Abstract
According to the Dilemma Defense, it is question-begging against the incompatibilist defender of the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) to assume that the agent in a deterministic Frankfurt-style case (FSC) cannot do otherwise in light of causal determinism, but is nevertheless morally responsible. As a result, Fischer (Philos Rev 119:315–336, 2010; Analysis 73:489–496, 2013) attempts to undermine PAP in a different manner via a deterministic FSC. More specifically, Fischer attempts to show that if causal determinism rules out an agent’s moral responsibility, it is not in virtue of its eliminating the agent’s alternative possibilities. I contend that, once we focus upon the distinction between entailment and explanation, the incompatibilist defender of PAP can successfully rebut Fischer’s argument. I argue for this claim while granting Fischer a number of assumptions that only render a defense of PAP more difficult. Additionally, I cast doubt upon Palmer’s (Synthese 191:3847–3864, 2014) critique of Fischer’s argument, which in turn renders my defense of PAP all the more critical.
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Notes
Frankfurt-style arguments that take on the indeterministic horn of the Dilemma Defense include (but are not limited to) Stump (1996, 2003), Haji (1998), Hunt (2000, 2003), McKenna (2003), Mele and Robb (1998, 2003), and Pereboom (2003, 2014: ch. 1). Like Fischer, Funkhouser (2009) appeals to a deterministic FSC against PAP. I, of course, can only address Fischer’s argument in this paper. Hence, my aim is not to show that PAP has not been refuted. Rather, I only aim to defend the incompatibilist defender of PAP against Fischer’s argument.
Since (5) employs an ‘in virtue of’ locution, and PAP does not (at least as both Fischer (2010) and I articulate the principle), one might think that the truth of (5) only undermines the following strong reading of PAP as extensively discussed by Leon and Tognazzini (2010: 558):
(PAP cc ) A conceptually necessary constituent of being morally responsible is having the ability to do otherwise.
I am, however, willing to concede for the sake of argument that if PAP cc is false, then so is PAP as both Fischer (2010) and I characterize the principle. For further discussion of these different readings of PAP, see also Fischer (1994: ch. 7), Della Rocca (1998), and Funkhouser (2009).
The careful reader will see that the term ‘X’ is being used loosely in this discussion to refer to either a proposition or an event. If you think propositions cannot “play a role in ruling out an agent’s ability”, I invite the reader to think instead of a proposition’s playing some explanatory role with respect to an agent’s lacking an ability.
In the appendix, I defend this principle against an alleged counterexample by Palmer (2014). Notice, moreover, that if principle is true, then a restricted form of this principle that employs the notion of irrelevance* rather than irrelevance is also true.
One may have reason to doubt the truth of IRP. However, as I have just explained, in order for The First Avenue to be non-question-begging against the incompatibilist defender of PAP, The First Avenue requires the truth of IRP. I am thus willing to grant the truth of IRP for the sake of argument, regardless of what doubts one may have about its truth.
Fischer initially does not presuppose the truth of (^) in The Voting Case. It does not follow, however, that it is problematic for me to assume the truth of (^) in The Lecture Case for the purpose of showing that the notion of entailment (rather than the notion of explanation) is not the right tool for establishing (4). This issue will be further discussed at the end of this section. Moreover, as we will see in Sect. 6, Fischer himself thinks (and I agree) that it is dialectically appropriate to assume the truth of (^) in The Voting Case.
This is because Black in no way causally contributes to Jones’ voting decision.
While denying some epistemic closure principle (or employing some other related epistemic move) may be appropriate when it comes to rejecting external world skepticism, I assume that no such move is appropriate for the purposes of rejecting (9).
If one accepts Williamson’s (2002) position that everything necessarily exists, I ask the reader to consider whether EEP renders the correct verdict in this case under the assumption that Williamson’s position is false.
