Acting Freely

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Acting Freely Author(s): Gerald Dworkin Source: Noûs, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Nov., 1970), pp. 367-383Published by: WileyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2214680Accessed: 03-11-2015 15:49 UTC

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Acting Freely

GERALD DWORKIN MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

And those who act under compulsion and unwillingly act with pain. Aristotle Nichomachean Ethics

Whenever coercion takes place one will is subordinated to another. The coerced is no longer a completely independent agent. If my will is overborne by yours I serve your ends and not mine. I am motivated by your interests and not mine. I do what you want, not what I want.

The domain of human motivation is always haunted by a tautology hovering overhead. The strongest motive always prevails; the dominant desire determines action; we always do what we want to do. Since coercion designates a process in which a particular class of reasons for acting is singled out it might be predicted that, sooner or later, these truisms would make their appearance. And following close behind, as usual, we find paradox.

I

The following is surely a plausible explication of what it is for a man to be free.

I am free when my conduct is under my control, and I act under constraint when my conduct is controlled by someone else. My conduct is under my own control when it is determined by my own desires, motives, and intentions, and not under my control when it is determined by the desires, motives, and intentions of someone else. University of California Associates [11], p. 599.

Against this view Oppenheim [8], p. 36, argues that

Whenever I act my conduct is 'determined by my own desires,

367



368 NOUJS

motives, and intentions.' This follows from the very definitions of - 'action'.

Plamenatz [10], p. 110, takes a similar position.

It is, of course, quite clear that all action is necessarily voluntary, since it is never possible for a man to do what he does not wish. Indeed, to do what one wishes is the same thing as to act, for an action which has no motive is inconceivable.

This remark occurs in the context of a discussion of freedom and Plamenatz illustrates his comment with a typical example of coercion.

If, for instance, A threatens to shoot B unless he raises his hand above his head, then B's motive for doing what is required, although it consists in the fear of what will happen to him if he does not (or rather in the effect of this fear, which is the desire to do what may ensure its not happening to him) is as much his motive as any other motive would be.

But if it is true that we always do what we wish, that we always act in accordance with our own desires, then how is the distinction between acting freely and acting under constraint to be drawn? What happens to Mill's definition of liberty as "doing what one desires"? What sense is to be attached to the idea of making or forcing someone to do what he doesn't want to do? How is coercion possible?

Another way of putting the problem is in terms of the kinds of explanation we give of human action. If asked to explain why Jones acts in a certain way we may make reference to certain goals he is pursuing, certain intentions or desires, and/or particular beliefs he has about his condition and environment. If we have specified correctly his beliefs and his goals and have ascertained further that the proper connection exists between them, we have given an explanation of his behavior (assuming it is an action which is to be explained, for we may give the same kind of explanation to explain why someone desires something). If a reference to beliefs and desires is possible in every case of explanation of motivated behavior, there will necessarily be a reference to something the agent wants or desires. Hence, so this argument goes, it is always true that an agent does something that he wants to do. This form of the argument is presented by Daveney [2], p. 139, in an article on "Want- ing."

It may be stated of every intentional action that I perform that in some sense I want to do it; because if I didn't want to do it I



ACTING FREELY 369

wouldn't do it. If anyone wishes to deny this, let him explain how it -is possible for every action to be explained in terms of some "want" statement.

What for Oppenheim and Plamenatz is a necessary connection between the concepts of action and desire is for Daveney a con- sequence of the kinds of explanation that are available for understanding human action. In both cases the conclusion is that we always do as we wish or want.

