On AlternativePossibilities

Andrew Harland-SmithThe University of Auckland – Department of Philosophy

(I am indebted to David Lewis, Tad Davis, Hamish Nelsonand John Bishop for their invaluable contribution to this

essay)

In this article, I will examine the significance of

Frankfurt type counter-examples to a libertarian

interpretation of the Principle of Alternative

Possibilities (PAP). In particular, I will look at the

possibilities that are left over for libertarians once

the force of these counter-examples is admitted. My over-

all goal in this article is to argue that, at best,

Frankfurt type counter-examples are instructive on how to

better encapsulate the incompatibilist intuition that

exercises libertarians so tremendously, and at worst, are

just unsuccessful. In short, the libertarian need not be

particularly vexed by Frankfurt type counter-examples. It

is important to notice, that my goal is not to arbitrate

the dispute between libertarianism and compatibilism, it

is merely to assess the significance of Frankfurt type

counterexamples for incompatibilism. My strategy in

pursuing this conclusion is two-fold. On the one hand, it

is to argue that Frankfurt type-counter examples only

possess any power insofar as we embrace a very particular

version of (PAP). In other words, it seems to me that

there is an easy way to revise (PAP) in an essentially

incompatibilist manner that avoids Frankfurt type-counter

examples. The second goal is to argue, in line with

philosophers such as John Martin Fischer, that even if we

grant that Frankfurt type-counter examples refute (PAP),

this fundamentally leaves un-touched the incompatibilist

intuition that seems to provide the initial impetus for

(PAP). In this connection, I point to what has become

known as ‘Source Incompatibilism’.

I proceed by way of five key sections. In the first

section, I provide an explanation of what libertarian

free will is, and the theses that define it. I do this in

large part by contrasting libertarian free will with its

theoretical alternatives i.e. compatibilism, hard-

determinism, and the impossibility of free will. In the

second section, I elaborate in some detail on the

incompatibilist interpretation of (PAP). Moreover, I

distinguish between two possible interpretations of (PAP)

that I refer to as (PAP1) and (PAP2) respectively. In the

third section, I articulate what Frankfurt type counter-

examples are, and what they attempt to establish. The

fourth section is divided into two key sub-sections. In

the first sub-section, I argue that Frankfurt type-

counter possess force only insofar as we embrace (PAP1),

but do not possess any force if as we embrace (PAP2). In

the second sub-section, to avoid any charge of ad hoc

modifications to (PAP) I will argue that there are good

independent reasons for libertarians to reject (PAP1) and

adopt (PAP2). It should not be lost on anyone that if I

am successful in this capacity, I will have established

that Frankfurt type counter-examples attack a straw-man

rendition of (PAP). In the fifth and final section, I

argue that even if we grant that Frankfurt-type counter

examples succeed in refuting (PAP), libertarians have

been given no reason to abandon the incompatibilist

thesis essential to the libertarian perspective.

Before I continue, I should start by noting that I take

freedom to be a necessary pre-condition of ‘moral

responsibility’. It seems intuitively obvious that

whatever else freedom is, it is the sort of thing that if

I lack it, then I also lack ‘moral responsibility’.

Section 1: Libertarian Free Will

Libertarianism conjoins three theses: (1) Indeterminism,

(2) Incompatibilism, and (3) the thesis that we are

morally responsible for our actions.1 The third thesis is

fairly self-explanatory, so I will only define the first

and second theses. The first thesis, in-determinism, is

the claim that determinism is false. I take it that

‘determinism’, is the thesis that all events, including

our actions, are entailed or necessitated by antecedent

events and conditions. Thus physical determinism would

hold that all events are causally necessitated by all

prior states of the universe together with the laws of

nature. This has the implication that if you had a

complete description of the state of the world, as well

1 Pereboom, Derk.. “Living Without Free Will”. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 2001. pp xiv

as an accurate description of the laws of nature, all

subsequent events could be predicted with certainty.2

Incompatibilism is the thesis that freedom of the sort

required for moral responsibility, is logically

inconsistent with determinism.3 That is, if our actions

are determined, we are not morally responsible for our

actions. This contrasts with compatibilism. According to

compatibilism, moral responsibility is compatible with

determinism. There are two key types of compatibilism:

