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John Martin Fischer's The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2009

Michael S. McKenna
Affiliation:
Ithaca College

Extract

John Martin Fischer's The Metaphysics of Free Will is devoted to two major projects. First, Fischer defends the thesis that determinism is incompatible with a person's control over alternatives to the actual future. Second, Fischer defends the striking thesis that such control is not necessary for moral responsibility. This review essay examines Fischer's arguments for each thesis. Fischer's defense of the incompatibilist thesis is the most innovative to date, and I argue that his formulation restructures the free will debate. To defend his second thesis Fischer relies upon examples designed to show that an agent is responsible for an unavoidable action. I criticize Fischer's account of these examples, but I also maintain that my criticisms do not compromise his theory of responsibility. I raise several other difficulties for Fischer's theory of responsibility, and I close by offering some suggestions about how he might further defend it.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

1. Fischer, John Martin, The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essavon Control 1 (1994).Google Scholar

2. Id. at 21.

3. In all future discussion I will ignore Fischer's parallel defense of the thesis that God's existence is incompatible with the ability to choose otherwise. This will permit a less cumbersome discussion of his basic strategy. In adopting this approach, however, I do not mean to slight the importance of Fischer's treatment of this philosophical problem. In fact, one distinctive feature in Fischer's book is precisely that he is able to address the skeptical threats posed by both determinism and God's existence within the same argumentative framework. Most other treatments of the free-will problem focus only upon the threat posed exclusively by determinism, or exclusively by God's existence, and do not so much as acknowledge the structurally similar problems raised by the other. It is to Fischer's credit that his treatment of the metaphysics of free will bears upon both sources of skepticism.

4. For instance, Peter van Inwagen devotes only a chapter to arguing for incompatibilism in his book An Essavon Free Will (1983).Google Scholar

5. See id. at 57. See also Dennett, Daniel, Elbow Room: Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting 148 (1984).Google Scholar

6. Fischer, , supra note 1, at 810.Google Scholar

7. That is, according to the epistemological skeptic, one must reason as such:

(E'1) I do not know that I am not being deceived by an evil demon into falsely believing that I am now in my study; and,

(E'2) I know that if I am in my study, then I am not being deceived by an evil demon into falsely believing that I am in my study.

(E'3): I do not know that I am now in my study.

Strictly speaking, Transfer and Closure, as represented in the examples of P1-P3. and E1-E3, rely upon the model version of the argument form modus ponens. In the above example. E'1-E'3, the epistemic skeptic actually exploits the related modal version of the argument form modus tollens:

This pattern of inference reads as follows: If it is not the case that s knows at t that q, and if it is the case that s knows at t that p implies q, then it follows that it is not the case that s knows at t that p.

8. The account turns upon showing that K is “selective” of the particular inferences that it will permit. So, for instance, where K might permit the artument:

(K1) I know that I am in my study: and

(K2) I know that, if I am in my study, then I am not on the red-eye to New York City.

(K3): I know that I am not on the red-eye to New York City;

K will not permit other inferences that appear to have the same logico-syntactic structure. In particular, K will not permit the inference that I know that I am not deceived by an evil demon from my knowing that I am in my study.

The rationale for this account of selectivity is based upon the thesis that knowledge claims are contextually relative to a set of claims. Thus, where my being in my study and my not being on the red-eye to New York might reside within the same context of knowledge claims, my being in my stydy and my not being deceived by an evil demon are not.

9. Slote, Michael, Selective Necessity and the Free-Will Problem 79 J. Phil. 5 (1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dretske, Fred, Epistemic Operators 67 J. Phil. 1007 (1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Slote, id.;, Dennett, , supra note 5, at 148.Google Scholar

11. Fischer, , supra note 1, at 45.Google Scholar

12. It is interesting that both the epistemic skeptic and the defenders of ordinary knowledge share the assumption that I do not know that I am not being deceived by an evil demon. Both parties take this to impugn something. The epistemic skeptic takes it to impugn our knowledge claims about the external world. The advocate of epistemic selectivity takes it to impugn Closure. In Proof of an External World, in Philosophical Papers (1959)Google Scholar, G.E. Moore famouslyargued in the other direction, implicitly accepting Closure and explicitly endorsing the reliability of our mundane, ordinary knowledge claims. Moore's refutation of skepticism of an external world was based upon his claim that be knew that his hands were before him. (“Here is one hand; here is another.”) Because he knew his hands were before him, and because he knew that this implied that there must exist an external world in which his hand exists, he concluded that the external world docs exist.

