants him to do. Whatever Jones's initial preferences and inclinations, then, Black will have his way’ (Frankfurt, 6).

16 Blumenfeld, ‘The Principle of Alternate Possibilities,’ Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971) 339-45CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, bk. 2, chap. 21, sec.10

18 See, for instance, Robb, David and Mele, Alfred ‘Rescuing Frankfurt-Style Cases,’ The Philosophical Review 107 (1998) 97–113Google Scholar, and David Hunt, ‘Moral Responsibility and Unavoidable Action,’ Philosophical Studies, forthcoming.

19 Note that it is only in the counterfactual scenario in which Jones's freedom of will is of brief duration. In the actual scenario — where Black does not intervene — Jones retains freedom of will at all relevant times. His freedom is fragile, insofar as he continues to enjoy it only so long as he continues to make the choices (form the intentions and resolutions, etc.) that Black wants him to make. But in this respect he differs from the rest of us in degree rather than in kind. For our freedom of will is also fragile; we continue to enjoy it only so long as we are not struck by a bullet, a fast car, or a stroke.

20 A possible exception is Lamb, James ('Evaluative Compatibilism and the Principle of Alternate Possibilities,’ Journal of Philosophy 90 [1993] 517-27)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, Lamb's criticism of Frankfurt's argument is marred by the fact that he fails to recognize the distinction between conditional and counterfactual intervention. In their response to Lamb, Fischer, John and Hoffman, Paul also fail to notice the distinction (‘Alternative Possibilities: A Reply to Lamb,’ Journal of Philosophy 91 [1994] 321-6).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 In saying this, I do not mean to imply that only a genuinely chancy coin toss is a fair one. But for the purposes of this story, I stipulate that this coin toss is fair in the most straightforward way; the laws of physics, together with facts about the coin and the environment in which it is tossed, assign an objective probability of .5 to the outcome heads and .5 to the outcome tails.

22 These people are in effect claiming, that, given the facts about Black's impressive track record, we are entitled to conclude that it's not just an accident that the coin always lands in the way that Black wants. They claim that the best explanation for the correlation between Black's desires and the outcome of the coin toss is that there is a lawlike but noncausal connection between some earlier event (the tickle or blush) and facts about what the outcome of any particular coin toss would be (in the absence of intervention). It is on the basis of this earlier event that Black makes his decision to either intervene or not.

23 These are people who argue that it's impossible for anyone, even someone with godlike knowledge, to know what the outcome of an indeterministic process would be (in the absence of intervention). However, even these people must I think concede that there is no contradiction in the following story: Black makes his predictions on the basis of a series of hunches about the fall of the coin and intervenes if and only if he predicts that the coin would otherwise land tails. The coin in fact always lands heads, about half the time due to objective chance (tested in the usual way), the other half due to Black's prior intervention (again, testable: he substitutes a weighted coin, or puts a magnet under the table). I thank Fred Dretske, Dagfin Follesdal, and others at Stanford for pressing this objection. See also notes 27, 28, and 29.

24 I stipulate this because I want to tell a story in which it's clear that Black is only a counterfactual intervener.

25 Cf. the debate between McDermott, Michael (‘Lewis on Causal Dependence,’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 73 [1995] 129-39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Reply to Ramachandran,’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74 [1996], 330) and Ramachandran, Murali (‘McDermott on Causation: A Counter-Example,’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74 [1996] 328-9)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 I am here assuming the standard reading of a ‘might’ counterfactual as equivalent to the negation of the corresponding ‘would-not’ counterfactual. (If p, it might be that q is true iff it's false that if p, it would not be the case that q.)

27 Some supporters of Frankfurt appeal to the medieval doctrine of ‘middle knowledge’ which was invoked by Molina to explain God's knowledge of so-called ‘counterfactuals of freedom.’ Molina claimed that there are true counterfactuals about how an indeterministic free agent would choose in nonactual circumstances and that God's knowledge includes knowledge of these counterfactuals. See Fischer, John ‘Libertarianism and Avoidability: A Reply to Widerker,’ Faith and Philosophy 12 (1995) 119-25CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a critical discussion of this view, see Hasker, William God, Time, and Knowledge (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1989), 15–52Google Scholar.

28 That is, I think that Frankfurt's argument fails regardless of whether Jones's choice is an indeterministic event or a deterministic event (which may unproblematically be known in advance). The coin story could be reformulated as the story of a deterministic but genuinely fair coin toss. Roughly, a deterministic toss is a fair one if the coin can land either way given the laws and intrinsic facts about the coin, its environment, and the abilities of the tosser immediately before the coin toss. The last part is meant to rule out cases where the tosser has the ability to reliably bring it about that the coin lands a certain way. Even though, as Black's accomplice, I know THAT the coin will land heads every evening at the appointed time, it's false that I know HOW to make the coin land heads. If you asked me to do it again, I would be as likely to fail as succeed.

29 Do I need to stipulate that Black has knowledge, or does it suffice to say that somehow the coin always ends up landing in the way that Black wants it to land, whether because of Black's knowledge or because Black is an uncommonly lucky guy; a guesser with a 100% success rate?

