NEGOTIATED FREEDOM: REASON AND RESPONSIBILITY
This paper attempts to construct what is essentially a libertarian position on the issue of free will, but one with significant virtues that will appeal to the person with sympathies toward compatablism or even determinism. My explicit strategy is to attempt to find a framework that affords us the opportunity to embrace a broader range of the values that motivate philosophers when considering these issues, where otherwise we may be tempted to protect some of them by sacrificing the others. This picture that I will be arguing for has many elements that are usefully understood as compatablist and so I wish to begin with a few comments regarding compatablism that will hopefully clear up any possible confusion of terms and explain how my position is not entirely in the compatablist camp.
I have observed that classic compatablism always begins with the assumption of the thesis of determinism. The demand compatablism shoulders is that it give an adequate explanation for how the notion of responsibility (which compatablists take to be all that we want from the concept of ‘freedom’) is capable of being usefully and justifiably applied to a system in which there can only be one way the world is. In this way ‘free will’ is negotiated to fit the structure of determinism, which is treated as unrevisable.
This approach is rejected by my method. Instead what I will do is assume that there is at least one thing that can be intelligibly considered as undetermined, and try to make determinism fit that metaphysical requirement through the same method as classic compatablism does with the doctrine of freedom – ask what it is we are trying to get philosophically when we are attached to the thesis of determinism and address that. This approach can be seen as compatablist in the sense that I am trying to negotiate a way in which some interpretation of the thesis of determinism is able to be situated within a world where we have freedom, but it is decidedly not compatablist since it reverses the method whereby compatablism has been done in the past.
The reason behind this reversal of methods is that I think that compatablists already put themselves on untenable ground by giving so much conceptual weight to the deterministic position with the expectation that the libertarian will be able to bend and twist around to fit the rigidity of the thesis of determinism without compromising the essentials of what we want by the concept of a ‘free will.’[1] Dialectally, the libertarians have been on the defense for so long, and so they have been forced to prove this flexibility—most notably by the ‘Deep-Self’ advocates (to use Susan Wolf’s term) as they attempt to fit circumstantial considerations into their conception of responsibility. But it is worth noting that determinists have not been put under this kind of demand.
Determinists (and compatablists who are committed to the truth of the thesis of determinism) argue that the thesis of determinism is not permitting of revision, and that either it is objectively true or objectively false. I think that this ignores the component of human perspective (and the irreducible subjectivity in such perspectives) that is essentially a part of the intelligible application of the thesis of determinism – the inevitable demand to actualize intellectualisms. After all, this whole debate is couched in terms of ethical considerations (practical reason). The “myth of freedom” that advocates of the thesis of determinism accuse libertarians of[2] works just as well the other way around if we consider that the theory of total functionalist order (in such deterministic perspectives as computationalism) can be just as easily posited as a mythological story that we tell in order to make the world “make sense.”
In another way, Galen Strawson’s famous argument that the libertarian position is hopeless caught in an infinite regress into deeper and deeper layers of human motivations is a model that parallels for all practical purposes the way in which determinism is forced into an endless regress of causal stories with no intelligible starting point. Any intelligible deterministic story has to justify why the causes it identifies are the most significant to determining the effect, but this cannot be done without a justified story analyzing how that cause was caused (what ‘causes’ that cause to be the most significant for our understanding).
Conventional libertarians, and advocates of any other position (compatablist or determinist) that strictly assumes the thesis of determinism, are forced to make their metaphysical commitments a part of their initial assumptions. For this reason, I find them all equally unsatisfactory. The observations above only serve to show us that the criticism of dogmatism holds no argumentative weight since all the positions are equally guilty. What I propose instead is a conception of freedom that is “negotiated” between the assumption that there is only one way the world is and the assumption that there are multiple possibilities. In this way I hope to persuade advocates of all of these positions that my solution is preferable, since my goal will be to capture all but the most extreme intuitions in my model for human action and responsibility.
A Metaphysical Allegory
To introduce my solution I want to consider the basic metaphysical commitments that the traditional positions of libertarianism, compatablism, and determinism most essentially are culpable for. To do this I will use the analogy of train tracks as representative for causal chains.
