Abstract
The compatibility of determinism and the ability to do otherwise has been implicitly assumed by many to be irrelevant to the viability of compatibilist responses to the manipulation argument for incompatibilism. I argue that this assumption is mistaken. The manipulation argument may be unsound. But even so, the manipulation argument, at the very least, undermines classical compatibilism, the view that free will requires the ability to do otherwise, and having that ability is compatible with determinism. This is because classical compatibilism, in conjunction with any type of reply to the manipulation argument, has counterintuitive implications. In order to avoid such implications, we need not hold that determinism is incompatible with moral responsibility. But we must hold that determinism is incompatible with the ability to do otherwise.
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Notes
For a defense of classical compatibilism, see Saunders (1968), Lehrer (1976), Horgan (1979), Lewis (1981), Campbell (1997), Smith (2003), Fara (2008), Perry (2008), Kapitan (2011), Berofsky (2012), and Vihvelin (2013). Wolf (1990) and Nelkin (2011) do not hold that free will requires the ability to do otherwise. But they do hold that an agent is blameworthy for what she has done only if she could have done otherwise, and, crucially, having the ability to do otherwise is compatible with determinism. So Wolf and Nelkin are likewise subject to the challenge of this paper.
As will become evident, I largely ignore Cases 2 and 3, and instead focus on comparing Case 1 with Case 4. The reason why I still focus on Pereboom’s argument rather than, e.g., Mele’s (2006) manipulation argument which only compares two cases is that the kind of direct manipulation present in Case 1 better serves my aim of drawing out certain implications from classical compatibilism.
Some of these conditions include, but are not limited to, having the appropriate set of higher-order desires (Frankfurt 1971), being reasons-responsive (Fischer and Ravizza 1998), having the ability to regulate one’s actions by moral reasons (Wallace 1994), and having the ability to develop one’s moral character over time (Mele 1995; Haji 1998).
Throughout the paper, I ignore the issue of satisfying epistemic conditions for responsibility since such conditions cut across the free will debate.
All references to Case 1 and the FCMA henceforth are references to the new Case 1 and the new FCMA unless explicitly noted otherwise.
For the purposes of this paper, I understand a historical condition for responsibility to include what I will call both a positive-historical condition and a negative-historical condition. A positive-historical condition concerns having a certain history. By contrast, a negative-historical condition concerns merely not having a certain kind of defective history (for further discussion, see e.g., McKenna (2012), Haji (2013), and Mele (2013)). This distinction is irrelevant to my argument below. For, I will be concerned with extrinsic differences between Plum1 and Plum4 which include (but are not necessarily limited to) both positive-historical conditions and negative-historical conditions for responsibility.
This sort of consideration seems to have been largely overlooked in the literature.
Notice that I am not committed to the claim that the ability to do otherwise is identical to the wide ability to do otherwise.
A disposition (which, according to Vihvelin, is what an ability reduces to) is finkish when there is something that would remove the disposition precisely under conditions in which the disposition would ordinarily be manifested. A masked disposition is one in which, under conditions in which it would ordinarily be manifested, the disposition fails to be manifested without the disposition being removed.
In order for LCA-PROP-ABILITY to apply to mental actions such as Plum’s decision to kill White, I am charitably assuming that it makes sense to try to decide to do something, and that there is a way around objections embodied by Lehrer’s (1968) red candy case. See Clarke (2009: 328–329) and Vihvelin (2013: 196–208).
Perhaps a compatibilist can construct an alternative account of abilities whereby it is objectionable to stipulate that Plum1 and Plum4 are intrinsic duplicates of one another in all relevant respects and yet only Plum1 is being manipulated. However, unless such an alternative account of abilities is offered, I contend that such a stipulation about Cases 1–4 remains unproblematic.
The SLCC theorist who accepts (i) and PAP would presumably say that Plum1 is not blameworthy for deciding to kill White at least partly because Plum1 was not able to do other than decide to kill White.
Perhaps we lack ultimate ‘heaven and hell’ responsibility for our actions given that we are not causa sui. As Clarke (2005: 20–3) notes, however, it does not follow that we lack a weaker form of basic desert responsibility.
One difference between Plum1 and the manager is that Plum1 is unaware of the manipulation, whereas the manager is, we may suppose, aware of the fact that the employee influenced the manager’s action of insulting the employee. But this difference is surely irrelevant. For, I know of no one who thinks that we must be aware of all of the factors that are influencing our action in order to be responsible for that action. Moreover, such a condition on responsibility would render virtually everyone blameless for their actions since virtually no one is aware of all of the factors that influence their actions.
I understand the kind of manipulation in Case 1 to be direct, whereas the kind of manipulation in Case 2 (being programmed at the beginning of one’s life) fails to be direct.