“Hard Compatibilism”, according to which determinism is

actually required in order for us to be morally

responsible, and “Soft Compatibilism”. This latter type

of compatibilism holds that whilst we might be free in

the sense that libertarians claim us to be, the

possibility that determinism is true ought not concern

us, since even if it were, determinism and moral

2 Vihvelin, Kadri. “Causes Laws and Free Will”. USA. Oxford UniversityPress. 2013. pp 1 3 Vihvelin, Kadri. “Arguments for Incompatibilism”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed: 22/10/13. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-arguments/

responsibility are compatible. 4 It holds in other words,

that incompatibilism is false.

It is important to notice, that neither in-determinism

nor incompatibilism, nor any conjunction of the two

entail that we have libertarian free will. You might, for

instance, be a determinist and an incompatibilist. In

which case it follows from what you hold that we are not

morally responsible for our actions. This position is

referred to as “Hard Determinism”. Likewise you might be

an incompatibilist and an in-determinist, but think that

in-determinism is no more hospitable to moral

responsibility than determinism. You might think, after

all, that in-determinism implies that our actions are

somehow chancy or random, in which case we could not be

said to have the kind of control that is necessary to be

held morally responsible for our actions.5 If that

describes what you hold, you would also have to hold that

moral responsibility is impossible. On this view, it is

4 Craig, William Lane and JP Moreland. “Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview”. Illinois. Intervarsity Press. 2003. pp 2965 Pereboom, Derk.. “Living Without Free Will”. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 2001. pp 39-40

not merely that we are not morally responsible for our

actions; rather it is that moral responsibility is just

impossible. After all, determinism and in-determinism are

strict contradictories. Hence if moral responsibility is

inconsistent with both, it is not possible to be morally

responsible for our actions.

So to summarize, due to its commitment to in-determinism;

libertarianism holds that in order to be morally

responsible for our actions, we must in some sense be the

un-determined first cause of our own actions. When I say

that libertarians must hold that we are the undetermined

‘first causes’ of our own actions, I do not mean to

commit the libertarian to the claim that we are not

influenced by factors outside of our control, I simply mean

to suggest that these external factors do not determine

us to we act as we do.6 Evidently, if events and

conditions outside of ourselves efficiently cause (that

is determine) us to act as we do, we are not the first

cause of our own actions, hence, according the6 Craig, William Lane and JP Moreland. “Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview”. Illinois. Intervarsity Press. 2003. pp 270

libertarian, we cannot be held morally responsible for

the performance of that action.

Section 2: The Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP)So now that we have a good idea of just what

libertarianism is, we can move on to an analysis of the

Principle of Alternative Possibilities (hereafter PAP).

Suppose that some person S at some time T is ‘free’ to

perform some action A. The question before us is “what is

the correct analysis of the proposition ‘S is free to

perform A at T’ in which the libertarian thinks that S’s

freedom is incompatible with determinism”?

A fairly common-sense reply to this question answers that

what explains S’ freedom to perform A, is the fact that S

has ‘alternative possibilities’. In other words, S is

‘free’ to perform A just if, under the same circumstances,

she was been able to refrain from performing A.

