Libertarianism Fails to Explain the Fact That We Can Influence Other People s Behavior

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1 decision? Why did you decide to join that party while your neighbor decided to join an opposing party? You might explain your choice in terms of your values, beliefs, or ideals, but where did these values, beliefs, and ideals come from? At some point, the determinist claims, the belief in free will requires us to suppose that some psychological events simply happen and happen in a certain way, but without any cause that can explain them. While some determinists still find it appropriate to explain human actions in terms of wants, desires, or motives that activate the will, they still would insist that these psychological states must have a causal history that explains them. Libertarianism Fails to Explain the Fact That We Can Influence Other People s Behavior A common presupposition of all human interaction, says the determinist, is that it is possible to causally affect one another s behavior. If human actions and volitions were not the result of causes acting on them, it would be useless to reward or punish people. In a world that has no deterministic causes, the way people behaved would be completely unpredictable and capricious. However, it is obvious that we can, to a large degree, predict and influence how people will behave. This ability implies causal connections between the causes that precede an act of the will and the behavior that results. The degree to which we can understand a person s psychological state and the causes operating on it is the degree to which we can predict what that person will do. The degree to which we can control the causes acting on a person is the degree to which we can influence what that person will do. The activities of parenting, educating, rewarding, and punishing all assume determinism. THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: Behavior Modification and Prediction List several occasions in the recent past when you successfully infl uenced or modifi ed the behavior of another person. (It can be a trivial example.) What means did you use? How is it possible to affect another person s behavior? List several occasions when you predicted a friend s behavior or anticipated his or her response to a situation. How is it possible to know ahead of time what another person will do? THE POSITIVE CASE FOR DETERMINISM The determinist claims that human actions are just as much the product of causal necessity as is any other event in nature. The basic argument of the determinist could be formulated in the following way: 1. Every event, without exception, is causally determined by prior events. 2. Human thoughts, choices, and actions are events. 3. Therefore, human thoughts, choices, and actions are, without exception, causally determined by prior events. Premise 1 is a statement of the thesis of universal causation. The only way to avoid determinism is to reject the thesis of universal causation. But is it plausible to reject this thesis? We all believe that changes in the weather, the behavior of our car, the interaction of 276 CHAPTER 3 THE SEARCH FOR ULTIMATE REALITY

2 chemicals, and every other kind of event in the physical world are the necessary result of previous causes. However, libertarians like to think that human behavior is an exception to the rest of nature, because they believe that our choices (including those of the determinists) are freely arrived at and not determined by prior events. The determinist would reply that the defenders of free will are being inconsistent. Why should we think that what we do is somehow immune from the sort of causal necessity that operates in the rest of the world? STOP AND THINK Libertarians claim that natural events are part of a deterministic, causal system at the same time that they insist human actions are the result of an undetermined free will. Is there a problem with making this distinction between the way natural events are caused and the way human actions are brought about? It is important to be clear about the fact that the determinist is claiming that every event is 100 percent determined by prior causes. Most defenders of free will would acknowledge that we have certain psychological tendencies (one person tends to like crowds and another prefers solitude) and would agree that we are influenced by the way we were raised. However, the recognition that we all have certain behavioral tendencies and we all have influences on our behavior falls short of the thesis that everything you think, feel, choose, and do is 100 percent determined by the causes acting on you. The issue of universal causation offers only two extremes and no middle ground. Either all human behavior is determined by previous causes (determinism), or some human behavior is not determined by previous causes (libertarianism). It is also important to realize that this issue is not one of personal preference. You miss the point if you say, It s fine for the determinists if they like to think that their actions are controlled by previous causes, but as for me, I prefer to think my behavior is free. We are not talking about attitudes toward life here but about the nature of reality. Either the determinist is right about the way reality works and the libertarian is wrong, or vice versa. The truth about this issue has nothing to do with what view of human nature you find subjectively pleasing to believe. Typically, determinists believe that all of reality is physical in nature and that all events are controlled by natural laws. However, some thinkers are theological determinists who believe that God is the ultimate cause of everything that happens in the world, including human actions. According to this form of determinism, you make the choices that you do because God made you the sort of person that you are. Hence, all your actions were predetermined by God before the creation of the world. THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: Does Theism Imply Determinism? theological determinist one who believes that God is the ultimate cause of everything that happens in the world, including human actions How would you respond to the following argument? Theism (belief in God) logically implies determinism, for the following reasons. Assuming that there is a God, when he created the world he knew ahead of time that you would be born and that you would make all the choices you did in the past and will make in the future. If he did not want you to do the things you have done, then he would have (continued...) Hard Determinism 277