II

Obviously those who hold this view can find ways of drawing a distinction between actions done under compulsion and those done freely, just as, in another philosophical tradition, the egoist can argue that he can distinguish altruism from selfishness. The enlightened egoist having read his Butler and Bradley agrees that a man's laying down his life for his country is, in many respects, quite different from a man's betraying his country for monetary gains. All the egoist insists upon is that both men act to satisfy some desire of theirs. Similarly one can argue that to act under compulsion is to act as one wants but there are important differ- ences which depend on the source of our wants. There are desires which a man has naturally and spontaneously and those which are imposed upon him by force. There are wants which come from inside and those which come from outside. This view assimilates desires to possessions, some of which a man comes with, some of which he borrows or acquires, and some of which are thrust upon him-still they are all "his." Even with property, however, not every mode of acquisition entitles us to say that something belongs to a man, is his. With the "inner" world, whether it be the realm of the will or the understanding, "mine" and "thine" are immensely complicated notions. I propose in this essay to follow out some of the alternative ways of conceptualizing this relation and to examine the consequences of adopting various alternatives.

III

It is essential to clarify the relationship between the identifica- tion of a desire as belonging to a man, as being his desire, and the mode of acquisition of the desire. With property we can con- sidel both possession and ownership, what a man has and what



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belongs to him. The concepts are independent for something may belong to a man although he does not possess it, e.g., it is stolen from him, and he may possess something that doesn't belong to him. Sometimes determining what belongs to someone will be, in part, tracing how the object came into his possession. Did he buy it? Was it given to him? Did he take it without permission? Did he make a mistake and take the wrong object? The criteria for either possession or ownership are very complicated and may only be defined by considering appropriate conventions and the purposes they serve.

Can a similar distinction be drawn with respect to our desires? We might begin by considering another "inner state" that of "belief." We identify a belief p as belonging to X i.e., that X believes p, if his behavior is such that it can be explained on the assumption that he does so believe. Others, or indeed X himself, may know that he acquired the belief in some unusual manner, say, through conditioning or manipulation or the injection of a drug, and this may make a difference in their appraisal of his actions but this does not affect the fact that X believes p, i.e., that the belief belongs to X. The assertion "He (X) doesn't believe p; he was brainwashed" is a non sequitur. The latter part has no log- ical bearing on the former. Nor will it help to bring in a "really" to save the situation. "He doesn't really believe it" applies to someone who pretends to believe p, or, perhaps to someone who deceives (pretends to) himself about p. There is no question in any of these situations of acting in accordance with the beliefs of another, of one's action being determined not by one's own beliefs but by those of someone else. The normal, rational paths to belief may have been circumvented but then there are no necessary (essential) paths that one must tread before the belief can be ascribed to one.

In view of this it seems plausible to say much the same kind of thing in the case of desire. Don't we identify a desire as belonging to someone in terms of the role played by the desire in explaining the actions of the individual? Shouldn't there be this parallel since beliefs and wants enter explanation in a symmetric fashion? Action can only be explained in terms of a belief given knowledge, perhaps assumed, about the wants of the agent. If I explain Xs crossing the street by saying that he believes the drugstore is open, it is in a context that assumes X must want something that is in some way connected with the drugstore being open. Aren't there, then, exactly parallel cases to the ones I gave in connection with



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belief? A man may desire to eat toothpaste because of a post-hyp- notic suggestion. Someone may want to commit suicide given the choice between that and public disgrace. The father of a kid- napped child may want to give money to the kidnapper. In each case we identify the desire as belonging to the agent in terms of what is needed to adequately explain his behavior. I am going to argue that cases like the last example are significantly different from the others and that bringing out the difference will show that the basis for ascribing desires to individuals is more complicated than that for ascribing beliefs.

IV

When we speak of what a man wants to do we may be referring to his intentions or to his desires, to what he is prepared to do or to what he is pleased to do. When we focus on the former we are interested in what he is aiming at, what the point of his doings is. When we examine the latter we are concerned with what satisfies, with that which brings action to a (temporary) stop. In many in- stances the two notions go together as we prepare to do what we wish to do and so it is easy to pass from "he did it" to "he intended to do it" to "he wanted to do it." In general we can form two lists, the first containing notions such as intention, decision, choice, will, the second containing desire, want, wish. The terms of these two lists are related in non-contingent ways-no special explanation is required to account for the fact that we intend to do what we want to do. When I have decided what I want to do then I have decided what I intend to do if the circumstances are favorable and there is no counter-vailing consideration. But our wishes and our intentions may spring apart due to such varied factors as obligations, natural necessities, conventional pressures, coercion, etc. Though these all differ from one another they all represent constraints on our inclina- tions, obstacles to the normal satisfaction of our desires.