It is important to take note of the ‘under the same

circumstances’ clause of (PAP). This is essential if

(PAP) is to be a ‘libertarian’ and not a compatibilist

interpretation of free will. Notice that without this

clause (PAP) is consistent with physical determinism.7 To

illustrate this, suppose that the actual world (hereafter

W1) is such that all events including our actions are

physically, but not logically, determined. Suppose

moreover, that in some circumstances C, some person S

performs some action A at some time T. Since all events

in W1 are physically but not logically determined, there

is some other possible world (hereafter W2) that is not

physically determined, such that, in C, S refrains from

performing A. So even if S’s actions were physically

determined, it might be true to say that S ‘could have

done otherwise’. There is after all, some other possible

world in which S does not perform A. But evidently this

notion of ‘alternative possibilities’ is not relevant to

the libertarian’s purposes. Although it was logically

possible for S to have done otherwise, it is nevertheless

false to say that S ‘could have done otherwise’ in W1,

since the laws of nature and the state of the universe in

7 I refer to ‘physical determinism’ here to distinguish itfrom non-physical forms of determinism such as theological determinism

W1 were such that they were sufficient to guarantee that S

does A at T. To put it differently, provided that the laws of

nature and the state of the universe remain fixed, S could not have

done anything other than perform A.

Understood as incorporating a claim about the ability to

do otherwise ‘in the same circumstances’, (PAP) satisfies

the incompatibilist thesis of libertarianism. By way of

illustration, let the conjunction of the laws of nature

and the overall state of the universe at some time T be

called ‘(L & C)’. Moreover, let us refer to the action

that some person S performs at some later time T+1 ‘A’.

If determinism is true, then (L & C) entails that S does

A at T+1. If (L & C) does not in some way ensure or

guarantee that S does A at T+1, then it is false to say

that (L & C) entails that S does A at T+1, since what it

means to say that (L & C) ‘entails’ that S does A at T+1,

is that so long as (L & C) is true, S does A at T+1. So

if (L & C) ‘determine’ S to do A, then it is false to say

that, in the same circumstances, S could have refrained

performing A.

(PAP), thus construed, seems to be one obvious answer to

the question of what makes it true to say that some

person S is free, in a libertarian sense, to perform A.

As we shall see in section four however, (PAP) is not

strictly required in order to answer this question.

Nevertheless, so understood, (PAP) remains ambiguous.

When it claims that freedom consists in the ability to

otherwise, it could mean one of two things:

(PAP1): Some agent S is free to perform some action A

just if, under the same circumstance, S is able to

actualize an alternative possibility

Alternatively, it could mean:

(PAP2): Some agent S is free to perform some action A

just if, under the same circumstances, S could have

willed to refrain from performing A.

When I refer to a ‘willing to Φ’, I have in mind the

‘executive decision’ to Φ. That is, it is the decision to

bring about or ‘execute’ or ‘act upon’ ones desire or

intention to Φ. Notice that a ‘willing to Φ’ is not a

‘desire/intention to Φ’, since it seems that you can

‘desire’ or ‘intend’ to Φ without actually acting on that

desire/intention. By contrast, a ‘willing to Φ’ just is

the decision to follow through/act upon the

intention/desire to Φ. Suppose that some person S ‘wills’

to Φ. Notice, importantly, that the process of

actualizing her willing can be frustrated by external

factors. Thus understood, (PAP2) stipulates that we might

be held as morally responsible for our actions even if

the process of actualizing our will is thwarted. In other

words, so long as we were able to will otherwise, we

might nevertheless responsible for the way in which we

acted. As we will see, (PAP2) has been referred to in the

literature as the ‘flicker of freedom’. To illustrate the

difference between (PAP1) and (PAP2), consider one of

Vihvelin’s favored examples:

“You are sitting in your office, reading a book. I lock the door.

Without changing anything about you – not even your mental state,

since you do not know what I have done. I have changed a modal

fact about you. A moment ago you were able to leave the room; now

you aren’t. But it also seems true, in another sense that you remain

able to leave. After you all, you have not forgotten how to walk, and I

haven’t broken your legs. The problem is with your surroundings, not

your legs”8

Notice that if (PAP1) is true, it follows that in

circumstances such as these, you are not really ‘free’ to

leave your office. After all, you are only ‘free’

according to (PAP1) if you are able to actualize the

alternative possibility. But since the door to your office

is locked, you cannot actualize that possibility. Notice,

by contrast, that (PAP2) is consistent with you being

‘free’ to leave your office. After all, to be ‘free’

according to (PAP2), all that needs to be true is that

there is nothing, internal to you, that would prevent you

from making the executive decision to leave. As Vihvelin

puts it, the problem is not with you, it is with your

surroundings.9

Notice that (PAP2), like (PAP1) requires in-determinism.