I believe that the appropriate analog to Moore's strategy, with respect to Transfer, would be to begin with the premise that I do have control over the future (this would function like “Here is one hand”). But, if determinism is true, I do not have control over the future (given Transfer). Therefore, determinism must be false. Fischer does not consider this alternative, nor do I know of any philosopher who uses this strategy to defend incompatibilism (and argue for free will). However, it is worth noting that Peter ran Inwagen uses reasoning which is not too far away from this analog to Moore's rejection of epistemic skepticism. Van Inwagen argues that we are morally responsible, and that moral responsibility requires free will. Hence, because we know that free will is incompatible with determinism (given Transfer), we have good reason to believe that determinism is false. (See van Inwagen, , supra note 4, at 204–13.)Google Scholar

13. Fischer, , supra note 1, at 83.Google Scholar

14. Id. at 62.

15. For a defense of hard determinism, see Edwards, Paul, Hard and Soft Determinism, in Determinism and Freedom, 117–25Google Scholar (Hook, Sidney, ed., 1957Google Scholar). A popularized version of the thesis was defended by B.F. Skinner in the aptly titled Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971).Google Scholar

for defenses of libertarianism, see van Inwagen, supra note 4; Wiggins, David, Towards a Reasonable Libertarianism, in Needs, Values, Truth (1991)Google Scholar; Chisholm, Roderick, Human Agency and the SelfGoogle Scholar, in Free Will. (Watson, Gary, ed., 1982Google Scholar); Campbell, C.A., Is Freewill a Psfudo-Probltn? in Free Will. and Determinism 112–34Google Scholar, (Berofsky, B., ed., 1966Google Scholar); and MacIntyre, Alisdair, Determinism, in Free Will and Determinism 240–55Google Scholar (Berofsky, B., ed., 1966).Google Scholar

16. Harry Frankfurt originally introduced these examples in Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility, 66 J. Phil. 829 (1969)Google Scholar

17. In Frankfurt's famous example, it is Black who is the manipulator, and poor Jones who is the candidate for manipulation. This has become a kind of standard convention in these discussions. I have decided to reverse things in order to give Jones a rest and Black a little taste of his own medicine.

18. Fischer, , supra note 1, at 135.Google Scholar

19. Id. at 136–38.

20. Id. at 140.

21. For other recent objections to the Frankfurt-type examples, see Widerker, David, Libertarianism and Frankfurt's Attack on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, 104 Phil. Rev. (04 1996)Google Scholar, and Ginel, Carl, In Defense of Alternative Possibilities: Why I Don't Find Frankfurt's Argument ConvincingGoogle Scholar, in Philosophical Perspectives (Tomberlin, J., ed., 1996).Google Scholar

22. I offer a full defense of this view in Alternative Possibilities and the Failure of Counter-Example Strategy, 28 J. of Soc. Phil. (Winter 1997).Google Scholar Michael Otsuka develops a similar treatment in an unpublished paper, Incompatibilism and the Avoidability of Blame.

23. Fischer, , supra note 1, at 102.Google Scholar

24. Id.

25. Id. at 162–63.

26. Id. at 164–66.

27. Fischer's use of an actual sequence analysis invites a point of clarification. In giving an analysis of WRMs, Fischer makes use of alternative scenarios. Thus, mechanism M is a WRM if there are circumstances in which M operates, there are sufficient reasons to do otherwise, and the agent does do otherwise. Now it might be objected that Fischer cannot make use of these counter-factuals in giving an analysis of guidance control, as he has maintained that an agent can exercise guidance control even if he or she cannot do otherwise.

Fischer's exposition is not as clear as it could be, and it imites this objection. Still, I believe that the objection is unfounded. The question of what alternatives are available to an agent is a distinct question from the question of what kinds of alternative scenarios might confirm that a mechanism is sensitive to reasons. The former question is relevant to an account of regulative control; the latter is relevant to an account of guidance control. As Fischer explains in a footnote (Fischer, , supra note 1, at 214 [note 14]Google Scholar), an actual sequence analysis focuses only upon the properties of the actual sequence. These properties may be dispositional properties. Their analysis might therefore require one to consider other possible circumstances. But this does not mean that these other possible circumstances are accessible to the agent in the actual scenario in which he or she finds himself or herself. Because they are not accessible in, for instance, a Frankfurt-type scenario, they would not bear upon the question of an agent's regulative control.

28. Fischer, , supra note 1, at 243 (note 8).Google Scholar

29. This example was presented to me by George Thomas.

30. Of course, a serious problem with my recommendation to Fischer is that an account of a “properly functioning state of belief” will more than likely be of the form:

An agent's doxastic state is properly functioning if and only if the agent's system of beliefs are appropriately sensitive to changes in the way thai the world is.

Capturing the relevant sense of propriety would more than likely make some reference to what sane persons take to be appropriate changes in their states of belief, given the ways that the world might change.

To this extent, my proposal might only postpone the objection that Fischer's account of a WRM is conceptually dependent upon what responsible agents take to be good reasons. However, I do not think this is the case. The proposal I offer here is meant to cast the net wider than what responsible agents take to be good reasons; it is meant to capture what rational agents take to be good reasons. Of course, the extent to which these wo are inseparable is another issue, but it certainly appears to be a substantive issue.

31. These concerns arose over a discussion about Fischer's book with David Copp and Ishtiyaque Haji.

32. Fischer, , supra note 1, at 216.Google Scholar