The determinist pictures the metaphysical world as containing one singular track – it doesn’t matter if the track is straight or curved. It is entirely linear since there is nothing else for such shapes to be relative to, that would give such variation meaning for the analogy. Modal possibilities contain no ‘real’ plausibility so they are not depicted in the picture. As we ride down the track we can certainly imagine that the train could hop the rails and start traveling off in another direction, but of course that never happens and the point is moot.
The libertarian sees an endless criss-crossing of tracks in an elaborate web, where each node has multiple connections with other tracks. And while, as the train is moving along, we might consider all other tracks behind it as magically disappearing as the train passes along its course, where the train will go next no one can tell. For the train can change direction at any moment and head off in a new direction totally opposite from the way it was previously moving. There are no guides that help direct where these turns will take place, and at every node that it passes (which happens at every possible delineated moment of time) the conductor is assumed to have full responsibility for the track taken next.
Like the libertarian, the compatablist sees plenty of other tracks existing other then the one that train is traveling on—only the twist is that all these tracks are directly parallel to each other so that the train can never move from the track it is on to travel on a different track. There may be alternate possibilities that are real (in contrast to the incompatablist determinist) but they are all equally unattainable for the train being considered. Maybe there are other trains that travel on those tracks, but even so, the situation for each of those trains will be the same: they are stuck going the way they are going.
The picture that corresponds to my position is the compatablist picture—multiple tracks that exist parallel to each other. However, I allow it to be possible that a train traveling down one of those tracks is capable of “hopping” to a parallel track. This “hopping” can take place, conceivably at anytime, but the conductor is not directly responsible for the ground that the train travels over when the train simply follows along its current track. The only thing that the conductor is responsible for is whether or not he “hops.”
This picture preserves the causal structure of the world of trains and tracks in a way where the train is affected by the rails it currently travels down, but it also seeks to introduce the element of choice embodied in the “hopping” that can take place without committing to the implication of absolute responsibility at all moments that the libertarian is bound to by implication. If we consider it valid that the compatablist picture is not metaphysically absurd[3] then the demand I am under to defend this picture is to explain how this “hopping” is able to occur. Moreover, I must show how this “hopping” can be allegorically removed from being a part of the tracks that determines the ground the train runs over and still remain intelligible.[4]
‘Internal’ and ‘External’ Coherance
The way in which we “hop” from deterministic track to deterministic track is through specific variations in the operation of reason. I argue that we are capable of reasoning (when we consider choices) in two different modes: reason as ‘internal’ coherence and reason as ‘external’ coherence. And in addition, whether we use one mode of the rational process or the other is something that cannot be explained by any deterministic story that doesn’t violently reduce what we consider to be the operation of reason.[5]
‘Internal’ coherence is the coherence that is demanded when we say that conclusions must follow from the premises or where a system is considered void of contradictions. If a system is internally coherent then there is nothing within it that doesn’t “fit.” Everything within the system is accounted for and situated properly in relation to all other elements of the system. If we are considering internal coherence with respect to deliberation, then we would say that an action or choice was consistent with what the agent is motivated by compared againist the conception of the world that that agent is committed to through past experience at the moment of deliberation. In simpler words, it was a choice that wasn’t randomly or irrationally arrived at.
When considering internal coherence I think it is important to note that this model is usually what determinists use when attempting to explain action in terms of the mechanics of the mind; through the forces of psychology or the subconscious. Freud’s own picture of the operations of the subconscious and the methods it employs follow this model to a ‘T.’ Under his view, the subconscious attempts to assimilate new experiences into the bulk of past experiences in the most comfortable and consistent way possible. The subconscious automatically rearranges meanings and memories in a way where they all make sense to each other within the system of the mind—functionally speaking of course. For Freud is the first to point out that the operation of the subconscious in this manner often times involves itself in manifest contradictions that must be repressed in order to be allowed to exist. But an appeal to rational consistency when considering the subconscious (a faculty that doesn’t necessarily employ any type of rational consideration whatsoever) is an appeal outside of the system of memory and experiences. This move introduces the second possible criterion for rational coherence.