Even if EEP turned out to be false, there would presumably be some other principle that renders the correct verdicts in the two aforementioned cases. We would thus need to see if that principle similarly establishes the truth of (7). If, however, one is skeptical of the existence of general principles that are supposed to explain a variety of philosophical phenomena, then I may put the point this way: even if EEP turned out to be false, the burden is arguably upon the opponent of PAP to show us, under the assumption of (^), what the relevant difference is between The Voting Case and, e.g., The Lecture Case, such that [Black is present] partly explains [Jones cannot do otherwise] in The Voting Case, but [Lisa is lecturing] does not partly explain [Jones cannot do otherwise] in The Lecture Case.
The fact that Fischer does not initially assume the truth of (^) in The Voting Case is irrelevant to my present argument for the truth of (7).
Since The Voting Case is supposed to involve an ordinary case of causal determinism (plus Black’s lurking nearby), and since Fischer (rightly) grant’s Goetz’s point that Black (with his device and dispositions) does not all by himself render Jones unable to do otherwise, it should not be controversial to explicitly stipulate that there is no overdetermination of explanation of [Jones cannot do otherwise]. However, if one still objects to this stipulation, see my discussion of this issue in the next section.
Recall that we are presently assuming the truth of (^).
Fischer’s employment of the term ‘explains’ rather than ‘entails’ in the passage below lends further confirmation to (3ii) being the correct and charitable interpretation of (3).
Unlike The Overdetermination Case, in The Voting Case* it is true that [Black is present].
For a critique of this approach to moral responsibility that focuses on the time at which an action is performed, see Hunt and Shabo (2013).
Alternatively, the incompatibilist defender of PAP may plausibly maintain that if Jones had decided at t4 to break his promise, then Jones would have been derivatively morally responsible for deciding to break his promise simpliciter in virtue of being non-derivatively morally responsible for deciding to break his promise simpliciter on his own (Robinson 2012). This position is also consistent with (IP-W*).
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Janice Dowell, John Martin Fischer, André Gallois, Mark Heller, Derk Pereboom, Seth Shabo, Steve Steward, Travis Timmerman, and two anonymous reviewers for this journal for very helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.
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Appendix: Palmer’s Objection
Appendix: Palmer’s Objection
Palmer (2014) thinks that the inference from (3) to (4) is unwarranted because he rejects (C). Palmer argues against (C) by entertaining and then in turn undermining a variety of principles that, if true, would seem to support (C). I am not convinced that Palmer has refuted all such principles. More specifically, I do not think Palmer has refuted the following principle that, if true, would seem to support (C) (given the truth of (3)):
( IP - W ) If a fact is irrelevant to the causal explanation of a person’s action, then that fact is irrelevant to whether or not that person is morally responsible for her action (Palmer 2014: 3856).
Palmer thinks that (IP-W) is false because it is subject to the following alleged counterexample:
Modified - promise - breaker Suppose that Jones finds himself with an irresistible desire to decide to break his promise…[and] Jones is a moral person. So, upon finding himself with this desire, Jones tries his very best to resist it. However, despite trying his very best to resist the desire, he eventually succumbs to it and decides to break his promise (Palmer 2014: 3857).
The idea is that Jones’ trying his very best to resist his desire to decide to break his promise is irrelevant to the causal explanation of Jones’ decision to break his promise. However, Jones’ trying his very best to resist his desire to decide to break his promise is intuitively relevant to whether or not Jones is morally responsible for his decision to break his promise. More specifically, Jones is intuitively not morally responsible for his decision to break his promise at least partly because he tried his very best to resist the desire to decide to break his promise. So, according to Palmer, (IP-W) is false.
Before addressing Modified-promise-breaker, I will precisify (IP-W) in two ways in order to stay clear of potential ambiguities. First, decisions are plausibly basic mental actions; they are things we do not in virtue of doing anything else. Second, the kind of basic desert moral responsibility with which PAP is concerned is non-derivative (or direct) as opposed to derivative (or indirect). With these two considerations in mind, let’s reformulate (IP-W) in the following manner:
( IP - W* ) If a fact is irrelevant to the causal explanation of a person’s basic mental action, then that fact is irrelevant to whether or not that person is non-derivatively morally responsible for her basic mental action.
