Free will and the modal principle

Philosophical Studies

Volumn 83, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 213-230

  Fischer, John Martin ^a,b   Ravizza, Mark ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^b SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 52549104388     PISSN: 00318116     EISSN: 15730883     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/BF00364606     Document Type: Article

References (40)

1. Peter van Inwagen, "When Is the Will Free?" in J. Tomberlin, ed., Philosophical Perspectives TV: Action Theory and Philosophy of Mind. (Atascadero, Ca.: Ridgeview Publishing Company, 1990), pp. 399-422.
2. John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, "When the Will is Free." in J. Tomberlin, ed., Philosophical Perspectves VI: Ethics. (Atascadero, Ca.: Ridgeview Publishing Co., 1992), pp. 423-451.
3. See also John Martin Fischer, The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), pp. 47-62.
4. Peter van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," Philosophical Studies 75 (1994), pp. 95-113.
5. Peter van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).
6. Van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will, p. 57.
7. For a more careful formulation, see "When the Will Is Free," pp. 427-428;
8. and The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control, pp. 62-63.
9. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," p. 96.
10. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," pp. 96-97.
11. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," p. 97.
12. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," p. 98.
13. Michael Slote, "Selective Necessity and the Free-Will Problem," Journal of Philosophy 79 (1982), pp. 5-24;
14. and "Review of Peter van Inwagen's An Essay on Free Will," Journal of Philosophy 82 (1985), pp. 327-330.
15. See also Daniel Dennett, Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting (Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 1984), pp. 148-149.
16. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," p. 99.
17. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," pp. 98-99. van Inwagen invokes David Lewis's counterfactual logic to support his analysis.
18. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," p. 98.
19. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," p. 99.
20. In regard to the argument-form of the penultimate quotation, van Inwagen points out that it is shown to be invalid, on David Lewis's counterfactual logic: "When the Will is Not Free," p. 99.
21. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," p. 99.
22. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," p. 111 (van Inwagen's footnote 8).
23. We are grateful to Stewart Cohen for help with this point.
24. We are indebted to Stewart Cohen for this point.
25. The argument also employs the point developed in the informal presentation above, that the conditionals in the antecedents of (I), (II), and (III) exhaust the field of possibilities.
26. Let us be clear about the nature of our disagreement. In "When the Will Is Not Free," van Inwagen suggests that we are arguing that his claim - "that we are seldom if ever able to act otherwise than we actually do" - would entail "the even more unpalatable conclusion that we can seldom if ever be held morally accountable for what we have done" (van Inwagen, 1994, p. 95). This is not our position. Since we do not accept van Inwagen's assumption that freedom to do otherwise is a necessary condition of moral responsibility, we do not think that responsibility would be jeopardized by his contention that we rarely, if ever, have this freedom. Rather, our position is as follows, van nwagen cannot accept (1) that freedom to do otherwise is a necessary condition of responsibility and (2) that we rarely, if ever, are free to do otherwise, and still argue (3) that in most cases we can be held morally accountable for our actions (in a way that matches common sense).
27. Van Inwagen, "When Is the Will Free?" p. 408.
28. We have analyzed all three of the arguments and displayed their weaknesses in our earlier paper, "When the Will Is Free."
29. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," pp. 100-101.
30. "When the Will Is Free," p. 433.
31. Similar arguments show that we could also be free in the other two classes of cases that van Inwagen discusses, i.e., cases in which (i) we do something that we have an unopposed inclination to do or (ii) we act without reflection or deliberation. Hence, van Inwagen is wrong to claim that from the truth of Beta, it follows that we rarely, if ever, are free to do otherwise. We develop these arguments in "When the Will Is Free."
32. We employ the connective for the subjunctive conditional here, simply to make clear that we believe that this is the appropriate interpretation.
33. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," p. 106.
34. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," p. 105.
35. Fischer and Ravizaa, "When the Will Is Free," p. 443.
36. Van Inwagen, "When the Will Is Not Free," p. 107.
37. Van Inwagen continues his explanation of this point as follows: "perhaps the speaker 's use of the adverb 'morally' carries the implicature that the state of affairs under discussion is disapproved of by the speaker, despite the fact that it is possible that someone accept the proposition expressed by the speaker's utterance and not disapprove of that state of affairs." (van Inwagen "When the Will Is Not Free", p. 108).
38. Peter Strawson, "Freedom and Resentment" reprinted in Free Will, ed. Gary Watson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 59-80;
39. and in John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, ed., Perspectives on Moral Responsibility (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 45-66.
40. We are very thankful for comments on previous versions of this paper by Mark Bernstein, Tim O'Connor, and Stewart Cohen. We have benefited from a Fellowship for University Teachers from the National Endowment for the Humanities.