‘External’ coherence is more of a dynamic then a method. For because of its nature, it is a demand that is never discharged by a static system. It can only be correctly applied to a system that is in flux. This type of coherence is a coherence that does more then demand the absence of internal contradictions. This coherence demands that a system be resilient in the face of other considerations that are not necessarily included within the system itself. In other words, external coherence is achieved if a system is able to maintain its coherence if other outside considerations are introduced to that system. In the context of deliberation, when an agent considers their actions in terms that integrate into their deliberations motivations they don’t necessarily posses in a way where those unpossessed motivations don’t have to be invalidated as a part of the choice that is finally determined, they are respecting the demands of external coherance. These descriptions may seem a little too abstract for any practical application, but we see examples of these two forms of coherence every day.
An example that I think highlights the difference between these two in a very distinct way concerns the way that we, as philosophers, reason regarding arguments under consideration. One criticism we may offer toward a position or argument is to conjecture that the argument contradicts itself in one way or another. Or that the concepts employed are not defined well enough to make the argument hang together “tightly.” Or, as was mentioned before, that the conclusions do not follow the premises. These are all demands for internal coherence.
Demands for external coherence may take the form of conjecturing counter examples, or raising considerations that the argument doesn’t take into account that we think they must. Other criticisms on external grounds include taking opposition to the use of question-begging or straw-man arguments. Also we might claim that a position is dependent upon other suppositions not mentioned by the position that are potentially disputable or untenable. All these criticisms encourage a position to expand the context in which it is evaluated and thus I have labeled it ‘external’ to emphasize this outward dynamic.
The Significance of Reason
But this example only grounds my conception of reason according to our common practices. Are there any other ways in which appealing to reason as the locus of choice is validated? Yes.
First of all, we may ask why must freedom and responsibility rest on rationality in the first place. After all, rational restrictions have sometimes been used as another vehicle for deterministic forces. To this I answer that moral deliberation on the part of the agent must be rational or involve the use of reason in some manner. Deliberation devoid of reason is entirely untenable as grounds for which responsibility could be argued to exist since irrationality and irrational behavior by their very nature hold no claim to accountability whatsoever. Irrational freedom, I argue, is no freedom in any sense of the word. In this I am in agreement with advocates of the thesis of determinism when they say that the existence of random elements by no means suggests the existence of a free will—understood as the capacity to choose between alternate possibilities.
In addition, this picture of rational deliberation as capable of following two models is reflected in modal reasoning.[6] Thinking of modal considerations in a very general way, such as the type of reasoning that Sherlock Holmes engages in, what we do when we consider possibilities and necessities entails the construction of possible worlds in our imaginations that obey certain deterministic laws that we have come to identify (through any number of methods—it matters not which). When Sherlock Holmes tries to understand events in the past he does not consider the operations of rational deliberation as a part of that picture (unless we do so under one of the reductive schemes I mentioned previously). All he considers is what was physically possible given the evidence. Later perhaps he may conjecture as to motive, but all his conclusions come from the assumption that the world of the past has only one actual reality.
When we deliberate regarding future actions, we do so in a way not entirely the same, modally speaking. I borrow from Hilary Bok’s examples when I claim that in this mode of reasoning, human beings operate as broken Pocket Oracles. Bok’s Pocket Oracles are devices that have been programmed with all of the facts regarding the past (up to and including the beginning of the universe—whatever that is) and the laws of nature. Thus the Oracle (if we live in a deterministic universe) is capable of predicting all actions that I will make. The only catch is that, if it reveals to us what action we will take this may introduce a new element in the causal chain that will cause that prediction to be incorrect. Thus the Oracle is only able to predict actions that others will perform or the actions we will perform if those predictions will not affect the outcomes of our choices or the choices of others.[7]
When we reason modally we can imagine possible worlds in which our own choices are abstracted outside of that world or we can think of them in the case where they are included as factors that have effect in that possible world.[8] The former could be described as instances of circumstantial thinking where an agent makes their decisions based entirely on what is most probable to occur. In the second case, when we include potential choices into the possible world, we contaminate that prediction in the same way that the Pocket Oracle is capable of doing. My argument is that when we are considering possible choices in a way where we include those choices in our considerations of options we are making predictions to ourselves—predictions that we then react to in the normal deterministic fashion, based on our motives, desires, and past experiences.