3 (... continued) created a world in which you were never born or he would have created a world in which you turned out to be a different sort of person than the one he actually created. Furthermore, he could have made you a person that made other choices. Hence, you and your choices are a product of God s creation in the same way that Hamlet and his choices are a product of Shakespeare s creation. One of the advantages of determinism is that if it is true, a science of human behavior is possible. Such behavioral sciences as psychology, sociology, and economics attempt to formulate laws that allow us to predict and explain human behavior. Although these sciences are still incomplete, it would be hard to argue that we have learned nothing about human behavior from the research done in these disciplines. The question is, Will it ever be possible to have a complete science of human behavior or at least one that is complete enough to explain the causes of human thoughts, emotions, and actions the way the biologist, chemist, physicist, and astronomer explain the causes of events in nature? Typically, we think of human behavior as the result of psychological factors such as our beliefs, desires, attitudes, emotions, motives, intentions, values, and personality. Because these factors are considered to be internal, we feel as though we are not causally determined by external forces (unlike the motion of a billiard ball). But where did your personality come from? Did you decide what it would be? How did you come to have the moral values that you have? If you say that you simply chose them, what caused you to choose one set of values over another set? You have not finished explaining your action by saying, I wanted to do it. The question still remains, What caused you to want the things that you do? It seems likely that our psychological makeup did not spring up spontaneously from nowhere. The determinist would insist that your choice of a particular course of action and your possession of certain values and desires are facts about the world that need explaining just as much as the fact that you were born with a certain hair color or that you have the flu. That much of your behavior originates from within (unlike the billiard ball) is consistent with the determinist s claims. Everything we choose to do is a result of our psychological state and the surrounding circumstances or external stimuli at a particular time. Consequently, the picture the determinist paints concerning the cause of an action looks like this: Psychological State + External Circumstances Behavior Your psychological state is the immediate, determining cause of your behavior in a given situation, but your psychological state was itself the product of a multitude of previous causes. Response to Objections A number of objections are typically raised against determinism. I will examine four of them and present the determinist s response. In each case, consider whether you think the determinist gives an adequate reply. 278 CHAPTER 3 THE SEARCH FOR ULTIMATE REALITY

4 Pose the following questions to fi ve acquaintances, and record their answers and the reasons for their answers. When you are fi nished gathering responses, decide which person gave you the strongest reasons for his or her position. Will science ultimately be able to explain you completely and adequately? The you that is to be explained includes your personality, values, choices, and actions. Why? PHILOSOPHY Sin the MARKETPLACE 1. When I make a choice, I have the undeniable feeling that the choice is free. Many of us resist the notion that there are causes of our behavior. We like to think of ourselves as free. Indeed, we typically have the feeling that we are acting freely. But feeling we are free and actually being free are two different matters. The determinist would say that we feel we are free because we are ignorant of all the external and internal forces (physical and psychological) acting on us. 2. When I make a choice, I could always have chosen differently. We have the sense that there is nothing inevitable about the choices we make because we can imagine ourselves acting differently than we did in the past. Let us suppose, for example, that a young woman has to decide between a scholarship offering her a free education at Middleline University (an adequate but quite ordinary state school) and an opportunity to go, without a scholarship and at great expense, to Highstatus University, a very prestigious school. Suppose she chooses Highstatus U. but insists she could have gone to the other school if she had chosen to do so. Doesn t it seem as though she made a free choice and was not compelled to decide as she did? How does the determinist respond to the I could have done otherwise argument? The determinist would claim that whenever you say, I could have done otherwise, you simply mean, I would have done otherwise if I had wanted to, which is to say, if those psychological states that determined my action had been different. In our example, the woman s desire to go to the prestigious school was stronger than her desire to save money. She could have chosen otherwise only if her psychological makeup at the time had been different. Given her psychological state and the external circumstances, her choice was inevitable. Notice that we often think about what could have been