I'm not sure, because my aim is to construct a story with the same formal structure as a Frankfurt (counterfactual intervention) story and it's not clear what this is. Does the intuitive force of Frankfurt stories depend on Black's knowing what Jones will decide? Or is it enough that somehow Jones always ends up deciding in the way that Black wants him to decide, whether because of Black's knowledge or because Black is an extraordinarily reliable guesser? Or could it be that what makes the stories work is that we equivocate between these two ways of thinking of Black's powers? When we think of Jones as a morally responsible agent, we think that Black is just a very lucky guesser; when we think of Jones as someone who lacks alternatives, we think that Black knows his future choices.

I leave this as a question to be debated among the followers of Frankfurt. In my criticism of Frankfurt I assume what Frankfurt assumed and what makes his case strongest; that Black knows what the outcome of an indeterministic process would be (in the absence of intervention). But my criticism stands intact if Black's success is due to an incredible run of luck.

30 Cf. Fischer: ‘If he were about to refrain (in the absence of intervention by an external agent or factor) the triggering event would already have occurred. [If the triggering event had already occurred, Black would have intervened and forced Jones to act, in which case Jones would not have been able to refrain.] If Jones were about to refrain, he would be rendered unable to refrain’ ('Alternative Possibilities: A Reply to Lamb,’ 326).

31 Downing, P.J. was the first to direct our attention to an instance of this fallacy in his ‘Subjunctive Conditionals, Time Order, and Causation,’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 59 (1958-59) 125-40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For discussion of this and other counterfactual fallacies, see Lewis, David Counterfactuals (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1973), 31-6Google Scholar. See also Bennett, Jonathan ‘Counterfactuals and Temporal Direction,’ Philosophical Review 93 (1984) 57–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 I take a fatalist to be someone who argues, on the basis of considerations of truth and logic alone, that everything that happens, including everything we do, is necessary (unavoidable, could not have been otherwise, etc.). A classic form of fatalist reasoning is as follows: ‘It's true that I will eat com flakes for breakfast tomorrow. Necessarily, if it's true that I will eat com flakes for breakfast tomorrow, then I will eat corn flakes for breakfast tomorrow. So I must eat corn flakes for breakfast tomorrow.’ A slightly more subtle form of fatalist reasoning is represented by the following argument: ‘I can eat pancakes for breakfast tomorrow only if I can do so, given all the facts. But all the facts include facts about the future, including the fact that I will eat nothing but com flakes for breakfast tomorrow. So I cannot eat pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.’ For a good discussion of other fatalist fallacies, see Lewis, David ‘The Paradoxes of Time Travel,’ American Philosophical Quarterly 13 (1976) 145-52Google Scholar, reprinted in his Philosophical Papers Volume 2 (New York: Oxford University Press 1986), 67-80.

33 Of course a libertarian need not suppose that every choice is 50/50, and there can be room for the agent's past to weight the odds, but it should be clear that the preceding argument carries through however the odds are structured.

34 I don't mean to suggest that this is easy. Just before Frankfurt published his article, there was an enormous literature devoted to the question of whether any so-called ‘conditional analysis’ of ‘could have done otherwise’ could be defended against various sorts of counterexamples, and the prospects for a successful account were beginning to look bleak. But that was thirty years ago. We now have a few advantages we didn't have then, most notably, the Lewis-Stalnaker semantics for counterfactuals. See Lewis, Counterfactuals, and also ‘Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow,’ Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, ibid., 3–66Google Scholar and Stalnaker, Robert Inquiry (Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books 1984), esp. chaps. 6-8Google Scholar. There is also the question of the relation between abilities, capacities, dispositions, and counterfactuals. The old literature didn't draw any distinctions; it was assumed that to say that someone/something has an ability, capacity, or disposition to (do) x is just to say that she/it would (do) x, given certain conditions. This assumption is no longer accepted for dispositions like fragility and solubility, and there is an interesting literature of puzzle cases which are similar, in many ways, to Frankfurt stories. I suspect that this literature has something to tell us about how we should think about the abilities and capacities that constitute free will. See Martin, C. B. ‘Dispositions and Conditionals,’ Philosophical Quarterly 44 (1994) 1–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Lewis, David ‘Finkish Dispositions,’ Philosophical Quarterly 47 (1997) 143-58CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I thank David Sanford for drawing my attention to this literature.

35 Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the University of Southern California, Stanford University, and at the 1999 Pacific Division meetings of the APA. I thank audience members for their questions and helpful criticism. I'm also grateful to Mark Bernstein, Randolph Clarke, Ishtiyaque Haji, Frances Howard-Snyder, Hud Hudson, Robert Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Ned Markosian, Alfred Mele, Adam Morton, Murali Ramachandran, David Sanford, Howard Sobel, Dan Speak, Tim O'Connor, Peter van Inwagen, David Widerker, and two anonymous referees for the Canadian Journal of Philosophy for written comments and helpful discussion. My deepest thanks and appreciation are to Terrance Tomkow.