Consider the victim of a highwayman. Why do we say that he doesn't do what he wants? Is it that he is doing something that he doesn't want to do? That depends on how what he is doing is described. If it is described as handing over money to another then he may or may not mind doing that sort of thing; it depends on the circumstances. A man might want to hand over some money to another because he is asked by a relative, or because he is feeling charitable, or because he desires to rid himself of worldly things.



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What he doesn't want to do when faced with the highwayman is to hand money over in these circumstances, for these reasons. Sup- pose it is claimed that handing the money over in these circumstances is a way of preserving his life and that this is something that he wants to do. This is presumably the kind of thing Daveney has in mind when he says it is "possible for every action to be explained in terms of some 'want' statement." I don't know whether the general form of this thesis is correct or not. It could be stated this way. Given any action of an agent he either wants to perform the action for its own sake or there is something the agent wants which is such that he believes that performing this action is a condition (necessary or sufficient) for obtaining what he wants. I am inclined to think that this isn't so, that one may perform an action for reasons that have nothing to do with one's wants and that the only way to establish the thesis would be to invent "pseudo-wants." But even accepting the general thesis doesn't commit one to accepting the view that we always do what we want to do unless we accept the inference from 'X wants A' and 'B is a necessary condition for obtaining A' to 'X wants B'; a form of inference which is clearly invalid in view of any number of counter-examples. "He who wills the end, wills the necessary means to it" is only true if by 'willing' is understood 'intending' and not 'wanting.' There are very good grounds for supposing that a man doesn't intend to go on living when we find out that he doesn't intend to go on breathing. On the other hand finding out that a man doesn't want to go to the dentist doesn't supply very good grounds for supposing that he doesn't want to get rid of his toothache.

It might be argued that we can describe what the man is doing as "preserving his life" instead of doing x as a means of preserving his life just as we can describe what a person does as "turning on the light" instead of "flipping the switch in order to turn on the light." Under this description isn't the man doing what he wants to do? More generally won't it always be possible to redescribe the action in terms of some more general desire whose object is promoted by the action as described more narrowly? Thus the man who hands money over to a kidnapper is "saving the life of his child"! the man who accedes to the demands of a blackmailer is "preserving his reputation", etc.' And since it is admitted that these

1 It is interesting in this connection to read discussions by the Scholas- tics concerning the binding force of coerced oaths. St. Bonaventure in his Commentary on the Book of Sentences argued that a forced oath was not



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are genuine desires of the agent it follows that the agent is doing what he wants.

Normally the difficulty with this type of argument is that statements of desire are cases of indirect discourse so that it is not safe to take inferences for granted. From "Kennedy wanted to be- come the 37th President of the United States" we cannot infer that "Kennedy wanted to be the only President assassinated in Dallas" although, in fact, the two descriptions refer to the same man. The usual explanation for this is that a man may want something under a certain description and not be aware that another description is also true of the object of his desire. This explanation cannot account for the kinds of situations we are considering for there is no ig- norance present in these cases. If it is proper to redescribe the act of handing money over to the kidnapper as "saving the child's life" one cannot avoid the conclusion that the man is doing what he wants by claiming that he is not aware of both descriptions. His reason for handing over the money is to save the child's life. This is not something he might discover later as a man might discover that the 37th President will be assassinated.

This argument relies on two premises neither of which can be taken for granted. The first assumes the legitimacy of redescribing the specific action that takes place (handing over the money, keeping silent) as "saving his child" or "preserving his life." The second premise asserts that a certain form of inference is valid; that from "X wants A" and "X knows that A is B (doing A is doing B)" we can infer that "X wants B." Let us consider each of these assumptions.