even when we know an event was determined by previous causes. Suppose you are driving along a mountain road and a huge boulder comes crashing down, hitting the highway behind you where you were a half second ago. You say, I could have been killed. But what you mean is that if the causes acting on the boulder had been different, the results would have been tragically different. You do not mean that the boulder could have freely behaved differently from the way it did, given all the causes acting upon it. So when you say, I could have done otherwise, you re saying that if your psychological state had been different or if the external circumstances had been different, you would have acted differently. But given your psychological state and the external conditions, your behavior was just as inevitable as that of the boulder. THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: Decisions Think about some decision you made that had a lot of signifi cance for you (call it decision A). Now, relive your making of that decision in your imagination, but imagine (continued...) Hard Determinism 279

5 (... continued) yourself making a different decision (call it decision B). Do you fi nd that you also need to imagine yourself having different beliefs, attitudes, motives, or desires in order to produce a different decision? If so, is the determinist correct in saying that our decisions are a product of our psychological states? If you can imagine yourself making a different decision without a change in your psychological state, then why did your original psychological state produce decision A when it could have equally produced decision B? Is there some component of your decision making that is random and uncaused? Does it make sense to say that purely random behavior is any more free than determined behavior? 3. The fact that sometimes I have to deliberate to make a decision proves that I am not determined. Another reason we feel free is that we frequently have to deliberate at length when we have trouble making up our minds. In such situations, we feel as though the decision is not already programmed within us, but that the outcome is entirely up to what we freely decide. If our behavior is determined, why is it sometimes so hard to make a decision? In this situation, according to the determinist, we are caught between two conflicting causes, each one pulling us in a different direction. For example, we want to earn money for the summer, but we also want to travel with friends. Each choice has positive and negative aspects (more money means less fun, more fun in traveling means less money). Our difficulty in deciding is a sign that the causal determinants acting on us are almost equal. If we do make a decision, it is because the marginally stronger desire won out over the weaker one. The fact that we have these conflicting desires is, itself, the result of our causal history. 4. It is impossible to predict another person s behavior. While agreeing that a person s behavior may not be perfectly predictable in practice, the determinist would say that all human behavior is predictable in principle. We may never be 100 percent accurate in predicting an individual s behavior because a human s psychological makeup is so complex that we cannot know someone s total psychological state in detail. To use an analogy, we cannot predict the weather perfectly. However, we do know enough about its causes to make some fairly good probability judgments. The reason that our predictions are not perfect is that the variables that affect the weather s behavior are too complex and numerous to make an accurate prediction possible. Even though the behavior of the weather is not predictable in detail, we do not suppose that this unpredictability is because the forces of nature have free will to do as they please. We recognize that the weather s behavior conforms perfectly to the forces of causal necessity such that if we had perfect knowledge of all the variables, we would be able to predict every detail of this weekend s weather. Similarly, the determinist claims, if we knew all the causes operating on you at a particular time, then your behavior would be as predictable as the rolling of a billiard ball. However, we do know enough about human psychology to know in general how people will behave. In fact, isn t it true that the more you get to know a person, the more you can anticipate how he or she will react to a particular situation? THE DENIAL OF MORAL RESPONSIBILITY Thus far, we have discussed the two pillars of hard determinism: the problems with libertarianism and the positive case for determinism. These pillars are shared with compatibilism, the other form of determinism. It is the denial of moral responsibility that sets the hard determinist 280 CHAPTER 3 THE SEARCH FOR ULTIMATE REALITY

6 apart from the compatibilist. We are morally responsible for an action when we can be justly praised or blamed for it and are capable of deserving either reward or punishment. The muscle spasm that causes your arm to jerk could not be helped; you could not be blamed for this behavior because it was just something that happened to you. The question is, If we are completely determined, can we be responsible for any of our behavior? Under these circumstances, is it meaningful to say that some actions are voluntary? The hard determinist claims that determinism is incompatible with moral responsibility, whereas the compatibilist believes the two can be reconciled. To begin thinking about this issue, consider the following passage from Samuel Butler s utopian satire Erewhon, in which a judge is passing sentence on a prisoner. The judge considers the possible defense that the prisoner was not responsible for his crime because he was a victim of an unfortunate childhood and past events that caused him to be the sort of person who violated the laws of the state. Do you agree that it is possible that this criminal s upbringing could prevent him from being morally