Under what conditions, if any, does an agent act freely?

Would the thesis of

determinism, if true, undermine freedom of action?

Freedom and Determinism are often presented dichotomously as jointly

exhaustive or mutually exclusive. In this essay I will argue for a conciliatory view,
as I attempt to expose this false dichotomy and hopefully demonstrate that
determinism does not necessarily undermine freedom of action.

Leon presents determinism as the view that every event has antecedent causes
such that given those causes the event had to occur, or that every event follows
from a combination of the laws of nature and the initial conditions obtaining prior
to that event occurring. Freedom is delineated as an agent acting freely given
certain conditions.
To determine how reconciliation is achieved between determinism and freedom,
we need to consider two explanatory schemes, considered here as
Incompatibilism and compatibilism. Incompatibilism is a thesis that freedom and
determinism are incompatible, thus (a) if actions are determined then actions
are not free, and conversely (b) if actions are free, then determinism is false. The
former position is a pessimistic view known as hard determinism and the latter
more optimistic view is Libertarianism. Compatibilism is the position that
determinism does not negate the possibility that our actions are free; this is
known as soft determinism. Perhaps the following illustration by Sober is useful:

Hard determinism: if D then not –F

D
----------------
Not F
Libertarianism: if D, then not –F
F
----------------
Not D
Soft Determinism: F
D
---------------
F and D are compatible

Freedom and determinism have implications for the freedom of action and the
will. We hold free actions as those actions which we normally take agents to be
morally responsible for, and agents are taken to be responsible for their actions
if their actions have a proper source in the agent, thus free actions occur
because of or reflect the will of the agent. As Shaffer argues, if an agent cannot
act of his own free will, he should never be held morally responsible for what he
does, deserving neither praise or blame for his actions.

Let us consider and evaluate the accounts of the will in order to determine what
it is for an action to be willed. The faculty view of the will holds that an agent
acts freely if it is the case that the agent wills an action, and then the agent
performs the action.
The reason view states that an agent acts freely if it is the case that if the agent
has reasons that rationalise an action, then the agent performs the action, this is
a species of the reason satisfaction model, and thus actions are free insofar as
actions track the agent’s reasons. This view is predicated on the causal theory of
actions as behaviours that are intentional, caused by desires (and other
motivational states) as informed by beliefs.

The faculty view leads to scepticism with regards to the will viewed as
constituting a distinct faculty, and it appears to lead to regress or worse still, the
will fails to constitute the cause of the action. As Leon illuminates; if willing is
distinct from acting, then the will can cause the action, but now we need to ask
whether the agent was free to will the action, this causes regress for if for an act
to be free, the antecedent must be free. A solution offered by Davidson is to
appeal to states that are not susceptible to the regress or states that we are
typically responsible for.

The Reason or Rationalising view is the view that I will consider in detail to
support the compatibilist thesis. To reiterate, it states that the will is analysable
in terms of reasons, ergo, to say an action reflects an agent’s will, is to say that
the action is caused by the agents reasons. The problem of regress is avoided
when contrasting reasons as comprising the will and the will as a distinct faculty.
Reasons are distinct from actions so can cause the actions, but are not states
that we take agents to be free with respect to or responsible for or that the agent
does, since we do not take reasons to be acts of ours. The account captures an
important element in freedom; that of liberty of spontaneity, since the free agent
is one who, if he reasons to act, acts, or if he wants to perform some action, acts
in accordance with his wants.

Next I will consider possible challenges to the reason or want satisfaction model,
the first being the charge that it appears to contravene the condition that the
free agent be able to do otherwise, known as the problem of liberty of
indifference or alternative possibilities.

The interpretation of liberty of indifference is that, to be free, it is not enough

that the agent have liberty to act as he wants, he must also have the liberty to
act as he does or not. Compatibilists favour the conditional account, which
interprets the principle of liberty of indifference to say that an agent could have
done otherwise, if the agent had better reasons to do otherwise or if the agent
had chosen to do otherwise. This position captures the will tracking condition,
where free actions go where the agents will goes and states that the capacity to
do otherwise is conditional on the will being otherwise. It is consistent with
concomitant variation, if A changes then B is altered. An example is that an
addict, does not have alternate possibilities of actions, therefore he is not free,
since he has a desire but cannot act otherwise.