The first assumption concerns the conditions under which we may replace one description of an action by some other description. It is a claim that one and the same action may be referred to by different descriptions. Unfortunately we know very little about the modes of individuating actions and the criteria for the identity of actions. All that we have are some pre-systematic data about when we are inclined to say that doing one thing is the same as doing another and when we feel reluctant to make such claims. Anscombe [1],

binding in the ecclesiastical forum since "the Church presumes that one who is forced to swear does not swear with the intention of fulfilling the oath, but rather of avoiding the danger." McCoy [71, p. 42. While the argument itself is not very cogent, for it is not the mere absence of intention to carry out one's promises that excuses one from being obliged to carry them out-or else all insincere promises would be excused-it is a move similar to the one I am discussing.



374 NONS

p. 40, gives an example of a man pumping water (which is poi- soned) into a cistern which supplies water to a house in which a number of party chiefs are living. She points out that we may ask the man why he is x'ing (moving his arm) and get an answer that is either of the form "to y" (to operate the pump) or "I'm y'ing" (I'm pumping the water). This can go on for a while but at some point there is a break such that while one can ask "VVhy are you x'ing?" the answer can only be of the form "to y" not of the form "I'm y'ing." To the question "Why are you poisoning the inhabitants?" the answer "to save the Jews" does not allow the further description of what the man is doing as "saving the Jews." Unfortunately Anscombe gives us no tests for determining when such a break occurs. There are obvious hypotheses which suggest themselves. For example that it is a necessary condition for redescribing x as y (where one does x in order to bring about y) that x and y be sufficiently close together in time and that there be reasonable grounds for supposing that x will be followed by y. Thus A's stabbing B in order that B shall die may be redescribed as A's killing B (provided that 1) B dies, and 2) does so within a reasonably short period of time). But A's making a speech in order to be elected President will not be redescribed as A's being elected President. However, both these conditions are met by the example of the man who hands over his money to a kidnapper. He has grounds for supposing this will save his child and this will presumably happen within a short span of time.

The general thesis that we can always replace "doing x in order to do y" by "doing x, in these circumstances, is doing y" is false. If I am practicing parking in order to pass my driver's test then it just is not the case that practicing parking, in those circumstances, is passing my driver's test. The specific thesis that when a man hands money to a kidnapper we can identify "what he does" as saving his life seems to me to be wrong and to arise from a con- fusion between an action which is discrete, particular, done or performed, and an end which is general, occupies no definite stretch in time, is accomplished or succeeded in. One can succeed in an end (acquiring money) without doing anything at all. On the other hand one can succeed in an end (preserving one's life) by performing very different kinds of actions (eating a steak dinner, running from the battlefield). To fully substantiate this point one would have to have a fully developed theory about how we individuate and typify actions. All I have hoped to accomplish here is throw doubt on the first premise of the argument.



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The second premise states that the following inference is always valid: "X wants (to do) A", "X knows that (doing) A is (doing) B", hence "X wants (to do) B." One can think of a number of counter-examples. X wants to marry A, knows that A is the woman with the worst temper in the world, but it is not the case that X wants to marry the woman with the worst temper in the world. X wants to push the switch (to see if his hand still functions after an accident), knows that pushing the switch turns on the lights, yet X doesn't want to turn on the lights. X wants to sleep with A, knows that sleeping with A is committing adultery, but it is not the case that X wants to commit adultery. As in the case with many such arguments about intensional contexts one may deny the plausibility of the counter-example and insist in each case upon the validity of the inference. It is possible to say that "in a sense" X wants B in all these cases, but the sense is specified by repeating the conditions of the example. One can also insist, to refer to more familiar problems, that if Smith believes that Jones is next door, and Jones is the murderer of Robinson, then "in a sense" Smith believes that the murderer of Robinson is next door, where again the sense is specified by the belief condition and the identity condition. Such victories are hollow because if anything significant depended upon them we would ultimately rely on our prior recognition of the meaning of the key terms; a meaning which is usually less problematic than the inferences.