responsible for his crimes? On the contrary, do you agree with the judge that a criminal s causal history is irrelevant and that it is just to punish him for any crimes he committed? A FROM SAMUEL BUTLER Erewhon 34 Prisoner at the bar, you have been accused of [a] great crime... and after an impartial trial before a jury of your countrymen, you have been found guilty. Against the justice of the verdict I can say nothing: the evidence against you was conclusive, and it only remains for me to pass such a sentence upon you as will satisfy the ends of the law. That sentence must be a very severe one. It pains me much to see one who is yet so young, and whose prospects in life were otherwise so excellent brought to this distressing condition by a constitution which I can only regard as radically vicious; but yours is no case for compassion: this is not your first offense: you have led a career of crime and have only profited by the leniency shown you upon past occasions to offend yet more seriously against the laws and institutions of your country.... It is all very well for you to say that you came of unhealthy parents, and had a severe accident in your childhood which permanently undermined your constitution; excuses such as these are the ordinary refuge of the criminal; but they cannot for one moment be listened to by the ear of justice. I am not here to enter upon curious metaphysical questions as to the origin of this or that questions to which there would be no end were their introduction once tolerated.... There is no question of how you came to be wicked, but only this namely, are you wicked or not? This has been decided in the affirmative, neither can I hesitate for a single moment to say that it has been decided justly. You are a bad and dangerous person, and stand branded in the eyes of your fellow countrymen with one of the most heinous known offences. No doubt, many citizens would agree with these sentiments. On the evening news, we hear of crafty defense attorneys arguing that their client was not responsible for committing a crime because he or she was under psychological distress or had a deprived childhood or was temporarily insane. Are these defenses nothing more than feeble attempts to excuse criminals for making immoral and illegal choices? In response to these courtroom tactics, we might be provoked to say, Who cares about the defendant s upbringing, past experiences, or psychological problems? Did he commit the crime or didn t he? If he did, then to jail with him! However, Butler has played a joke on us. The crime in the previous Hard Determinism 281

7 Determinism Confuses the Methodological Assumptions of Science with Metaphysical Conclusions According to the deterministic psychologist B. F. Skinner, A scientific analysis of behavior must, I believe, assume that a person s behavior is controlled by his genetic and environmental histories rather than by the person himself as an initiating, creative agent. 40 But two objections may be raised against Skinner s account of behavioral science. First, this methodological assumption is not necessary. Can t a behavioral scientist study the tendencies or probabilistic regularities within human behavior without assuming that behavior is 100 percent determined or inevitable down to the last detail? Second, this methodological assumption may be useful without being a true description of reality. The methodological principle it is helpful to think of humans as though they are mechanisms ruled by causes may be helpful in guiding us to seek out the regularities in human behavior. However, that assumption in no way guarantees that such causal regularities are present in all behavior. To borrow an analogy from the 20th-century British philosopher Bertrand Russell (one that was used for other purposes), the prospector bases his activity on the principle always look for gold, but that principle does not imply that there will always be gold to be found. Likewise, it is fruitful for the behavioral scientist to follow the rule always look for causes, but that rule doesn t mean that all human behavior is caused. THE POSITIVE ARGUMENTS FOR LIBERTARIANISM Having examined the problems libertarians find in determinism, we now look at the positive arguments that libertarians provide for their own position. Although there are several arguments for libertarianism, the following three are the most common. The Argument from Introspection What is your right hand doing at this present moment? Holding this book? Taking notes with a pen? Scratching your head? Before you read further, I want you to do something different with your hand. Did you do it? Did you feel as though that action was the inevitable result of previous causes acting on you? Of course, you were responding to my directive, but you really didn t have to do anything. You could have chosen to ignore my little object lesson. Hence, what you did (or didn t do) was a matter of your own decision. Now do something different (e.g., stand up, stick your foot out). Once again, did you feel as though that action was caused or inevitable? Didn t you have the sense that you could have acted differently than you did? According to the libertarian, this ordinary sort of experience that our actions are freely chosen and that we could have acted otherwise than we did provides forceful counterexamples to the determinist s claim that our actions are determined and inevitable. The determinist claims, however, that in those situations in which we face multiple alternatives and feel as though we are freely choosing among them, there is always one motivating cause within our current psychological state that compels us because it is the strongest one. For example, you may be torn between wanting to see a movie or going to a concert. If you decide to see the movie, the determinist would say, it is because your psychological state was such that the desire to see the movie was the stronger determining cause acting on you at that time. Therefore, the determinist claims that persons always act upon their strongest desire. But in a specific case, how can we identify our strongest desire except by identifying it (after the fact) with the desire upon which we acted? Now it looks as though the 290 CHAPTER 3 THE SEARCH FOR ULTIMATE REALITY