After all, if determinism is true, since all events are8 Vihvelin, Kadri. “Causes Laws and Free Will”. USA. Oxford UniversityPress. 2013. pp 8 9 Ibid.

entailed by prior events and conditions, it follows that

our ‘willings’ are likewise entailed by prior events and

conditions. Hence if determinism is true, we cannot will

in any way other than how we in-fact will.

Section 3: Frankfurt type counter-examples:So far then, we have come to the conclusion that the ‘in

the same circumstances’ clause of (PAP) satisfies the

incompatibilist thesis of libertarianism. We have also

decided that there are at least two different ways in

which to interpret (PAP).

Many simple classical arguments for incompatibilism are

based on (PAP) and go something like this:

(1). If some person S is to be morally responsible for her

performance of some action A, then S must ‘free’ to

perform A

(2). If S is to be free to perform A, then S must be able

to do other than A

Therefore,

(3). If S is to be morally responsible for her performance

of A, S must be able to do other than A [HS 1,2]

(4). If determinism is true, S cannot have done otherwise

Therefore,

(5). If determinism is true, S cannot have freely

performed A [MT 4,5]

Before I continue, it is important to remember that for

the purposes of this argument, freedom is a necessary but

not a sufficient condition for holding some person S

morally responsible for her performance of A. In other

words, if S were not ‘free’ to perform A, we could not

(justly anyway) hold S morally responsible for A.

In his famous paper “Moral Responsibility and Alternate

Possibilities” Harry Frankfurt attempts to cast doubt on

the truth of the third premise ((which is effectively just

a re-statement of (PAP)) by drawing out a number of

thought experiments that he believes are counter-examples

to (PAP). Put simply, these Frankfurt type counter

examples attempt to show that S can be morally responsible

for her performance of A even if she lacked the ability to

do otherwise. Consider the following (modified) version of

Frankfurt’s favored examples:

Jones has resolved to shoot Smith. Black has learned of Jones's plan

and wants Jones to shoot Smith. But Black would prefer that Jones

shoot Smith on his own. However, concerned that Jones might waver

in his resolve to shoot Smith, Black secretly arranges things so that, if

Jones should show any sign at all that he will not shoot Smith

(something Black has the resources to detect), Black will be able to

manipulate Jones in such a way that Jones will shoot Smith. As things

transpire, Jones follows through with his plans and shoots Smith for

his own reasons. No one else in any way threatened or coerced Jones,

offered Jones a bribe, or even suggested that he shoot Smith. Jones

shot Smith under his own steam. Black never intervened.10 11

Adding to the thought experiment, we might suppose that

Black’s means of manipulating Jones is a chip that he has

placed in Jones’ brain such that if he (Jones) wavers in

his resolve to shoot Smith, it will inform Black. Black

will then activate the chip and cause Jones to shoot

Smith.

10 Frankfurt, Harry. “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility”. The Journal of Philosophy. Vol 66. No 23. Dec 1969. 829-839. pp 835. 11 McKenna, Michael. “Compatibilism”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed: 26/10/13. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/#4.2

Intuitively speaking, in spite of the fact that he lacked

the ability to do otherwise, it looks as though Jones is

morally responsible for shooting Smith. After all, part of

the thought experiment stipulates that Black was never

required to intervene in such a way as to ensure that

Smith shoots Jones. If this is true, then it seems that we

can be morally responsible for our actions even if we

lacked the ability to actualize an alternative

possibility. It might well be the case that Jones would

not have been morally responsible for shooting Smith if,

counterfactually, he wavered in his commitment to shooting

Smith, thereby causing Black to intervene by activating

the chip. Whilst this response might lead us in the

direction of some other form of incompatibilism, but it

would not qualify as a defense of (PAP1) after all, as

Frankfurt has stated it, Jones lacked the ability to

actualize the alternate possibility. In the stated fact

situation, Black is not required to intervene, since Jones

never changes his mind. Hence it would seem that Jones is

still morally responsible for shooting Smith.