Although I think that the thesis that we always do what we want to is false it does bring to our attention a significant point about motivating conduct by creating reasons for action. When we speak of providing a motive for someone to act this may be taken in two ways. It may mean that we have created or stimulated a new type of motivation (curiosity, exercise of skill) or that we have harnessed a pre-existing motivation of the agent by creating a situation in which he now has a reason for acting which he lacked pre- viously, i.e., he can satisfy an antecedently existing basic drive. Coercion always involves this latter process, utilizing basic drives which almost everyone shares-self-preservation, avoidance of pain, embarrassment, concern for the welfare of those close to us. It is a mistake, however, to jump from the fact that there must be some pre-existing desire of the agent to be exploited to claiming that when the agent acts to satisfy those desires he does what he wants.

Two patterns of action should be kept distinct although they may both be schematized as follows: X wants to do A, some factor



376 NOYS

intervenes, X does B. Sometimes when the intervening factor is of the proper kind, e.g., incentives, new information, re-examination of the consequences of doing A, X no longer wants to do A and doing B is a result of this transformation, of his changing his mind. Sometimes, however, we do not think of XNs desires as changing but of being frustrated or thwarted. To return to the earlier discussion of the mode of acquisition of desires I am suggesting that it is a mistake to think of someone as acquiring a new "want' or "desire to do something" as a result of coercion. What a person may acquire as a result of such intervention is a new intention, a new disposition to act. But wants are not to be equated with mere dispositions to act. We must be able to distinguish between those actions which we perform because we want to and those we perform because we have to.

V

Granted that sometimes we do things for other reasons than our wanting to do them there still remains the problem of why acting on some of these reasons, but not others, is not acting freely. What I want to do now is account for the fact that only certain reasons are considered coercive and restrictive of liberty; why, contra Hobbes, we regard fear and not covetousness as cancelling liberty.2 It is obvious that the mere presence of external intervention, that is the creating of reasons for action by others is not enough to explain why acting on some of these reasons, but not others, is acting unfreely.3 If I had not been told of a book sale or been given tickets to the opera I would have done something else this evening. Given the new situation I no longer do what I wanted to do formerly but that is because I now want to do something else. But the notions of "doing what I want" and "acting freely" cannot be identified. It does not follow that if I do what I do not want to do I act unfreely. Consider the following situation in which another person creates a reason for my doing something which I would not choose to do had the reason not been created. A dull and boring

2 "For there appeareth no reason why that which we do upon fear, should be less firm than that which we do for covetousness. For both the one and the other make the action voluntary." Hobbes [51, p. 286.

3 Cf. "What we say of a man "'hen we say that he has not acted of his own free wil is that the action of some other person has caused him to be confronted with an object of desire or aversion but for which he would not have acted as he did." Hardie [4], p. 22.



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acquaintance invites me to his home for dinner knowing that I accept some principle of reciprocity or gratitude. I now have a reason for extending him an invitation to my house-something I do not want to do. Yet my invitation is issued freely, albeit reluctantly. My liberty has not been infringed upon. What differentiates this kind of situation from that of the kidnapper or blackmailer? I suggest it is the attitude a man takes toward the reasons for which he acts, whether or not he identifies himself with these reasons, assimilates them to himself, which is crucial for determining whether or not he acts freely. Men resent acting for certain reasons; they would not choose to be motivated in certain ways. They mind acting simply in order to preserve a present level of welfare against diminution by another. They resent acting simply in order to avoid unpleasant consequences with no attendant promotion of their own interests and welfare. On the other hand although I may not want to perform the particular act of issuing a dinner invitation to a boring acquaintance I do not mind acting for reasons which fall under the heading of reciprocity. Such examples are interesting because there are many parallels in the vocabulary used to talk about obligations and that used to talk about compulsion. We speak of "having to do it," having no choice." There is present in both a contrast between what one does reluctantly and what one does willingly. In his Lectures on Ethics Kant [6], p. 27, has a category called "moral compulsion" which is defined as "a determination to the unwilling performance of an action" and I am morally compelled to act by another if he "forces me by moral motives to do an action which I do reluctantly." The Japanese have a species of moral obligation called Giri and they talk of being "forced with girn" or of someone "concerning me with giri" meaning that someone has argued the speaker into an act he did not want to perform by rais- ing some issue of on (moral indebtedness). Many of these situations involve calling someone's attention to reasons which already exist for doing something rather than creating reasons for acting and therefore fall under the heading of moral persuasion-but the divid- ing line is not sharp. The weight of advice is often due as much to the stature of the adviser-his saying it is a new reason for acting- as to the cogency of the reasons to which attention is directed. I am chiefly interested in what Fried [3], p. 1261, calls "moral causation"; moving another to action by "bringing about circumstances such that the desired action is one which in the circumstances is required by an acknowledged moral principle." Like coercion this provides



