Does Improbability render an Alternative Irrelevant?

In a recent article ("Frankfurt-Style Cases and Improbable Alternative Possibilities," Philosophical Studies 130 (2006): 399-406), Gerald Harrison argues that a Frankfurt-case need not eliminate all alternative possibilities in order to show PAP to be false.  This, by itself, isn't too surprising--many others have made the same general point (among my favorites here are Fischer-scenarios).  According to Harrison,

an agent may have the opportunity to do othwerise in an indeterministic world yet lack the ability to do otherwise in the sense relevant to PAP (401).

But what I do find puzzling is Harrison's argument for this claim.  He thinks that an alternative can be irrelevant even if it contains a free action/decision.  The kind of case Harrison uses is a Hunt-inspired blockage case.  But in order to avoid the objections to full blockage cases, Harrison gives a case in which all alternative possibilities but one are blocked.  The remaining alterntative is possible, just highly improbable. 

So here's my version of his kind of case.  We're at the next  APA, and I see Dan Speak at the smoker.  In general, I like Dan.  Who woudn't?  But in this case, Dan has recently snubbed me and my moral character is such that I am strongly inclined to kick people that have snubbed me.  Given this, I am strongly inclinded to kick Dan in the shins.  But my moral character isn't such that I must kick Dan in the shins--there is an accessible possible world in which I freely refrain from kicking him.  It's just very, very improbable that I won't.  All other possible worlds are blocked.  As it happens, what is probable becomes actual and I kick Dan.

According to Harrison, not only am I morally responsible for kicking Dan in the shins, but I also lack the ability--in the sense relevant to PAP--to not kick Dan despite my access to such a world.  I lack the ability to not kick Dan simply because my doing so is highly improbable. 

It is not enought that the agent have access to some alternative in which they [sic.] act freely, there must in addition be a sufficiently high probability of actually accessing the alternative in question (405).

I wonder why the mere improbability of an alternative that includes a free action/decision would mean that that alternative was irrelevant to my moral responsibility.  Furthermore, if it is, just how improbable would it need to be to be irrelevant?  Any thoughts?

Comments

[Mike]

Kevin,

Maybe he has in mind a situation in which your failing to kick him is as likely as sinking a 65 yard putt. That event is possible, of course, but extremely unlikely. Make the putt longer, if you like, or require a hole-in-one. At some point, I think you do lack the ability to sink the putt in the sense relevant to PAP. You can sink it, but I can't imagine blaming someone for not sinking a 200 yard putt, no matter what's on the line. On the other hand, it is difficult to withhold praise if he does sink it.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Mike,

If it was a once in a lifetime occurance, while I think we would all praise the golfer who sank the 200 yard hole in one, I doubt we would be inclined to assent that the golfer deserved our praise for a show of skill. My intuition is to praise that golfer for his luck.

[Mike]

Mark,

Ok, bring the putt in a bit. We do in fact praise golfers for lucky putts (since nearly all putts involve some luck). So bring it in to, say, 65 feet. I'm guessing there's a point at which the putt is far enough that it is not relevant to PAP and close enough that we praise the golfer for his achievement (not his luck).
It's not the point I happen to be after, but I'm certain there's also a distance at which it is no more than vaguely true (i.e. indefinitely true) that the alterative is relevant to PAP.

[Dan Speak]

Mike's suggestion sounds rather plausible as an interpretation of what you've given us, Kevin. But puzzlement still remains (beyond my puzzlement at why you would think I had snubbed you).
Typically, F-cases are structured in such a way as to call into question the relevance of alternative possibilities for BASIC free actions. This keeps proponents of PAP from appealing to tracing in response. Call this the basic assumption. Also, if the only thing that renders Kevin's not kicking me irrelevant is its improbability, then we are safe to assume that his not kicking me meets all requirements for being a full-blown free action. From the basic assumption and assumption of mere improbability we seem to get the conclusion that Kevin's not kicking me is a basic free action in every respect independent of probability.

Now my puzzlement is palpable. In Mike's putting case it makes a great deal of sense to say that, while it is possible for S to make the putt, S nevertheless lacks the ability to do so. And this continues to make sense even after s has made the highly improbably putt. "Yeah, you made it. But you just got lucky" we would probably say. But that's going to sound very awkward when we turn to Kevin's not kicking me. Suppose that, all the improbability notwithstanding, Kevin does not kick me (chooses not to kick me). Granted that this is a full-blown basic free action, what sense would it make to say, "Yeah, you refrained from kicking him. But you just got lucky"? Almost everyone grants that luck undermines responsiblity. But if Kevin isn't responsible for refraining from kicking me, then his refraining from kicking me isn't a relevant alternative in every other respect except improbability.

Perhaps the tempting thing to say is that improbability entails responsibility-undermining luck. But that can't be right. Can it?

More importantly, Kevin, I don't recommend kicking me. I don't tell many people this, and I hope you will keep this between us (for obvious reasons) but I'm a ninja.

[Alan]

Kevin, thanks for the reference and your great question. I haven't read the piece, but I do find this line of inquiry fascinating.