Section 4: Circumventing Frankfurt type counter-examples:Section 4 subsection 1 How Frankfurt type counter-examples assume (PAP1)Frankfurt type counter-examples succeed at showing that

(PAP1) is false. After all, it seems fairly clear that

Jones is unable to actualize that possible world in which

Smith does not die as a result of Jones shooting him.

Hence if ‘freedom’, in the sense that is required for

moral responsibility consists in the freedom to actualize

the alternative possibility, it follows that Jones is not

morally responsible. Yet it seems intuitively clear that

Jones is morally responsible for shooting Smith, so (PAP1)

must be false.

Nevertheless, thought experiments such as Frankfurt’s do

not succeed in showing that (PAP2) is false. To see why,

it helps to begin by noting that Frankfurt thinks that the

reason for (PAP)’s vulnerability is that there are

circumstances that leave an agent with a single course of

action, but which do not themselves impel or lead him to

do what he does.12 It is unclear quite why Frankfurt would

think (PAP) to be vulnerable to these kinds of cases if he

did not also think that the libertarian proponent of (PAP)

was insisting on something like (PAP1) rather than (PAP2).

To put it differently, if Frankfurt took himself to be

critiquing something like (PAP2), it would be irrelevant

to note that there are circumstances which leave an agent

with a single course of action, but which do not

themselves impel the agent to act as he does. Since on

(PAP2), the salient feature is Jones’ ability to will

otherwise even if the circumstances are such that they

conspire to limit Jones’ option set. So evidently

Frankfurt was under the impression that the libertarian

proponent of (PAP) insists that freedom consists more in

the ability to actualize an alternative possibility than

it does in the ability to will otherwise.

Moreover, given the facts that Frankfurt has confronted us

with, the problem is not with Jones himself, but rather

with his surroundings. Jones did not lack the ability to12 Frankfurt, Harry. “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility”. The Journal of Philosophy. Vol 66. No 23. Dec 1969. 829-839. pp 830.

will otherwise. Rather, the constraints on Jones’ ability

to do otherwise are purely external, arising as a result

of what David Hunt refers to as the “counterfactual”

intervener to eliminate alternative outcomes. That is, the

thing that eliminates Jones’ ability to do otherwise is a

purely external constraint that will only intervene if

Jones wavers in his resolve to shoot Smith.13 This point

turns out to be important, since it means that that the

counter-factual intervener (Black) can only thwart Jones’

action once Jones begins to will the alternative

possibility. Evidently, in the moment where Jones wills

the alternative possibility, there is a ‘flicker of

freedom’ insofar as Jones begins to will otherwise.

Finally, in order to elicit the intuition that Jones is

morally responsible for the shooting of Smith, Frankfurt’s

thought experiment depends on nothing illicitly

interfering with Jones’ will. This point is more clearly

illustrated when we consider the counterfactual scenario

in which Jones wavers in his resolve to shoot Smith. In13 Hunt, David. “Moral Responsibility and Unavoidable Action”. Philosophical Studies. Vol 97. No 2. Jan 2000. 195-227.pp 195

such a scenario, we would no doubt conclude that Jones is

not morally responsible for shooting Smith. Since then,

Black is the efficient cause of Smith’s death, albeit

carried out through Jones. Since Jones has wavered in his

commitment to shooting Smith, it follows that he has willed

the alternative possibility. But because Black intervenes,

causing him to kill Smith, Jones becomes part of the

efficient causal chain that leads to Smith’s death, pre-

empting Jones’ will.