378 NO U1S

reasons for acting which depend for their efficacy on pre-established motivations. One might say that the difference between moral persuasion and moral causation is the difference between blowing on existing coals to make them glow (or burn) and providing new fuel.

Why don't we consider moral causation an infringement on the liberty of the agent? The agent doesn't do what he wants to do and he only acts in this way because a reason has been provided by another agent. I suggest that it is the agents attitude toward acting for that kind of reason which makes the difference. Since moral causation can only succeed if the person accepts certain principles of morality and accepting such principles is accepting new reasons for acting the agent has already accepted the legitimacy of certain motivations. Whether this acceptance is due to the fact that such principles are ultimately self-imposed limitations (Kant) or whether some reference must be made to prudential gains that accrue from such acceptance (Hobbes) need not be settled at this juncture. All that is essential is that most of us do not resent acting for reasons of morality.

This factor, the attitude of the agent toward the reasons and desires which motivate his conduct, makes it difficult, at times, for us to assess correctly whether or not someone acts freely. The kleptomaniac who regards his impulses to steal as, in some sense, an alien feature of his personality and resents being driven to act as he does, is a case in point. It is highly questionable whether such people literally could not act otherwise, that it is beyond their powers to offer resistance to their anti-social impulses. It is more plausible to suppose that it is just very difficult for them to refrain, that they act in this fashion not in order to satisfy some rationally recognized need but rather to avoid some danger to their psychic economy the details of which may be spelled out by psychologists. They are, therefore, similar in important ways to victims of external coercion. Any theory of internal, psychological freedom has to have notions which correspond to those psychoanalysts refer to as "ego- alien." There must be part of the human personality which takes up an "attitude" toward the reasons, desires, and motives which determine the conduct of the agent.

Let me put my thesis in another way. Aristotle observes that "those who act under compulsion and unwillingly act with pain." I am arguing that this is a necessary fact. We only consider ourselves as being interfered with, as no longer acting on our own free will,



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when we find acting for certain reasons painful. To put the thesis epigrammatically; we do not find it painful to act because we are compelled; we consider ourselves compelled because we find it painful to act for these reasons.

VI

I shall conclude by discussing some objections that can be raised to my theory and some applications of it. First some objections. Consider a kleptomaniac who knows that what he does is wrong, who cannot stop himself by his own conscious efforts, but does know that constant surveillance with its attendant threats of de- tection and punishment is effective in preventing him from stealing. It could be said of him that he welcomes the motivation provided by threat of punishment yet isn't it true that he is interfered with, deprived of liberty, as much as any other person would be? It is important to bear in mind the distinction between what a man is free to do and what he does freely. The kleptomaniac is not free to take other people's property in a society which has a legal ap- paratus which forbids such acts. A man is not free to do something if he is either prevented from doing it or if his doing it would result in severe deprivation to him. All this is true independently of the wants of any particular person. That I have never contemplated kidnapping anyone, nor have any desire to do so, doesn't negate the fact that I am not free to do so. Nevertheless it may be the case that at some point I want to kidnap somebody and yet refrain from doing so and it can now be asked whether I did so of my own free will. The answer to that question will depend on my reasons. It will make a difference whether I refrained out of fear of being punished or because I decided it would be wrong to act on my desire or because an easier way of making money occurred to me. To give another example, I may pay my taxes freely (because, say, I accept some principle of fairness which requires all to make an equal sacrifice in return for benefits which all share in), although I am not free not to pay my taxes. Even if I didn't want to pay my taxes I would be forced to.