There is nothing objectionable about precisifying (IP-W) in the above manner given that (IP-W*) likewise supports (C)—a proposition which itself concerns non-derivative moral responsibility for basic mental actions. For, recall that FSCs are meant to show that Jones is non-derivatively morally responsible for performing a basic mental action that he could not have avoided.
Now, once we focus on (IP-W*) which explicitly concerns basic mental actions, it is initially puzzling as to how Modified-promise-breaker is supposed to falsify (IP-W*). After all, Modified-promise-breaker involves Jones’ doing something (viz. trying to resist his desire) before Jones decides to break his promise, which, ex hypothesi, is not something Jones does in virtue of doing anything else. So, how could Jones’ trying to resist his desire be relevant to whether or not Jones is non-derivatively morally responsible for his decision to break his promise?
Perhaps Jones’ trying to resist his desire is relevant to whether or not Jones is non-derivatively morally responsible for deciding to break his promise at a particular time. However, Jones’ trying to resist his desire is relevant to the causal explanation of the time at which Jones decides to break his promise. So, irrespective of whether we focus on Jones’ decision to break his promise simpliciter or whether we focus on the time at which Jones decides to break his promise, Modified-promise-breaker does not appear to be a counterexample to (IP-W*). In order to see this more clearly, I suggest fleshing out Modified-promise-breaker in the following manner:
Modified - promise - breaker* Although it is up to Jones whether to refrain from deciding to break his promise from t1–t4, if Jones does not decide to break his promise at t4 or any earlier time, Jones will be causally determined by factors beyond his control to decide to break his promise at t5. Now, it so happens that from t1–t4 Jones tries to resist his desire by refraining from deciding to break his promise from t1–t4. As a result, at t5, Jones decides to break his promise, and Jones’ decision is causally determined by factors beyond his control.
Two preliminary questions need to be asked in order to see whether Modified-promise-breaker* falsifies (IP-W*).
First question: Is Jones’ refraining from deciding to break his promise from t1–t4 irrelevant to the causal explanation of Jones’ decision to break his promise at t5? No. This fact is relevant. For, the fact that Jones refrained from deciding to break his promise from t1–t4 explains why, at t5 rather than some earlier time, Jones decided to break his promise.
Second question: Is Jones’ refraining from deciding to break his promise from t1–t4 irrelevant to the causal explanation of Jones’ decision to break his promise simpliciter? Yes. For, Jones’ refraining from deciding to break his promise from t1–t4 makes no difference to whether Jones decides to break his promise simpliciter.
Now, if Jones’ refraining from deciding to break his promise from t1–t4 is relevant to whether or not Jones is non-derivatively morally responsible for deciding to break his promise simpliciter, then (IP-W*) is false. However, by the lights of the incompatibilist defender of PAP, this is not relevant to whether Jones is non-derivatively morally responsible for deciding to break his promise simpliciter. After all, it is not up to Jones whether to decide to break his promise simpliciter. So, by the lights of the incompatibilist defender of PAP—whom Palmer is defending—no matter at which time Jones decides to break his promise, Jones is not non-derivatively morally responsible for deciding to break his promise simpliciter in Modified-promise-breaker*.
To be clear, the incompatibilist defender of PAP can still maintain that if Jones were to have instead decided at t4 to break his promise, then Jones would have been non-derivatively morally responsible for deciding at t4 to break his promise. Indeed, along with Ginet (1996) and Franklin (2011b), Palmer (2011, 2013) himself defends this position.Footnote 19 However, this position is consistent with (IP-W*).Footnote 20
To conclude, I offered a reason to doubt that Modified-promise-breaker undermines (IP-W*). Moreover, I have tried to flesh out the details of Modified-promise-breaker in order to further strengthen such doubt. Hence, unless we are given some new reason to reject (IP-W*), the incompatibilist defender of PAP has good reason to accept (IP-W*) since it is prima facie plausible. So, it appears that Fischer’s Improved Argument can successfully resist Palmer’s objection.
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Cohen, Y. Fischer’s Deterministic Frankfurt-Style Argument. Erkenn 82, 121–140 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-016-9809-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-016-9809-7