Hence from the facts of the thought experiment, all we can

conclude is that Jones lacks the ability to actualize the

alternative possibility. But we cannot conclude that Jones

lacks the ability to will otherwise. Hence if rather than

insisting that freedom consists in the ability to

actualize the alternative possibility, we insist that it

consists in the ability to will otherwise, it is unclear

quite how Frankfurt’s thought experiments are ‘counter-

examples’ to (PAP).

John Martin Fischer objects that this ‘flicker of

freedom’, or what I have referred to as (PAP2) is not

sufficiently robust to ground attributions of moral

responsibility. That is, according to Fischer, the sense

in which Jones is able to do otherwise in Frankfurt’s

thought experiment is nothing more than a mere flicker of

freedom. In particular, Fischer objects that ‘the mere

possibility of involuntary behavior…does not offer sufficient substance on

which to base ones attributions of moral responsibility’.14 So for

Fischer it would seem, we are only responsible for the

circumstances that we actualize. Our willings are not

sufficiently robust or are ‘too exiguous’ to ground moral

responsibility.

In response, it seems to me that our willings or this

‘flicker of freedom’, as Fischer refers to it, must be

sufficiently robust as to ground attributions of moral

responsibility. After all it seems that in our day-to-day

moral practices, we hold people to be morally responsible

for their ‘un-actualized willings’. In other words, it

14 Fischer, John Martin. “My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility”. USA. Oxford University Press. 2006. pp 127-128

seems as though we hold people morally responsible even

when the actualization of their willings are frustrated.

Suppose, by way of illustration, that I am at a gun range

with someone whom I very much dislike. Let’s call him Ben.

Suppose moreover, that whilst Ben is down range, I aim my

rifle at him and try to shoot him in the head. However,

because it is faulty, the gun jams and Ben entirely un-

injured and none the wiser to my nefarious designs.

Granted that I am not morally responsible for shooting

Ben, but it still seems clear that I have in some way

wronged him. In which case, it follows that there is

something for which I am morally responsible. Now if we

follow Fischer in his insistence that un-actualized

willings are not sufficiently robust as to ground moral

responsibility, it seems to follow that we are committed

to the claim that I have not done anything for which I can

be held morally responsible. After all, my will to murder

Ben is un-actualized. But this seems very counter-

intuitive! It seems as though I ought to be held

responsible for failing to appropriately relate to Ben.

Now if that is the case, it seems to follow that I can be

held to be morally responsible even for an un-actualized

willing.

One reply to might be that the intuition that produces

this conclusion is more the fact that I have actualized a

particular set of circumstances. After all, it seems that

I lifted the gun, pointed it at Ben and pulled the

trigger. But the only reason that the gun failed to fire

is the failure of a complex physical mechanism. Let us

refer to these circumstances that I actualized as C. So it

might be responded that the reason for attributing moral

responsibility in this case, is that I actualized C. But

if it is merely in virtue of actualizing C that I am

responsible for wronging Ben, it follows that if some

other person S’ actualizes C but does so without the

will/intention to murder Ben, then S’ is morally

responsible for precisely the same crime as I am. After

all if our willings are ‘too exiguous’ to ground

attributions of moral responsibility, it seems to follow

that the precise nature of the ‘willings’ that motivate S’

are irrelevant to what he is morally responsible for. But

this just seems misguided! In pointing my gun at Ben with

the intention of murdering him, it seems that insofar as I am

responsible for something far worse than S’, my action is

different in a morally significant way from S’s action of

pointing the gun at Ben without the intention of murdering him.

Hence it would seem that what I am guilty of, is an un-

actualized willing. I have not properly related to Ben.