8 determinist s claim is persons always act upon the desire upon which they act. This claim, of course, is an empty truth and does nothing to advance the determinist s case. Contrary to what the determinist claims, the libertarian would argue that sometimes we can choose or overrule our desires. The alcoholic would certainly say that the desire to drink is a compelling one. But through treatment and sheer will power, the alcoholic can learn to control that desire and even extinguish it. Part of the process of moral development is learning to control some desires and encourage others. The fact that this process takes time and effort suggests that we are not programmed to behave in one specific way. By way of rebuttal, the determinist would be quick to point out that our feeling of freedom could be an illusion and that our introspective accounts are sometimes mistaken. However, our own actions are the only type of event in the world that we know both from the inside and the outside. Hence, the libertarian argues, we should give a high priority to the prima facie evidence of our own experience on this issue. According to his biographer, the famous 18th-century English writer Samuel Johnson once said, All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it. The Argument from Deliberation Frequently our choices and actions are preceded by a period of deliberation during which we weigh the evidence, consider the pros and cons of our alternatives, calculate the probable consequences of an action, and evaluate all these data in terms of our values and desires. In this situation, the libertarian claims, we experience the fact that the decision is not already latent in the causes acting on us; instead, we have a distinct sense that we are actively deciding what the decision will be. Contrary to the determinist s account, when we deliberate we are not simply like a metal ball suspended between two opposing magnetic fields. Rather than passively awaiting the outcome of the war between our conflicting motives, goals, or desires, we often find ourselves actively choosing which one will prevail. The Argument from Moral Responsibility If someone devotes his or her spare time to building houses for the poor, we might say that person s actions are morally good, commendable, admirable, laudable, and praiseworthy. On the other hand, if someone emotionally hurts people by pretending to love them only to get something from them, we might say that person s behavior is morally bad, shabby, despicable, contemptible, and blameworthy. But could we make these judgments about a person if his or her actions were the inevitable outcome of deterministic causes? It seems that being justified in making moral judgments about persons and praising or blaming them requires that their actions be freely chosen. If the determinist is correct in saying that all our behavior is the result of causes over which we have no control, then a tyrant such as Hitler and a great humanitarian such as Mother Teresa are morally equal, since both of them simply behaved as they were caused to behave. Looked at in this way, Mother Teresa should no more be praised for her actions or Hitler condemned for his than Mother Teresa should be applauded for having low blood pressure and Hitler denounced for having high blood pressure. In the final analysis, determinism implies that our eye color, blood pressure, and moral character are all products of causes that operate upon us and whose outcomes we did not choose. But doesn t this philosophy wreak havoc with morality, one of the most significant features of our humanity? Libertarianism 291

9 STOP AND THINK What do you think would happen if you cheated, defamed, lied, or broke an important promise to a hard determinist? Do you think he or she would dismiss your behavior as unfortunate but excusable (since everyone s behavior is allegedly determined), or would you imagine that the determinist would think ill of you, responding no differently than a libertarian would? To what degree is this scenario relevant or irrelevant to the assessment of determinism? The libertarian claims that if determinism is true, then our moral judgments and ethical struggles are absurd. As the scientist Arthur Eddington aptly expressed it: What significance is there in my mental struggle to-night whether I shall or shall not give up smoking, if the laws which govern the matter of the physical universe already pre-ordain for the morrow a configuration of matter consisting of pipe, tobacco, and smoke connected with my lips? 41 The hard determinist would respond that just because a theory conflicts with our sensibilities does not mean that it is false. Maybe we have to bite the bullet and abandon our notion of moral responsibility. However, the libertarian would respond that there are more reasons to believe in moral responsibility than there are for believing in universal, deterministic causality. To quote Arthur Eddington once again: To me it seems that responsibility is one of the fundamental facts of our nature. If I can be deluded over such a matter of immediate knowledge the very nature of the being that I myself am it is hard to see where any trustworthy beginning of knowledge is to be found. 