Arguing about Free Will

I explore some issues in the logics and dialectics of practical modalities connected with the Consequence Argument (CA) considered as the best argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. According to Lewis (1981) in one of the possible senses of (in)ability, the argument is not valid; however, understood in the other of its possible senses, the argument is not sound. This verdict is based on the assessment of the modal version of the argument, where the crucial notion is power necessity (“no choice” operator), while Lewis analyses the version where the central notion is the locution “cannot render false.”Lewis accepts closure of the relevant (in)ability operator under entailment but not closure under implication. His strategy has a seemingly strange corollary: a free predetermined agent is able (in a strong, causal sense) to falsity the conjunction of history and law. I compare a Moorean position with respect to radical skepticism and knowledge closure with ability closure and propose to explain Lewis’s strategy in the framework of his Moorean stance.

The Fitting-Attitude Analysis Revised

‘The Fitting-Attitude Analysis Revised’ is devoted to a challenge to the fitting-attitude analysis (FA analysis) that arises from the logical consequence argument (outlined in Chap. 7). This argument shows that the version of FA analysis defended in this work has the unwelcome consequence that whatever is good for someone is also, necessarily, non-relationally good. However, as the discussion evinces, an advocate of FA analysis can meet this challenge. In effect, what is needed is a modification of the standard way of formulating the FA analysis of final impersonal value. Combining this revised FA version of final impersonal value with a novel way of understanding final non-relational value provides a plausible way to handle the logical consequence argument. The chapter also discusses three related issues. (i) It outlines a reductio of the standard version of final goodness; (ii) it explains why combining a normative and an attitudinal approach does not, in the end, serve the needs of the FA advocate. Finally, it (iii) introduces a kind of case in which we would intuitively agree that something is good for person a, but which, intuitively, is such that few or no one would think they had a reason to favour what was considered good for a (except a). Such examples allegedly showcase why the book’s proposed analysis is incorrect. Eventually, it is explained why this kind of case does not have this implication.

The Logical Consequence of Fitting Attitudes

Any fitting-attitude (FA) analysis which understands value ultimately in terms of reasons and pro- and con-attitudes will have limited wiggle room if it is to respect the kind of radical division between good and good-for that earlier chapters have outlined. Essentially, its proponents can either introduce two different normative notions, one relating to good and the other to good-for, or distinguish two kinds of attitude, one corresponding to the analysis of good and the other corresponding to the analysis of good-for. ‘The Logical Consequence of Fitting Attitudes’ outlines why the latter, ‘attitudinal’ approach is preferable. Unfortunately, the attitudinal approach faces a challenging problem: the logical consequence argument. According to it, the attitudinal approach has the unwelcome consequence that whatever is good for someone is also, necessarily, non-relationally good. That is bad news—especially if you are a value dualist. The next chapter (Chap. 8) is devoted to resolving this issue.

Abilities and Incompatibilism

This chapter begins the task of relating a contextualist account of agential modals to questions concerning freedom. In the first two sections, different ways of characterizing abilities and their relationship to freedom are discussed. This helps clarify the framework and assumptions that the subsequent arguments rely upon. Next, an influential argument for incompatibilism, namely the consequence argument, is argued to be problematic. Using the notion of an all-in ability, the question of how best to develop the case for incompatibilism is then considered. After criticizing an argument for incompatibilism based upon all-in abilities, the chapter ends by offering a reformulation of the consequence argument, in light of the characterization of all-in abilities.

A Contextualist Account of Regulative Freedom

In this chapter, attention again turns to issues surrounding freedom. In chapter two it was argued that the dual power to do otherwise, to be able to A and to refrain from A-ing, was a necessary condition of a concept of freedom, which was named ‘regulative freedom’. In this chapter, a contextualist analysis of regulative freedom is proposed. The chapter begins by considering different possible formulations of a contextualist account of freedom, after which, semantic evidence both for and against the view is examined. Next, two significant advantages of the contextualist theory are outlined, namely, a response to the (reformulated) consequence argument and the argument from manipulation. Finally, objections to a contextualist account of regulative freedom are answered.

A Lost Lesson in Keith Lehrer’s Reply to the Consequence Argument

In this article, the author examines Keith Lehrer’s response to the Consequence Argument. He argues that his response has advantages over David Lewis’s. Contrary to what Lewis suggests in a footnote, Lehrer’s assessment of an ability to affect the laws of nature in deterministic settings is largely the same as Lewis’s. However, Lehrer’s position has an advantage that Lewis’s lacks. Lehrer integrates his proposal within a positive account of freedom, and this helps to explain how it could be that an agent is able to do otherwise in deterministic settings in such a way that if she did, some law of nature would be different.

Dennett and Taylor’s alleged refutation of the Consequence Argument

Daniel C. Dennett has long maintained that the Consequence Argument for incompatibilism is confused. In a joint work with Christopher Taylor, he claims to have shown that the argument is based on a failure to understand Logic 101. Given a fairly plausible account of having the power to cause something, they claim that the argument relies on an invalid inference rule. In this paper, I show that Dennett and Taylor’s refutation does not work against a better, more standard version of the Consequence Argument. Therefore, Dennett and Taylor’s alleged refutation fails.

Conditional analysis of free will and consequence argument

The conditional analysis of the meaning of the phrase “free will” is a classical compatibilist strategy, first introduced by David Hume and still widely used by compatibilists. The consequence argument is an influential argument against compatibilism. If the consequence argument is sound, then physical determinism is incompatible with alternative possibilities for any agent. In this article, I consider the relationship between the consequence argument and classical compatibilism. I demonstrate that the consequence argument uses premises that should be rejected by proponents of the counterfactual conditional analysis of free will