The Unconditional account favoured by incompatibilists interprets the principle of

liberty of indifference as; an agent being free when acting only if the agent could
have done otherwise under exactly the same conditions. Leon suggests that this
allows for an agent’s doppelganger acting differently than the agent given the
same reasons for acting, where those reasons constitute the best or strongest
reasons for acting.

The unconditional account has problematic implications. Since it makes freedom

of action a capacity to act contrary to one’s reasons or will; it makes freedom a
capacity to act in an irrational way; it suggests that the principle of spontaneity
and indifference pull in opposite directions; finally it raises doubts as to whether
such an action could be the agent’s given that it fails to track the agents will.

There is a dissenting view that states that liberty of indifference is not essential
for freedom. Kane proposes that the compatibility question cannot be resolved
by focussing on alternate possibilities alone; he claims that ultimate
responsibility does not require that we could have done otherwise for every act
done of our own free will. This is supported by Locke’s locked room thought
experiment. Locke describes a man who decides to remain in the room in order
to talk to a friend. Unbeknown to the man, the door is locked. The man remains
in the room voluntarily although it is false that he could have done otherwise had
he chosen to do so. Locke’s illustrates the point that an action can be voluntary
even though the agent was not free to do otherwise.

The second challenge concerns the problem of determinism and responsibility

which Sober refers to as the distant causation argument. The thrust of the
challenge is that if determinism is true, then our will, our reasons and choices,
would in turn be determined by factors beyond our control, such as our history,
our genes and our environment, but if this is so, how could our actions be free? If
our will is determined, how could we be in control, since implicitly our actions are
not up to us?

I consider first if Indeterminism of the will offers a solution. Sober explains

indeterminism as to mean that a complete description of the causal facts at one
time leaves open what will happen next. Thus the will or its elements, such as
desires, beliefs and values are not determined, meaning their outcomes are
probabilistic or more radically, there is no systematic connection between causes
and effects. The problem with this account apart from the obvious assault on the
intuition is that it takes control out of external hands but fails to put it back in to
the agent’s hands. It would make actions capricious for they would not be
grounded in the agent’s reasons, if not determined by his reasons.

To further expound on the problem, let us look separately at the components of

the will, viz belief and desire from a Libertarian account and determinism. What
would it be to believe autonomously, the first libertarian account is couched on
indeterminism being true, and thus accordingly, we believe autonomously if our
beliefs are not determined. The problem is that this leaves beliefs ungrounded.
Indeed even Libertarian Taylor rejects this view, suggesting that it appears to
remove the difficulties of determinism, only to imply absurdities of its own, since
our actions would be erratic, impulsive and irresponsible. The second Libertarian
account is that beliefs follow the will, thus we believe autonomously if our beliefs
follow the will or desire. The problem is that we do not believe at will, we can
only affect what we believe indirectly on the basis of evidence, and if beliefs
were produced by the will, this would impugn on the proper functioning of belief.
A more plausible account with regards to the nature and function of belief is that
of determinism. It holds that beliefs are essentially truth directed states which
should ideally be produced by truth or evidence, thus to believe autonomously is
if beliefs track or are determined by the truth, evidence or reason. Conversely we
fail to believe autonomously if the beliefs are determined in the wrong way,
independently of the evidence such as in cases of brainwashing, hypnosis, and
indoctrination or where the will plays the wrong role.

The other component of the will is desire. The libertarian account couched on
indeterminism states that we desire autonomously if our desires are not
determined. We encounter similar problems of ungrounded desires. Where
desires are not determined, they fail to put control back into the agent’s hands
since they would fail to follow the agent’s needs or good. Equally bizarre is the
second libertarian account that we desire autonomously if our desires follow the
will or from other desires. The problem here is that the will is not the proper
source for desires. If desires follow other desires, what in turn will guide the will
in determining what is desired?

The determinist account of the will is that of the nature and function of desires as
states that serve or track the agent’s needs and good. To wit, we desire
autonomously if desires track the agent’s needs or the agent’s good; and fail to
desire autonomously if those desires are not produced or acquired in the right
way.
We have demonstrated how Libertarian accounts fail to put control back in the
hands of the agent when contrasted to the determinist account which take
autonomy to go with an appropriate sort of determinism, where beliefs are
predicated on truth or evidence, and desires by the agent’s needs or good.