Under this conception of action the only place where free will can possibly reside is at the point of consideration, that is the deliberating act itself. The only things that we are potentially responsible for are the ways in which we approach decision making itself. In this way I am able to avoid Galen Strawson’s infinite regress, at least in a formal manner.[9] For I am not claiming that we are responsible for our motives in any way, abstracted or otherwise.
Hilary Bok’s Unique Compatablism
The solution that I am offering might sound similar to Hilary Bok’s appeal to practical reasoning as the locus of responsibility and ‘free will.’ However there are a couple crucial ways in which the picture I am drawing is significantly different from hers. Bok considers herself to have sidelined any anxieties regarding imcompatablism by relegating the impact of the thesis of determinism to the arena of theoretical reasoning. But under my conception, the faculties of theoretical and practical reasoning have much more interplay then she allows for.
I think that Bok’s basic conclusion is correct, that when we consider our own actions we are unable to allow deterministic perspectives to aid us is choosing[10] to follow one course of action over another. However I believe this to be true only when all the motives that are relevant to deliberation are the agent’s. In situations in which other people’s motives are connected to the choice being considered, deterministic perspectives or libertarian views will greatly affect which options are considered viable toward achieving the goal desired.
When this happens, a deterministic perspective will mean the agent will be less inclined to engage in the type of modal reasoning where that person’s possible choices are a part of the deliberation.[11] Instead they will take what they consider to be the person’s most plausible reaction (or in other cases, their interests) and deliberate accordingly, without considering choices in which the person is assumed as perhaps being able to make a choice that expands outside of where their current deterministic track is headed (that is to engage in external coherence deliberation that takes into account the agent’s motives as well).
In contrast, the libertarian is more disposed to engage in external coherence deliberation since the libertarian (both according to my version, but also, I think, in general) is more open to considering different possible reactions on the part of themselves and others as real possibilities.
That Bok has no problem with the deterministic perspective operating in the way I described above shows us how much she shares the sympathies of compatablism. For under the compatablist view, the only ethics afforded is one derived from utilitarianism. Utilitarian ethical systems are in the class of ethics where a person’s own judgment for what is in their best interest is marginalized in terms of significance. Criticisms of utilitarianism sometimes say that the ability to determine what holds utility (or in which amounts) involves a great deal of power and privilege—and an unavoidable subjective dimension. A deterministic outlook—where another person’s own attitude to what is in their interests is not taken seriously—means overriding those considerations that someone operating with a more external coherence style of deliberation may take more into account.[12] Alternately, any appeal to “social consensus” as the basis for the establishment of this ethical standard runs the risk of a variety of perversions that could potentially result in abuse.
Intuitional Appeal – Ethical Subjectivity and Objectivity
So what makes my solution any more appealing then any of the other question-begging positions that we have available? I think that there are two ways in which libertarians, compatablists, and determinists alike find what they are looking for in my position without having to sacrifice other intuitions that belong to the camps that oppose them. Both advantages are related, but one is more clearly identified through the lens of the subjective-objective dichotomy and the other becomes apparent when we look at a concept I will call moral enfranchisement.
Thomas Nagel’s writings consistently fall back on the problems of the incommensurability of subjective and objective views. His treatment of the problem of Moral Luck is involving himself in the same anxieties that the arguments over free will get tangled up in. Nagel is pessimistic about the chance that we can hold a subjective and objective perspective simultaneously, but that is exactly what my solution attempts to do.
Susan Wolf identifies “living in the Real World”[13] as the primary motivation behind the deterministic perspective, and trying to accommodate this demand in a libertarian conception of action is something my picture strives to attain. The way I am able to do this is to affirm the applicability of deterministic tools toward understanding the world in all areas except which form of rational deliberation we engage in. As we consider hopping to another track, we are forced to use a deterministic perspective in order to evaluate where that track will lead us, to know if that is what we really want to do. Rational deliberation in any form cannot operate without some supply of empirical premises that will undoubtedly be formed from appeals to deterministic structures. In fact any understanding we have of the world in which we exist in comes from our use of the thesis of determinism in some manner—we cannot form definitions without it. Each possible world that we consider when making choices must be internally consistent and fully determined in order to be valid. The only difference I make is that I don’t consider there to be an intelligible deterministic story that will explain our decision to reason in accordance with internal or external coherence.