There are a number of distinct locutions that include the word "free" and which deserve some systematic analysis. The only one who has attempted this, as far as I know, is Oppenheim. [8]. In addition to "acting freely" and "being free to do x" there are the notions of "feeling free," "being free," and something we might call



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"being free with respect to x.' I am free to pay my taxes because nobody prevents me from doing so or threatens me with harm if I do so. Oppenheim says I am not free to pay my taxes because I am not free to refrain from doing so, but this is a mistake. What he should say, and what he does sometimes slip into saying, is that I am not free with respect to paying my taxes, e.g., it is not open to me to refrain. Thus some sample definitions would run: (I use "iff" to mean "if and only if".)

(1) A is unfree to do X, iff either A is prevented from doing X or it is made punishable for A to do X.

(2) A is free to do X, iff it is not the case that A is unfree to do X.

(3) A is free with respect to doing X, iff A is free to do X and A is free to refrain from doing X.4

How the notions of "feeling free" and "being free" are related is very obscure. The following observation seems quite wrong as it stands, although it is reasonable if "being free" were replaced by "feeling free":

.. . an individual may be free even when subject to restrictions (and compulsions) if those restrictions facilitate the achievement of his purposes, and provided that he willingly accepts these restrictions in principle. Pennock [91, p. 59.

If one accepts the statement as it stands then one is led to the paradox of the free slave, the individual who accepts the fetters that bind him. But fetters are fetters even if they are accepted fetters. Nevertheless, as opposed to those like Oppenheim who dismiss the notion of "feeling free" as somehow "subjective" and not a worthy candidate for "scientific treatment" of the question of human freedom, I think that this idea is a very important one, that ultimately we care about being free because there are occasions on which we want to feel free. We think that it is significant to the slave that he is not free because we believe, given certain plausible assumptions about human nature, that there will come a time when

4 As one of the referees for this paper points out there is a purely normative sense of being free with respect to doing an action which is roughly equivalent to being permitted to do or not to do the action in question. Thus if I promise to come to your dinner party I have limited my freedom of action. There is also a sense of punishable which involves making an assessment of responsibility and is thus also normative in character. As I am using the term I am only referring to the use of threats in order to deter. My definitions, therefore, should be understood as normatively neutral.



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he will desire to do something (which he doesn't at this moment of time) and will then resent the restrictions that have always been present. He will mind not being free to do certain things which hitherto he has not wanted to do.

As for "acting freely", which is what I have been concerned about, I am suggesting that it be defined as follows:

A does X freely iff A does X for reasons which he doesn't mind acting from.

This definition implies that A may do something freely though he is neither free to do it nor free with respect to doing it.

To return to the kleptomaniac, normally people who refrain from stealing because of fear of punishment are said not to be acting freely but I would argue that given the case as it is described this man does act freely. For since he welcomes the motivation provided by the fear of punishment we can take this as an indica- tion that what he really wants to do is to be stopped from acting as it appears he wants to act. In so far as the threat enables him to do what he really wants to do he cannot regard it as an obstacle to acting freely but merely as an additional and necessary motivation for doing what he wants to do. To understand what a man wants to do is at least partly to understand which interventions he regards as obstacles and which he regards as either aids to present desires or considerations for changing desires.

Still it might be objected that there may be aberrant individuals who don't mind acting for reasons which most of us do mind acting for, and conversely do mind acting for reasons that most of us are indifferent to or welcome. Thus Mr. X doesn't mind being motivated by fear of loss. Are we to say that he acts freely when he hands his money over to the robber? It is difficult to know what to say here for we are faced with a breakdown of normal con- nections which are not quite strong enough to be necessary bonds but are not so loose that their severance does not create difficulties for our understanding of what is occurring. We are asked to imagine a man who having the normal attitudes toward his goods does not resent giving them up when confronted with a "money or your life" situation. What will this man do when faced with a choice between two paths: one of which he knows to be free of robbers and the other of which he believes to be lined with them? Consider the following dialogue.