The libertarian would of course dispute the claim that Jones φ-s on her own if Jones’ φ-ing is causally determined by factors beyond her control. But here we are interested in what classical compatibilists such as Vihvelin say about traditional deterministic FSCs.
Although Vihvelin does not explicitly say that Jones has the wide ability to do otherwise in a deterministic FSC in which Black doesn’t intervene but employs the Preemptor method, this is, I think, the correct and charitable interpretation of Vihvelin’s position given her use of an analogy of a coin toss in the context of Jones’ abilities in a deterministic FSC. More specifically, Vihvelin (2013: 104) says that a coin which comes up heads could have come up tails in light of not only the coin’s intrinsic properties, but also given “facts about its [the coin’s] environment”, i.e., given the coin’s opportunity to come up tails.
Vihvelin holds that a deterministic FSC in which Black (who does not actually intervene) employs the Bodyguard method does not refute PAP even though Jones who φ-s does not retain the wide ability to ~φ but only retains the wide ability to, say, try to ~φ. Consider what Vihvelin’s (2013: 101) says:
Insofar as Black is a Bodyguard […] he succeeds in depriving Jones of the alternative required for freedom of action, but he necessarily fails to deprive Jones of the alternatives required for freedom of will. And, of course, it is freedom of will that is the classical locus of moral responsibility.
I understand Vihvelin’s remarks here not to concern the distinction between having a narrow ability to φ and a having wide ability to φ. Instead, I understand these remarks to concern the distinction between the performance of an overt bodily movement and the mere performance of a mental action. Applying Vihvelin’s remarks to the FCMA is complicated by the fact that the kind of action Plum performs is a decision—a mental action. Still, let’s continue to assume the coherence of trying to perform a decision. Now, suppose Vihvelin were to hold (as she very well may) that in order for Plum to be responsible for deciding to kill White, Plum only needs the wide ability to try to decide to kill White. Might Vihvelin avoid being committed to (C) even if, as a proponent of PAP, she were to endorse a hard-line reply? In other words, can Vihvelin commit to HLLC and (iii) without being committed to (C)? No. Instead of focusing on Plum1’s decision, we can simply shift our attention to Plum1’s attempt to make his decision. If Plum1 is responsible for his attempt to make his decision, and PAP is true, then Plum1 could have refrained from trying to make his decision, despite the fact that Plum1’s attempt to make his decision was the result of the direct manipulation of the neuroscientists.
What if Vihvelin were to accept a hard-line reply, reject PAP as I understand the principle, and hold instead that an agent is responsible for what she has done only if she has the narrow (but not the wide) ability to do otherwise, or at least has the narrow (but not the wide) ability to try to do otherwise? If Vihvelin went this route, she would be subject to the second horn of my dilemma for the HLLC theorist which I will discuss shortly. Moreover, going this route seems to have the implausible implication that in the airplane scenario discussed in section 2, Jacqueline du Pré can be (non-derivatively) morally responsible for not playing the cello.
Among the very few philosophers that have explicitly considered the relationship between classical compatibilism and the manipulation argument, Berofsky (2006: 435–9) claims that it is question-begging against the classical compatibilist to assume that an agent cannot do otherwise in the case of manipulation. My response is threefold. First, classical compatibilism does not by itself entail (C). So, to say that (C) is implausible does not amount to saying that classical compatibilism is implausible. Rather, the point of highlighting (C)’s implausibility is to show that the conjunction of HLCC and PAP is implausible. Second, as already noted, in light of what classical compatibilists such as Vihvelin seem to implicitly hold regarding Actual Intervention, there is indeed internal pressure upon such classical compatibilists to reject (C). Third, even if my case against (C) won’t convince a classical compatibilist, a group of agnostics about classical compatibilism would arguably be inclined to reject (C). This in turn should count as a cost to those who accept HLCC and PAP. In other words, my attack on (C) is not a so-called philosophical failure. For more on what does and does not constitute a philosophical failure, see Fischer and Tognazzini (2007).
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Acknowledgments
An early version of this paper was presented at the “Free Will and Moral Responsibility” summer school, hosted by the Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies; thanks to all participants in this group for helpful comments. Additionally, for helpful comments and discussion, I am grateful to Lorenza D’Angelo, John Fischer, Mark Heller, Sofia Jeppsson, Simon Kittle, Benjamin Matheson, Dan Miller, Matthew Talbert, Travis Timmerman, and an anonymous referee.
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Cohen, Y. The Manipulation Argument, At the Very Least, Undermines Classical Compatibilism. Philosophia 43, 291–307 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-015-9583-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-015-9583-9