Next I will consider the relation between determinism and responsibility, with a
view to determine what freedom and responsibility require. Consider the thesis
that we are responsible for our actions when the way we act is up to us or in our
control; a function of our choices. If determinism and the distant causation
argument by Sober obtains, this might fail to show that we are responsible. Since
general determinism suggests that our actions and reasons have distant causes,
it remains true that, but for our reasons, we would not have acted that way;
given those reasons again under similar conditions, we would act in that way
again; hence our actions comprise a non-redundant part of the deterministic
chain; we can say that the action would have occurred regardless of our reasons
or desires, beliefs and values.

A response to this problem would be that agents act freely if actions are
determined in the right way. So if actions go through the agent’s will, the agent
acts because of his reasons, where his reasons are caused in the right way, then
the action is up to the agent. The agent acts freely. Or as Shaffer puts it, the
causal efficacy of an agent’s wants and beliefs is not a constraint on his free will
but the exercise of it.

Another problem concerns determinism and compulsion. If determinism is true

and desires, beliefs and values are determined, the agent might be a slave to his
desires or compelled to act because of them. A response offered by Leon is that
the distinction between free or compelled action is drawn within a deterministic
scheme. Thus we take an agent to be a slave to his desires or compelled to act
because of them, where these desires are themselves alien, such as in cases of
inappropriately acquired desires or addictive desires. And we take an agent to be
in charge, active rather that passive with regards to his action, where his desires
are acquired normally or where they are moderated by other desires, hence talk
of slavery and compulsion is only appropriate in abnormal circumstances.

I now consider the third instalment of challenges to the reason or want

satisfaction model, posed to the compatibilist account, so called the problem of
the internal impediments to freedom.

These can be internal impediments to freedom, impediments that obtain in the

agent, as well as external impediments. The problem seems to be that actions
can be caused by states of the agent which do not constitute the agent’s will,
and so where the actions are not properly his. Such problematic states can be
addictive, compulsive or obsessive desires; immoderate actions which are not in
accord with the agents other reasons or his better judgement; or states acquired
inappropriately such as brainwashing and indoctrination.
There are several responses to this challenge, with the objective to account for
when a state, such as desire and belief, constitutes the will of the agent.

Frankfurt, in response to Strawson’s account of a person as a subject of mental

and physical predication, suggests that this would apply to various animals of a
lesser species than human beings as well. Frankfurt proposes a hierarchical, a-
historical account that persons have a will with a certain structure which is
distinguished by persons having the capacity to form higher order desires.

Thus besides wanting and choosing and being moved to do one thing or another,
men may also want to have or not to have certain desires. They are capable of
wanting to be different in their preferences and purposes. Man has the capacity
for reflective self-evaluation that is manifested in the formation of second order
desires. So a desire to take a drug may be considered a first order desire, it is a
desire to perform an action; a desire to have a desire to take a drug, is a second
order desire, this does not lead to action but to another desire, an example
offered by Frankfurt is a physician, wanting to best help his patients through
enhanced understanding, wants to know what it is like to have a craving (desire)
without the desire to take the drugs. And second order volitions constitute
desires to have first order desire to lead to action.

So an agent’s will or effective desire is identified with a first order desire, a

desire for action. An agent acts of his own free will when he has the will he
wants. A potential conflict exists between desires of the first order and the
second order, where an agent might not have the will or effective desire he
wants, he (Kamo) might have a desire to do P (eat) where the desire moves him
to action but he might have a desire that the desire to do P (eat) not constitute
his will and not move him to action. So we might need to modify our initial view
thus: An agent act of his own free will if the desire that moves him to action is
the desire that he wants to move him to action.

Frankfurt makes another distinction for persons and freedom of the will. Since
only persons have second order desires or have preferences regarding their
desires and care about their will, they need to be distinguished from wantons,
which have first order desires but not second order desires since they are not
concerned with the desirability of their desires. Our distant primate cousins,
monkeys, offer a good illustration of how they use instrumental rationality to
manipulate their environment to get what they want, yet never reflect on
whether it is right or wrong. The essence of a person lies not in the capacity for
instrumental reason, but in their capacity for critical self reflection.

Let’s briefly look at a diagnosis of the internal impediments challenge and at

Frankfurt’s account and its attendant problems. Freedom of action is the
freedom to do what one wants, and freedom of the will is the freedom to have
the will one wants, if his effective desire conforms to his second order volitions.
When an agent acts on addictive, obsessive, or compulsive desires which conflict
with higher order desires/volitions then he does not act of his own free will, the
will that is effective in action is not the will he wants.