Fischer further objects that it is possible to formulate

Frankfurt type cases in which the counter-factual

intervener (Black) picks up on some fact prior to the time

at which Jones forms his will to kill Smith. Thus for

instance, it might be the case that Jones wills to kill

Smith at T if and only if Jones blushes at some time T-1

(before T). In which case, the absence of any blush on

Jones’ part could be taken as Jones having willed to not

kill Smith. Thus if Jones does not blush, Black intervenes

to block the behavior that he does not want.15

15 Pereboom, Derk. “Source Incompatibilism and Alternative Possibilities”. Last Seminary. Accessed: 4/10/13. http://www.lastseminary.com/display/Search?searchQuery=Moral+Responsibility+and+Alternative+Possibilities&moduleId=4798594. pp 2-3

However, it is difficult to see what could explain the

predictive power of Jones’ blushing apart from the

assumption of determinism. If determinism is true, it is

straightforward to see how if Jones’ does not blush, then

he will not will to kill Smith. However, if determinism is

false, the absence of any blush on Jones’ part is not

sufficient to indicate that Jones will not will to not

shoot Smith. In other words, if determinism is false, then

Jones could have willed not to shoot Smith even if he does

not blush first.

To put it differently, if it is to be true that Jones

wills to shoot Smith at T if and only if Jones blushes at T-1,

it must also be that in all physically possible worlds

that Jones blushes at T-1, Jones also wills to shoot Smith

at T. In which case, Jones’ blushing at T-1 is sufficient

for Jones willing to shoot Smith at T. In which case it

seems that the causal history leading up to Jones’ willing

to shoot Smith is incompatible with Jones not willing to

shoot Smith. If Jones’ blushing is only taken as a

probabilistic indicator of his willing to shoot Smith, it

would still be true to say that Jones could have willed

otherwise. Hence Fischer’s example denies the “in the same

circumstances” clause, and so assumes determinism. It is

therefore question begging against the libertarian

understanding of (PAP)!

Section 3 subsection 2: Independent reasons for (PAP2) But of course we may worry that this movement from (PAP1)

to (PAP2) is ad hoc. In contrast to this, I want to

suggest that there are good independent reasons for

libertarians to adopt (PAP2).

As I mentioned in relation to Fischer’s criticism of

(PAP2) or, the “flicker of freedom’, as he referred to it,

it seems that in our ordinary moral practices we hold

people morally responsible for their un-actualized

willings. If that is right, it seems to me that there is

independent reason to adopt (PAP2). Forget Frankfurt type

counter-examples, (PAP1) is disconfirmed by ordinary moral

practices. In light of this it strikes me that it would be

exceedingly tendentious criticism of (PAP) to suppose what

its proponents really mean when they insist that moral

responsibility requires the ability to do otherwise is

that we cannot be held morally responsible for the nature

of our willings/intentions.

So it seems that we have good independent reason to

abandon (PAP1). Hence insofar as (PAP1) and (PAP2) are

jointly exhaustive of all (PAP) based alternatives, and

insofar we insist that freedom must consist in some

ability to do otherwise, it disjunctively follows that we

have reason to embrace (PAP2).

Section 5: Source IncompatibilismAt first blush, it seems natural to think that there is

no distinction between the circumstances conspiring to

limit our option set to a single course of action, and

those circumstances impelling or leading us to act in

that way. That is, initially we seem initially inclined

to think that if we lack the categorical ability to

actualize the alternative possibility, our actions must

be determined.

But as we have seen, a closer examination of our

intuitions seems to reveal that the circumstances can

conspire to restrict our option set to a single course of

action without impelling us to act in that way. Moreover,

this is consistent with our morally responsibility for

acting in that way. If so, then as Fischer points out, if

determinism poses a threat to moral responsibility, it

will not be on the grounds that determinism rules out our

ability to do otherwise.

Let us grant, if only for the sake of argument, that

Frankfurt type counter-examples are successful in the way

suggested. That is, let us hypothetically concede to

Fischer that the robustness objection provides a robust

reason to reject. (PAP2). In my contention, this leaves

untouched the incompatibilist intuition that gave rise to

(PAP) in the first place..

