Abstract
We study action, failure and free will choice in stit logic. We identify a failing action as a situation where there is a discrepancy between the objective act conducted by an agent and the choice the agent believes to be exercising. To model this in stit logic, we consider extensions with epistemic operators. We discuss several possible logical properties as candidates for a logic of choice, action and failure. Then we propose a definition of free will choice, which uses the distinction between objective action and subjective choice to account for the free will aspect of a choice. The properties of free will choice suggest a connection with so called Frankfurt examples. We investigate this link and discuss issues of determinism, compatibilism and moral responsibility in our context.
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- 1.
Freedom of choice does not mean that agents cannot be strongly compelled to choose in a certain way.
- 2.
Computer scientist are used to think of actions as some kind of instructions defined by a programming environment, which explains why they do not distinguish between actions and action types.
- 3.
In the meta-language we use these symbols both as constant names and as variable names. The same holds for the symbols \(h,h^\prime,\ldots\) used to refer to histories.
- 4.
We could also define this as a function: \(E: S \times H \times {2}^{Ags}\mapsto {2}^{S\times H}\setminus \varnothing \) to emphasize the relation with similar formalisms based on a single state (Herzig and Schwarzentruber 2008).
- 5.
See also the discussion in Belnap et al. (2001) concerning the ‘thin red line’.
- 6.
A possible weakness of our view here is that it suggests that as soon as some agent has the opportunity and ability to prevent the apple from falling from the tree as the result of the wind shaking the tree, without actually seeing to it that the apple does not fall, the falling is not caused by the shaking, but due to the choice of the agent not to prevent it from falling.
- 7.
In view of the criticism expressed in the previous footnote, we can say that Definition 9.3.1 rather gives a minimum criterion for causal relations than a complete definition.
- 8.
What is meant by ‘strategic’ here is that an action possibly involves several subsequent choices. In game theory one refers to such settings as ‘extensive games’.
- 9.
And, if we replace the diamond version of the modality by the box version, we would actually get the truth axiom for knowingly doing. And than, again, we are back in the situation where choice cannot be unsuccessful.
- 10.
Note that this does not say Frankfurt’s claim is an argument for compatibilism: strictly speaking it only attacks an argument against compatibilism, which is not necessarily the same.
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Broersen, J., Meyer, JJ.C. (2014). Action, Failure and Free Will Choice in Epistemic stit Logic. In: Lihoreau, F., Rebuschi, M. (eds) Epistemology, Context, and Formalism. Synthese Library, vol 369. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02943-6_9
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