Leon illustrates Frankfurt’s idea in the following way:

I) Desire to take the drug leads one to take the drug

II) Desire for the desire to take the drug to lead to action

III) Desire not to have the desire to take the drug to lead to action

In cases (i) and (ii) you have the willing addict and in cases (i) and (iii) you
have an unwilling addict. For Frankfurt the willing addict is a wanton, since
his actions reflect the economy of his first order desires, without being
concerned whether the desires that move him to act are desires by which he
wants to be moved to act.

I turn now to look at the problems encountered by Frankfurt before moving to

our next account. Is a second order volition is sufficient for freedom of action
in the willing addict? Why identify the person with higher order desires, when
higher order desires are just desires of a higher order. If the authority of
desire requires a higher order desire, this could also be true of the higher
order desire, which might still need a higher order desire, leading to a
problem of regress. Finally it seems logical that an agent can be a wanton
with respect to higher order desires, where for example higher order desires
are produced by brainwashing.

The second account in response to the internal impediments challenge is

from Watson‘s structural account, which considers a hierarchical distinction
between motivational and valuational systems.

Watson claims that agents have a motivational system, or various motives or

desires for acting; and they also have a valuational system, whereby certain
actions are taken to be of value. The potential conflict between the two
systems arises when the motivational and valuational systems diverge, for
the agent acts in a way that he fails to value. So an agent is alienated from
his desire if he fails to value the desire, then his desire constitutes an
impediment to his will.

If we consider an unwilling addict, he would have a desire to take the drug,

but which desire would be effective in the action? The effective desire runs
against the agent’s values or valuations system. A similar problem as
Frankfurt’s higher order desires emerges. Why identify the agent with a
valuational system? Consider Watsons suggestion that, an agent may fully
‘embrace’ a course of action he does not judge best; it may not be thought
best, but is fun and thrilling. This would not be a case of compulsion; not a
case of the weakness of the will, where one acts the way he does not against
his considered judgement; so the agent can act freely, even if the desire that
you act upon is not the one he values, yet it can still constitute his will.

Our final account on this problem is from Sober’s non hierarchal account,
which has consideration for the genesis of the will. Sober’s account focuses
on the proper function of the will, or its components. The thesis is that an
agent is free or autonomous when the elements of the will function properly
(in the right kind of way), this is backward looking and forward looking in
accord with his distant causation argument. An agent is not free when the
elements of the will malfunction, in how the will is constructed or how it
brings about action.

Sober uses the analogy of the weather vane as a model. The weather vane is
free when it is responsive to (tracks) the wind or causal influence of the wind,
and the weather vane is said to be stuck (unfree) when it is not responsive to
the wind, and therefore malfunctioning.

Similarly, when referenced to the will, we can identify three elements, the
first being the desire generation device, whose function is to produce belief
as outputs, given evidence or truth as inputs. This device is said to be
functioning properly when it is sensitive to or tracks the evidence, in which
case the agent can be said to believe autonomously. It malfunctions when it
is not sensitive to the evidence, where the agent fails to believe freely or
autonomously.

The second element is the desire generating device, whose function is to

produce desires that represent what is good for the agent. This device
functions properly (desires freely or autonomously) when it produces desires
of the right sort by tracking what is good for the agent. It malfunctions (fails
to desire freely or autonomously) when it produces desires of the wrong sort,
such as addictive, and compulsive cases.

Thirdly, the deliberating system takes beliefs and desires as inputs and gives
intentions to act (and actions) as outputs. Leon posits that this device should
ideally operate in accordance with principles of decision theory or act so as to
maximise expected utility.

The general view is that when all the elements operate properly, the agent
has free will; when the elements malfunction, the agent’s will is
compromised.

The foregoing arguments demonstrate conclusively that freedom or

autonomy does not depend on indeterminism ,and that freedom or autonomy
are not compromised by determinism, instead it can be said that freedom or
autonomy are compromised when determined in the wrong way.
References:

Frankfurt, H G Freedom of the will and the concept of a person in The Journal
of Philosophy LXVIII, No 1, 1971

Kane Robert Free will: New directions for an ancient problem (ed) Will.
Blackwell Oxford: 2002

Shaffer Jerome. Philosophy of mind Prentice Hall Inc. Englewood. New

Jersey 1968

Sober Elliot. Core questions in philosophy (5th ed) Prentice Hall New Jersey
2009

Taylor Richard. Freedom and Determinism from Reason and Responsibility

(ed) Joel Feinberg Wadsworth Publishing co. Belmont California 1993