The way in which subjective considerations are accommodated for is in the way in which responsibility is grounded. Whether a person is operating with internal or external coherence is something that can only be judged relative to a person’s previous state. We can’t look at the behavior exhibited by another human and judge purely on those grounds that they are employing internal or external coherence as a part of their rational deliberation to engage in that behavior. This creates problems for application of my ethical system, but it does not challenge the objective criterion as to what makes up external coherence or internal coherence. In short, my system for ethical evaluation consists of an objective criterion that can only be evaluated in an existentially relative (subjective) manner. [14]
Intuitional Appeal – Moral Enfranchisement
The problem of moral enfranchisement is a little trickier to set out. Behind all of the arguments and positions, appeals to intuitions and counter-examples, there is another story that I think is usefully understood as a “sub-text” of the free will debate. This is the story that includes all the anxieties we have about the improper application of responsibility in an ethical institution (in all the forms in which that can happen). Compatablists, determinists, and libertarians all hold a picture of how our attitudes about ethics might be shaped (if we are convinced by arguments defending positions they oppose) that they are dearly afraid of. If my picture will be truly satisfactory to advocates from all these positions then I must be able to accommodate and assuage these worries by showing what type of ethical system my position is capable of supporting.
This take on the debate should only sound proper to us, since it is reasonable to assume that not just any notion of responsibility will be satisfying to those looking to establish a justification for moral practice. One of the underlying premises behind my position is that it is anxieties about improper application of moral responsibility that are the sources of the core of the intuitions that give the classic positions their argumentative weight. Most of these anxieties stem from either failing to judge situations where judgment is seemingly called for, or attributing responsibility to those situations where a person is not deserving of either rebuke or affirmation. We can think about these two cases as parallel to two very common narrative conventions: the tragic (temporary) punishment of the innocent hero who becomes trapped in a web of circumstantial evidence and the evil villain who (at least temporarily) gets away with his crime. The fact that these stories usually involve reconciling the injustice should do nothing to question the applicability of these cases to our discussion—if anything it should further reinforce that we have basic intuitions regarding both of these dangers.
In general, it seems clear that the libertarians run the risk of punishing the hero, and determinists run the risk of letting the villain off the hook. Compatablists don’t seem as susceptible to these dangers, but instead they run the risk of the improper labeling of villains and heroes. By making responsibility a function of what is valued, compatablists make rigid a distinction that is perhaps more fluid.[15] The fluidity as to what becomes identified as valued or ‘moral’ is built into the libertarian’s position, since you are just responsible for what you chose (whether good or bad becomes another question).[16] But in the compatablist camp individuals are not given priority for making that call, since (if the compatablist takes determinism seriously) individuals are seen like little automatons playing out their deterministic programming, and “we” (the people in the position of creating ethical institutions) must construct those institutions to fulfill what is “right.” The institutions validate actions rather then the individual. (see ft. note 12)
But while libertarians can allow for this fluidity conceptually, sometimes there are ways of seeing moral situations where a person doesn’t actually validate the choices they make, or are in a position where they are unable to hold that perspective toward themselves (usually because of either some abnormality in their rational faculties, their status as children, or because this is something not possible for all people on some other grounds). Libertarianism doesn’t seem to do an effective job of reconciling these cases. The reason why this happens is because in most defenses of free will, the reason why we have genuine alternate possibilities, and yet material objects don’t, is not entirely clear. Our justification for the existence of genuine alternate possibilities must make those possibilities only available to agents and not objects with a static metaphysical nature (like rocks or kumquats). In response to this need to differentiate between the self and circumstantial factors, the Deep-Self positions were formed.
