John Martin Fischer on another of the century’s best ideas to date

Philosophers have debated for millennia about the relationships between such doctrines as the prior truth values of statements describing human actions in the future and human freedom, God’s foreknowledge and human freedom, and causal determinism and human freedom (and moral responsibility). These debates have been heated and, arguably, they have ended in stalemates. Whereas some philosophers contend that (say) causal determinism would rule out human freedom in the sense required for moral responsibility, others resist this conclusion, maintaining that (for example) causal determinism is compatible with freedom and moral responsibility.

An assumption of all of these debates is that human freedom involves “freedom to do otherwise” or genuine access to “alternative possibilities”. Presumably, if one does not have freedom to do otherwise, then one’s choices and behaviour are necessitated in a way that is inconsistent with the fairness of holding one accountable. How could it be fair to punish someone for something he had to do? Thus, most philosophers have accepted what Harry Frankfurt dubbed the “Principle of Alternative Possibilities”: an agent is morally responsible for an action only if he could have done otherwise. And, as I pointed out above, it is deeply contentious whether anyone could have done otherwise, if (say) causal determinism is true. Since we cannot be sure (at this point) that causal determinism does not obtain, we cannot be sure that we are morally responsible – or so it might appear.

One strategy of response to this set of worries is to argue that, whereas moral responsibility is indeed associated with freedom, the relevant sort of freedom does not involve or require freedom to do otherwise (access to alternative possibilities). Call this kind of freedom “acting freely”. On this sort of view, moral responsibility does indeed require acting freely, but not freedom to do otherwise. Thus, even if the doctrines of prior truth-values, God’s foreknowledge, and causal determinism threatened freedom to do otherwise, they would not thereby threaten moral responsibility. It is then an extraordinarily exciting and important strategy.

The first step in developing this strategy was taken by John Locke. In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke presented an example in which a man is put in a room while he is asleep. When he awakens, he thinks about leaving the room, but he decides to stay for his own reasons. Unbeknown to the man, the door is locked, so he couldn’t have left the room. Locke said that the man voluntarily stayed in the room, although he could not have left it. Of course, he could have decided to leave the room, tried to leave the room, and so forth. It would thus be important to have an example in which an agent acts freely, but does not have any alternative possibilities.

And this is where Harry Frankfurt comes in. In his tremendously influential 1969 paper in the Journal of Philosophy, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,” Frankfurt essentially presented an elaboration of Locke’s example in which the agent (arguably, at least) has no alternative possibilities and yet acts freely.

Here is my version of a “Frankfurt-Style Case”. Black has secretly inserted a chip in Jones’s brain which enables Black to monitor and control Jones’s activities. Black can exercise this control through a sophisticated computer that he has programmed so that, among other things, it monitors Jones’s voting behaviour. If Jones were to show any inclination to vote for McCain (or, let us say, anyone other than Obama), then the computer, through the chip in Jones’s brain, would intervene to assure that she actually decides to vote for Obama and does so vote. But if Jones decides on her own to vote for Obama (as Black, the old progressive, would prefer), the computer does nothing but continue to monitor – without affecting – the goings-on in Jones’s head.

Now suppose that Jones decides to vote for Obama on her own, just as she would have if Black had not inserted the chip in her head. It seems, upon first thinking about this case, that Jones can be held morally responsible for this choice and act of voting for Obama, although she could not have chosen otherwise and she could not have done otherwise.

Obviously, the example is now a bit out of date, but what is important is not the specific details, but the structure. It seems that Frankfurt has successfully brought the locked door of Locke’s example into the agent’s head. It is thus plausible that we have a counterexample to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities.

Frankfurt’s examples – and their proper analysis – have produced a huge literature. I believe that they help to point the way to an exciting new doctrine: Semicompatibilism. According to Semicompatibilism, moral responsibility is compatible with (say) causal determinism, quite apart from whether causal determinism rules out freedom to do otherwise. This strategy holds out the hope that we can make progress in the traditional debates about free will and moral responsibility.

Further reading
My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility, John Martin Fischer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006)

John Martin Fischer is professor of philosophy at University of California, Riverside

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