42 If the libertarian is correct about these issues, then at least some behavior is freely chosen, initiated, and performed by persons based on their rational deliberations and value choices. In the final analysis, the libertarian does not need to claim that the issue is one of a simple dichotomy between being totally free or totally unfree. Maybe realizing our potential to be free is like realizing our potential to be a good tennis player. It is all a matter of degree. On the one hand, we can allow ourselves to be like objects, buffeted about by the forces acting on us (personality dispositions, peer pressure, cultural influences), or, on the other hand, we can strive to rise above those influences and take charge of who we are and what we do. In the following passage, the contemporary sociologist Peter Berger tries to account for the fact that we are often causally conditioned (like puppets). But he also contends that through greater self-knowledge, we can become liberated from the causal influences acting on us and experience true, libertarian freedom. We see the puppets dancing on their miniature stage, moving up and down as the strings pull them around, following the prescribed course of their various little parts. We learn to understand the logic of this theater and we find ourselves in its motions. We locate ourselves in society and thus recognize our own position as we hang from its subtle strings. For a moment we see ourselves as puppets indeed. But then we grasp a decisive difference between the puppet theater and our own drama. Unlike the puppets, we have the possi- 292 CHAPTER 3 THE SEARCH FOR ULTIMATE REALITY

10 bility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first step towards freedom. 43 AGENCY THEORY There are several varieties of libertarianism, based on different conceptions of freedom. Some philosophers, such as Roderick Chisholm and Richard Taylor, have argued for libertarianism by developing a position known as agency theory. They reject the following dichotomy: An event is either (1) the necessary outcome of previous causes or (2) an uncaused, random event that simply happens. This version of libertarianism rejects both determinism and indeterminism. While agency theorists may agree that both kinds of events occur in the world (e.g., the motion of billiard balls and subatomic events), these philosophers insist on a third category of events as well, events that are brought about by agents. Another way of explaining this theory is to say that there are two kinds of causes operating in the world. On the one hand, there is event-causation, which occurs when a prior event necessarily causes a subsequent event. Examples of event-causation would be a solar eclipse, an earthquake, the rise in my blood pressure after drinking coffee, the boiling of water, or an acorn falling to the earth. On the other hand is agent-causation. Any event that is brought about through the free action of an agent (person, self) is the result of agent-causation. Examples of agent-causation would be voting, choosing to see a particular movie, making a promise, phoning a friend. The notion of agent-causation seems to capture what we ordinarily mean when we say that our actions are free. We have a sense that we make choices and initiate actions, that we have the power to act or not act in certain ways, and that we decide which action to take. This view implies that the universe is such that not all events are caused by the sort of causes studied by the physicists. It also implies that agents or persons are unique entities who do not follow the laws that govern electrons, rocks, sunflowers, or frogs. I do not freely choose to will my heart to beat because this automatic event is caused by the sorts of causes that scientists study. However, according to the agency theory, I do freely choose to support a political candidate, to stick to my diet, or to read a novel. It is important to note that the libertarian does not need to make the claim that all human actions are free and undetermined. A libertarian merely asserts that some human actions are free and undetermined. In other words, the libertarian could recognize that under unusual circumstances (brainwashing, hypnotism, states of psychological or physical stress) a person s behavior might not be free. If such circumstances were not under the agent s control, the libertarian would say that person was not morally responsible for what he or she did. However, the libertarian claims that for the most part, while our decisions may be infl uenced by a number of factors, they are not causally determined by previous conditions (prior psychological states or external factors). In the following reading contemporary American philosopher Richard Taylor argues for free will on the basis of agency theory. He admits that this theory may seem strange initially, for it posits a kind of causality seen nowhere else in nature. Nevertheless, he thinks it does the best job of accounting for human experience. agency theory a version of libertarianism that rejects both determinism and indeterminism; this theory claims that events are brought about by agents event-causation occurs when a prior event necessarily causes a subsequent event agent-causation occurs when an event is brought about through the free action of an agent (person, self) According to Taylor, what two conditions are necessary for an action to be free? Why do you think Taylor distinguishes between the reason for an action and the cause of an action? Why does Taylor not consider his pulse to be his action? Libertarianism 293