These representations of moral intuitions suggest a criterion for judging moral status by some reflection upon the mind of the person themselves. But as Galen Strawson’s objection reveals, it seems that if we appeal to second-order desires (in whatever form) we still end up needing to tighten the self down even further to remove from the case all of the circumstantial forces involved. It is questionable whether there is anything left at this point, and this is the conclusion that determinism would advocate as the proper perspective.
The motivation to par the individual down further and further is not, in my mind, primarily an expression of the deterministic intuition that there is no self beyond circumstances, nor the libertarian intuition that the core of one’s identity is independent of circumstances. The issue is found in considering what I hinted to previously as the problem of compatablism. This problem is the disenfranchising of certain possible people from those capable of being morally affirmed.
This problem is drawn perhaps most controversially by Nietzsche’s genealogical analysis of the birth of morality. The natural order of the strong’s dominance over the weak was a natural disenfranchising of the weak’s ability to be dominant in a community of weak and strong people. But when the weak gain dominance through the creation of religion and the compulsory forces of society, strong-ness is disenfranchised from ever being moral and thus the strong part of the strong people (a part Nietzsche thinks is irremovable) is submitted to suppression and dominated by the weak virtues of humility and self-sacrifice.
Neither of these situations seems acceptable to me, and I do not think that this intuition is peculiar to my specific views. Taken together, the determinist, compatablist, and libertarian with reject in turn all of these options as well. The determinists and compatablists might object thinking that trying to suppress the strong-natures is pointless—that the extra concept of “morality” is a fiction that alienates us from the real world. And the libertarian, thinking that a practice that affirms responsibility for the way you use your strength is valid and appropriate, will object to the system that makes no room for that kind of control to exist.
The point of treating Nietzsche’s picture in terms of enfranchisement is that both perspectives involve attributing value to one group or the other, without truly allowing for the moral capacity of all people. If we are serious about justifying practices involving responsibility that will apply universally to all people, then this is something we must accommodate in some fashion. Even if we take the compatablist route (in not denying responsibility outright the way the hard determinist does), the fact that individuals are not allowed to validate their own actions disenfranchises all people in a sense, even if the practices that result ostensibly affirm the lives of some of those people.
The position that no sense of responsibility is ever appropriate for application to an individual is, I think, a patently invalid position. This involves (for hard determinists) the commitment that there be not only no choice, but also no values. For just as Wolf argues that we cannot take the objective attitude toward ourselves in ‘The Importance of Free Will,’ so also do I argue that it is impossible for us to ever construct a perspective of the world in which no one is either enfranchised or disenfranchised from value.
This would involve two elements: removing any standard of objective value and any standard of subjective value. It is conceivable that perhaps a person could assume a radically relativistic view in order to eliminate objective value, but it is impossible for that same person to remove their own desires and needs from that picture as well. For if personal values still exist in that perspective, then (albeit solipsisticly) the individual will view the people around them as either people to be valued for their ability to conform to those values or disvalued for their irrelevance to those values.
To take another tack, determinism accuses libertarians (and compatablists as well) that they are fooling themselves into thinking they have freedom (in however that is manipulated to mean), but it seems just as plausible that we can fool ourselves into denying that we have freedom. Take the innocent hero story once more—usually in these stories (while contemplating his misfortune, in prison perhaps) the hero becomes dejected and morose. Perhaps he makes an exclamation expressing his feeling of futility in resisting his calamitous destiny. Maybe he even curses God. But before things turn around in the plot and the hero is vindicated, he first has to be narratatively empowered or reawakened to his ability to change his life. Part of his misfortune is expressed as his lost feeling of freedom.
If it is just as potentially dangerous to fool ourselves out of freedom as to delude ourselves with thinking we’re free (when we’re not), then a different objection must be made to convince us to give it up entirely. We can negotiate with circumstantial considerations, recognizing the demands that the requisites of reason posses, but removing the undetermined agent entirely seems less acceptable in this light. What is interesting here is that any kind of “spooky,” invisible or mysterious characteristics in the operation of the undetermined agent is just as easily applied to the story of deterministic forces. After all, what causes one thing to only have one possible effect? We never directly perceive this connection, we are only able to conjecture it, at the very most. In addition, the identification of a cause is itself involved in a discrimination of the significant cause or causes from all the myriad of empirical observations available in a given situation, many of which are probably insignificant toward the effect. This identification is itself caught in the potential subjective fallibility of what things we consider to be significant in a way analogous to value considerations.