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A: "He will take the robber-free path." B: "Why?" A: "Because he wants to retain his goods." B: "Not in all circumstances. Otherwise one would make the

prediction that if faced with two paths one of which is lined with people selling food and the other not, X would choose the path free of vendors.'

A: "That's true. But in the case of buying food he is willing to give up some of his goods. In the case of the robbers he is not."

B: "Why not? By hypothesis, once in a coercive situation he doesn't mind giving up his goods, so what reasons does he have for avoiding getting into such situations?"

It begins to look as if Mr. X cannot have the normal attitude toward his possessions for it is part of that attitude that one tries to avoid getting into situations in which one gives up valued things without getting something in return. This is too crude for it sounds as if I am ruling out the possibility of altruistic or charitable acts. What I want to say is that we can only understand Mr. X if we interpret his actions as being altruistic ("Poor man, he needs the money more than I do.") or motivated by some need to atone or stemming from a re-evaluation of the worth of possessions, etc. Given our normal attitudes toward valued objects a man must resent having them taken from him by force.

None of this denies that human beings vary with respect to what they mind being motivated by. There are undoubtedly those like Thrasymachus who view morality as a subtle scheme enabling the powerful to enforce their rule. Such persons when they act for reasons of "morality" resent having to conform to the demands of others. But I am willing to say of such people that they do not act freely. They do not identify themselves with the reasons for which they act. They do regard such considerations as alien to their personality. I don't regard it as a weakness of my view that acting for certain reasons will be acting unfreely for some persons but not for others. In fact the theory will be confirmed by explaining such dif- ferences which are found on the pre-analytic level.

What I have tried to do in this essay is give an account of why we pick out a certain class of reasons for acting and say that acting for such reasons but not others is not acting freely, why we consider some interventions of others as creating obstacles to our desires and



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others not, why coercion is thought of as a way of getting someone to do what he doesn't want to do rather than a way of getting someone to want to do something else. My explanation was in terms of the resentment or aversion men have to acting for certain reasons. If we could conceive of a creature so devoid of inner resources, so docile and submissive that he never minded acting in a way different from his original intentions, who saw every action of his as arising from a new desire, then we would also have a being whose liberty we could not infringe. Just as one cannot force open a door that swings freely on its hinges one cannot force a man whose will swings willingly in any direction.5

REFERENCES

[1] Anscombe, G. E. M. Intention (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1957). [2] Daveney, T. V. "Wanting", Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 43,

April, 1961. [3] Fried, Charles. "Moral Causation", Harvard Law Review (April, 1964). [41 Hardie, W. F. R. "My Own Free Will", Philosophy, January, 1957. [5] Hobbes, T. "De Corpore Politico", in Body, Man and Citizen, ed. R. S.

Peters (New York: Crowell-Collier, 1962). [6] Kant, I. Lectures on Ethics (New York: Harper & Row, 1963). [7] McCoy, A. E. Force and Fear in Relation to Delictual Imputability and

Penal Responsibility (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1944).

[8] Oppenheim, F. Dimensions of Freedom (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1961).

[9] Pennock, J. R. Liberal Democracy (New York: Rinehart, 1950). [10] Plamenatz, J. P. Consent, Freedom and Political Obligation (London:

Oxford University Press, 1938). [11] University of California Associates, "The Freedom of the Will", reprinted

in Feigi and Sellars Readings in Philosophical Analysis (New York: Ap- pleton-Century-Crofts, 1949).

5 A shorter version of this paper was read at the Pacific Division meet- ings of the American Philosophical Association, September, 1968. I am much indebted to Professor Robert Nozick for many helpful suggestions.



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