11 A FROM RICHARD TAYLOR Metaphysics 44 The only conception of action that accords with our data is one according to which people and perhaps some other things too are sometimes, but of course not always, selfdetermining beings; that is, beings that are sometimes the causes of their own behavior. In the case of an action that is free, it must be such that it is caused by the agent who performs it, but such that no antecedent conditions were sufficient for his performing just that action. In the case of an action that is both free and rational, it must be such that the agent who performed it did so for some reason, but this reason cannot have been the cause of it. Now, this conception fits what people take themselves to be; namely, beings who act, or who are agents, rather than things that are merely acted upon, and whose behavior is simply the causal consequence of conditions that they have not wrought. When I believe that I have done something, I do believe that it was I who caused it to be done, I who made something happen, and not merely something within me, such as one of my own subjective states, which is not identical with myself. If I believe that something not identical with myself was the cause of my behavior some event wholly external to myself, for instance, or even one internal to myself, such as a nerve impulse, volition, or whatnot then I cannot regard that behavior as being an act of mine, unless I further believe that I was the cause of that external or internal event. My pulse, for example, is caused and regulated by certain conditions existing within me, and not by myself. I do not, accordingly, regard this activity of my body as my action, and would be no more tempted to do so if I became suddenly conscious within myself of those conditions or impulses that produce it. This is behavior with which I have nothing to do, behavior that is not within my immediate control, behavior that is not only not free activity, but not even the activity of an agent to begin with; it is nothing but a mechanical reflex. Had I never learned that my very life depends on this pulse beat, I would regard it with complete indifference, as something foreign to me, like the oscillations of a clock pendulum that I idly contemplate. In the next passage, what two notions are said to be completely different from the ones we apply to the rest of nature? Why does Taylor hesitate to use the word cause when referring to the origin of human actions? Now this conception of activity, and of an agent who is the cause of it, involves two rather strange metaphysical notions that are never applied elsewhere in nature. The first is that of a self or person for example, a man who is not merely a collection of things or events, but a self-moving being. For on this view it is a person, and not merely some part of him or something within him, that is the cause of his own activity.... Second, this conception of activity involves an extraordinary conception of causation according to which an agent, which is a substance and not an event, can nevertheless be the cause of an event. Indeed, if he is a free agent then he can, on this conception, cause an event to occur namely, some act of his own without anything else causing him to do so.... This conception of the causation of events by things that are not events is, in fact, so different from the usual philosophical conception of a cause that it should not even bear the same name, for being a cause ordinarily just means being an antecedent sufficient condition or set of conditions. Instead, then, of speaking of agents as causing their own acts, it would perhaps be better to use another word entirely and say, for instance, that they originate them, initiate them, or simply that they perform them. 294 CHAPTER 3 THE SEARCH FOR ULTIMATE REALITY

12 Taylor says that, at first, his notion of the nature of persons may seem dubious. Why then does he think it is superior to the accounts of indeterminism and determinism? Do you agree or disagree? Now this is, on the face of it, a dubious conception of what a person is. Yet it is consistent with our data, reflecting the presuppositions of deliberation, and appears to be the only conception that is consistent with them, as determinism and simple indeterminism are not. The theory of agency avoids the absurdities of simple indeterminism by conceding that behavior is caused, while at the same time avoiding the difficulties of determinism by denying that every chain of causes and effects is infinite. Some such causal chains, on this view, have beginnings, and they begin with agents themselves. Moreover, if we are to suppose that it is sometimes up to me what I do, and understand this in a sense which is not consistent with determinism, we must suppose that I am an agent or a being who initiates his own actions, sometimes under conditions which do not determine what action I shall perform. Deliberation becomes, on this view, something that is not only possible but quite rational, for it does make sense to deliberate about activity that is truly my own and depends in its outcome upon me as its author, and not merely upon something more or less esoteric that is supposed to be intimately associated with me, such as my thoughts, volitions, choices, or whatnot Reproduced in print and electronically by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: Behavior and Choices Consider the following list of four kinds of actions or behaviors. For each category, list several actions you have performed that would fi t in that category. You may fi nd that you will have no items to list under one or more of the categories. 1. Behaviors that clearly were not a matter of choice in that they did not result from an act of your will. In other words, what you did was the inevitable outcome of causes over which you had no control. (An example might be blinking your eyes when a bright light fl ashed.) 2. Actions that did result from an act of your will but that you felt you were forced to do because your options were limited or because you were operating under some sort of coercion. 3. Actions in which causal factors had an infl uence on what you did but did not determine your action completely and inevitably, because you felt as though you did choose among genuine alternatives. 4. Actions that were truly your own and that you freely chose to perform without any causal infl uences affecting the outcome of your own act of willing. Did you leave any categories empty? If so, why? What criteria did you use to decide if an action was or was not free of causal infl uences? For which of the actions you listed would you accept moral responsibility for what you did? In other words, which actions would justly merit your praise or blame? What criteria do you use to decide the degree to which you are morally (continued...) Libertarianism 295