A New Criterion
So what do we need in order to have a truly acceptable account of freedom that will satisfy all interests involved in the debate? First, all people (everywhere and in all situations) must have equal access to moral status and immoral status. Secondly, that those people are able to provide some degree of input into the relevant moral considerations that they are judged according to.
The first criterion ensures that we don’t hold people responsible for things that are not truly up to them, and also protects against the possibility of Moral Luck (that a person is deterministically condemned to moral or immoral status). There are no “privileged” demographics in a system that satisfies this criterion, and if it is true of my argument that engaging in the two methods of rational deliberation is something all rational agents are capable of doing in any circumstance, my system passes this test.
The objection that my system excludes non-rational agents is not any kind of objection whatsoever – for we don’t consider objects or certain animals[17] to be morally accountable precisely because they do not have self-reflective capacities. It is these capacities that form the foundation for my picture of responsibility. A system that gave moral enfranchisement to non-rational objects would fail the second criterion that we must include.
The second criterion – that a person’s existential subjectivity has relevance for moral evaluations concerning that individual – is demanded by the libertarian intuitions. This criterion goes hand in hand with the first, since it is consideration of the particular circumstances that caused us to weed out the unsatisfactory ethical systems the first criterion excludes. The danger of failing this test might be called disenfranchisement through alienation. This is what post-colonialists are concerned with, and the reason that they ultimately reject institutions with paternalistic tendencies. By forming institutions independent of the considerations possessed by those who will be impacted by it, and instead making the ethical calls “on their behalf,” those citizens are seen as less then human, in a significant sense. The ability to “make ethical calls” is itself a part of what it means to be a moral creature and posses the weight of responsibility. My system places this characteristic at the heart of its picture of action, for it is a fair characterization of my position that the only things we are potentially responsible for are the processes by which we make these “calls.”
Conclusion
The arguments I have employed as a justification for why my solution of the problem of free will is preferable have moved away from the question whether determinism is true or not, or even the question as to whether responsibility is compatible with the thesis of determinism. Instead I have used requirements such as the demand that our solution must have an accurate conception of action, rational operation, and our ability to understand our world. In addition I have considered relevant existential concerns, and the demand that our conception of responsibility be able to contextualize non-reductively all of the ways that the world around us, and our perceptions of it, appear to behave. I have also attempted to respect the anxieties present in Nagel’s ‘moral luck’ observations in order to create an ethical framework that is truly democratic and deserving of the predicate: universal. The questions I have considered to be much more relevant is the question “which perspective ought we adopt, and why?” I agree wholeheartedly with Hilary Bok when she claims that libertarians and compatablists are engaged in a “dialectical stalemate.” Only, I think that this stalemate extends to determinists as well. Arguments as to the actual truth of the matter of the thesis of determinism I consider to be no longer convincing, since it seems like no matter how we speculate and reason regarding the issues, this truth is something we don’t have access to. My response has been to explore the possibilities in which all of the intuitions we have regarding the issues under consideration have a contributing voice. This unification project has been what my solution has attempted to succeed in doing in an intelligible fashion.
[1] It should be noted that this negative view might reveal my sympathies to be incompatablist in nature. Strictly speaking this is true, when we take the issue from the direction of the primacy of the thesis of determinism. This thesis is in my view one of the most frequently dogmatically asserted positions the history of philosophy has ever seen. My paper is entitled ‘Negotiated Freedom’ since I attempt to resist the most extreme (and dogmatic) forms of both the thesis of determinism and of libertarian views. In this ‘softer’ compatablism, both theories need to shed the chaff to save the grain. Hence exists my strategy in this paper to appeal to the intuitions and motives that I see to be behind the construction of these otherwise rigid theories.