The intuition that seems to provide the initial impetus

for (PAP) seems to be the worry that if determinism is

true, then the ultimate cause or source of how we act,

lies in events and conditions over which we have no

control. In other words, if determinism is true, then the

source of how we act is not ourselves, but some early

state of the universe in conjunction with the laws of

nature. Our bodies and our desires really just turn out

to be instrumental causes in the chain of sufficient

causation. We can illustrate this by imagining a

contiguous row of seven marbles. I sit at one end and

push the first marble with my finger thereby causing each

of the marbles in the row to move. The question arises

‘what causes the marble furthest from me to move?’ The

obvious answer is that I caused it to move, and that each

of the marbles in the line-up served as instrumental or

intermediate causes in making the marble furthest from me

move. Whilst it might be right to say that each of the

intermediate marbles served as a cause of the marble on

the end moving, it would be false to say of any given

marble that it was the cause of the marbles moving on the

end. So the source of the marble’s movement is not

itself, but rather a chain of prior marbles moving which

ultimately traces back to my finger pushing them.

Likewise the worry for libertarians is that if

determinism is true, we are like one of the marbles in

this chain. The source of our actions is not really

ourselves, but rather a set of events and conditions

outside of ourselves over which we have no control.

So the primary concern seems to be about the source of our

actions. In particular, the concern is about whether or

not agents have the relevant control over their actions

to be morally responsible for them. So if determinism is

true it may seem as though we are not the source or the

true originators of our actions. As Derk Pereboom points

out, this worry about the source of our actions not only

explains why we might think that determinism is

inconsistent with moral responsibility, but it also

explains why an un-caused action (if in-fact we could

refer to such an event as an ‘action’) is not something

for which we can be morally responsible. After all, if an

action is ‘un-caused’, it straightforwardly follows that

the source of the action is something over which the

agent has no control.16

Now it seems perfectly clear that (PAP1) is one way to

capture this concern about source. After all, if (PAP1)

is true, then the source of our action is ourselves, not

a set of events and conditions outside of our control.

Following Pereboom, we might refer to incompatibilists

who insist that (PAP1) is the loci of moral

responsibility as “leeway incompatibilists” since they

insist that moral outcomes is located only in being able

to actualize a range of possible circumstances.17 However,

it is not clear whether (PAP1) is required in order to

capture this concern. Indeed Frankfurt type counter-

examples may give us some reason to think that (PAP1) is

false. Nevertheless, in spite of this, it seems crucial

to Frankfurt’s example of Jones and Smith, that although

Jones does not have the ability to actualize the

alternative possibility, he is not impelled or led to

shoot Smith. Rather, he does it because that is what he

16 Ibid. pp 217. Ibid.

wants to do. The importance of this point is illustrated

by the intuition that is produced when we consider

whether or not Jones would be morally responsible for

shooting Smith if in-fact wavered in his resolve to do so

and ended up deciding that he does not want to shoot

Smith. In that instance, the counter-factual intervener

(Black) would be required to step in to block the

behavior that he does not want. No doubt we would say in

that scenario that Jones does not bear moral

responsibility for shooting Smith, since he was caused to

do so by something outside of himself. The libertarian

may point to this as showing that even Frankfurt type

counter-examples require indeterminism to produce the

intuition that Jones is morally responsible for shooting

Smith. Following Pereboom once again, we might refer to

this brand of incompatibilist as “source

incompatibilists”, since for them, the judgment that some

person S is morally responsible for some action A arises

from an analysis of the causal history of A, not from the

availability of alternative possibilities to actualize.

Hence it seems that the libertarian can admit that moral

responsibility is not located in having the ability to do

otherwise.18

To conclude, it seems that since it is subject to easy

revision, Frankfurt type counterexamples are unsuccessful

in showing that (PAP) is false. But even if we are agreed

that Frankfurt type counterexamples are successful in

showing that (PAP) is false, it leaves untouched the

incompatibilist worry that if determinism is true, we are

not the true source of our actions. That rather, we are

like one of the marbles in the example I considered

earlier, an instrumental cause, but never a first cause.

It follows then, that the libertarian need not be

particularly vexed by Frankfurt type counterexamples.

18 Ibid.

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