[2] Or in compatablist terms: the myth that we can do otherwise; that we have multiple ‘real’ possibilities for choices
[3] This argument involves the metaphysical debate of conceivability and possibility – a debate I unfortunately do not have the space to treat in an in depth manner. However, it is a point I acknowledge needs defending, since it can be argued that I am rejecting deterministic metaphysics outright at this point. However, this is precisely my point regarding arguments about determinism and free will. Any argument will dogmatically assert its metaphysics from the start. My reason for the caveat of reasonability, is that as long as the metaphysics of compatablism is not absurd, it at least stands as a valid option among the metaphysical pictures we can choose from and thus a candidate for my alternative criterion that does not place significance on the avoidance of dogmatism in its static form.
[4] This is to defend against the obvious counter argument that argues that the “hopping” is itself a determined event subject to the same laws as other events and thus belongs allegorically in the world of tracks.
[5] Such stories include psychological or biological reductionist arguments where the operation of the mind is reduced to chemical interactions in the brain or some other functionalist account. These stories are perfectly conceivable and perhaps even metaphysically possible, but there is no justification on scientific grounds that dismisses the possibility that these chemical interactions are somehow responding to variations on a conscious level. For non-functionalist accounts of human cognition, including theories regarding how such theories are consistent with physical evidence see Shadows of the Mind by Roger Penrose (Oxford University Press). In addition, my point is that these reductive explanations are unable to reflect the principles involved in the process of the operation of reason such as I will describe them.
[6] Independent of whether we consider ourselves modal realists or not. Arguing for or against modal realism is the same as trying to argue that alternate possibilities exist or that they do not. I have yet to find an argument in modal metaphysics that doesn’t involve the same question-begging that the free will debate contains and that I described earlier.
[7] We can imagine a case in which the Oracle tells us about what someone else will do, but by telling us we take steps to prevent that from happening. Thus the Oracle must take into account all the effects contingent on its providing of a prediction before it can safely make that prediction. In addition the Oracle must consider all possible predictions it could make and their corresponding effects before predicting safely.
[8] This is the idea behind two-dimensional modal logic, where individuals’ perceptions and intentions are included as a sub-set of what becomes true for the possible world under consideration.
[9] Perhaps the argument can be reformulated in a way that asks how we can be responsible for our rational attitudes. But my defense of my solution does not commit me to directly refuting Strawson’s attack on libertarianism. However, if I may conjecture, I think that the questions that a Strawson-esque could ask of my solution will be unintelligible. For, on face value, I am strained to discover some deterministic story that could sufficiently and necessarily explain whether we employ internal or external coherence in our deliberations.
[10] To be careful, it must be mentioned that the concept of choice that is here described is not committed to the added specification that the act is ‘free’ as in undetermined.
[11] Unless of course they engage in external coherence deliberation where they consider the possibility that the thesis of determinism might be false. These dispositions I am describing are by no means deterministic.
[12] Some variations of utilitarianism attempt to build into the framework of utility values that respect this aspect of what an agent considers as in their interests. However, any application of this will involve complications in fulfilling its new charge – perhaps part of the agent’s interests are explicitly in not respecting the interests of others. The ethical judgment that even these systems of utilitarianism will impose will by necessity override the agent’s own participation. The point is about the position from which judgment comes: utilitarianism’s systematic approach judges from a place removed from the place where an agent deliberates. The rules are set out in advance and are final. Such attempts to fix the system only result in creating fascist liberals.
[13] Wolf, Susan ‘The Importance of Free Will,’ Mind, New Series, Vol. 90, No. 359 (Jul., 1981), 386-405.
[14] Another crucial extrapolation from what has been said commits me to the view that there is no preferred ethical position, since all states are equally vulnerable to becoming considered exclusively in accordance with internal coherence. My position itself is only ethical in as much as it is justified by its own criterion: that it promotes ethical consideration in a manner consistent with external coherence.
[15] This fluidity is certainly a component of the view I have laid out. The ethical criterion I have described is always only to be judged relative to existential significance and so doesn’t get caught up in all the problems that are connected with ethical systems that judge behavior solely.
[16] However, for the libertarian, because this is the choice you make, that act in some sense validates the choice for you. Compatablists and determinists will not, and are unable of seeing things this way.
[17] For those who consider some animals as capable of ethical enfranchisement, I am willing to concede this point provided it is shown that such an animal is, in fact, in possession of self-reflective capacities.