Question for Mike and Mark, who both make excellent points. A colleague of mine, Roger, recently sank his first hole-in-one (he's played--like me--for decades at this miserable game). He noted that it did not ricochet off a tree and accidentally drop in the hole but was the result of a shot where he swung well and looked for all appearances to be a real golfer--the ball plopped down on the green, ran to the hole, and went in. He was proud of his shot--claiming a (temporary) abililty not unlike Tiger's more persistent one at this game. (Though ask Tiger about his four straight bogies last weekend and he'll tell you about the viccissitudes of ability.) I'm a golfer too, and know well the improbability of such a shot (I've never made one). Yet, for that moment and despite the improbability, I'm willing to grant him that perhaps temporary ability despite the overwhelming odds against, and to give him credit for that.

Could one manifest a temporary ability--positive or negative (or like the golf shot neutral) in moral tone--to access an improbable opportunity?

In other words--and here's my own point--aren't abilities and opportunities inextricably linked metaphysically? Isn't it impossible to evaluate them separately, as the essay Kevin cites seems to suggest?

[Al Mele]

There’s a familiar distinction between what may be termed “general” and “specific” abilities. Although I have not golfed for years, I am able to golf. I am not able to golf just now, however. I am in my office now, and it is too small to house a golf course. The ability to golf that I claimed I have may be termed a *general* ability. It is the kind of ability to A that we attribute to agents even though we know they have no opportunity to A at the time of attribution and we have no specific occasion for their A-ing in mind. The ability to golf that I denied I have is a certain *specific* ability – in this case, an ability to golf now. In “Agents’ Abilities” (NOUS 2003), I distinguish among three kinds or levels of specific ability: (1) what I call *simple ability*: e.g., my ability to toss a six with my next toss of the fair die I am holding now; (2) the ability to A intentionally: e.g., my ability to type the rest of this sentence; and (3) what I call *promise-level* ability: something in the ballpark of what Peter van Inwagen seems to have in mind when he uses the word ‘able’ in his “Free Will remains a Mystery.”

Assume that the ability to do otherwise is required for, as Dan Speak puts it in his post, “basic” free actions. Then “What’s the highest level or kind of ability that’s required?” is a nice question. Is more than what I called *simple ability* required? It sounds like Harrison would say “yes.” (His paper is now on my reading list.) Van Inwagen would say “yes” too; so Harrison certainly is not alone. (BTW, in “Agents’ Abilities” I suggest that a commonsense view of the three kinds of ability I mentioned might be silent on the question whether determinism precludes the ability to do otherwise.) Another nice question is “What is the highest level or kind of ability *to A* that is required for A-ing freely?”

I think that work on the connections between ability and free action would be more fruitful and much more efficient if we were first to think hard about ability itself. I see Kevin’s post as encouragement to do that.

[Kevin Timpe]

Lots to respond to. I'll try to be brief.

I left the article on my desk at the office, so I don't have it in front of me to check. But I think that Dan is correct insofar as Harrison wants his thesis to cover not just actions like 'sinking a long putt' or kicking Dan that may not be fully within our control, but also basic actions like deciding to putt (or deciding to kick Dan, or deciding to vote...). Sorry to have perhaps led us astray with my example. But it is precisely with regard to basic actions that I'm not sure why the mere improbability of an accessible alternative is irrelevant to the ability to do otherwise. I think that Dan is correct to question whether all improbability entails responsibility undermining luck.

Al, I like your suggestion that we need to think about exactly what kind of ability is required here. Your suggestion reminds me of Vihvelin's insistence that we can't avoid the hard metaphysical issues here.

Oh, and Dan, you snubbed me by telling Manuel that you were a ninja before you told me (sorry, but Manuel tattled on you). But now you seem to have told the world. Or, at least all the world that matters--those who frequent the GFP. Please, ninja Dan, don't hurt me.

[Justin Capes]

Kevin,

I haven't read Harrison's paper, but do you think that anything really important turns on this issue that would somehow make Harrison's example stronger than, say, the sorts of cases developed by Fischer and McKenna?

[Kevin Timpe]

Justin,

The following seems to be relevant difference between Harrison's view and Fischer's. Fischer thinks that that in order for alternative possibilities to be relevant to moral responsibility, “those alternative possibilities must contain voluntary behavior” in order for them to be “sufficiently robust basis for moral responsibility.” (Kane also says something like this.) Harrison's view differs in that he thinks that even alternative possibilities that do contain voluntary behaviors are irrelevant if they are sufficiently improbable.

As for McKenna, I can't remember if he shares the above constraint that Fischer and Kane endorse or not. I'm at home, and so don't have access to my copy of the McKenna and Widerker volume which contains his "Oodles and Oodles" paper that I was referring to earlier (which, by the way, I think is a great paper--my failing memory should not be taken as an indication of my evalution of this paper in any way).

[benjamin whorner]

No entity called an agent needs to be posited to describe choice. Rather than saying an agent made or manufactured or produced a choice, it can be said that a choice arose, a choice happened. It can be added that the sense or concept or idea of an agent responsible for a choice arose in like manner--independent of an agent (unless you want to say then that agent is the body or the universe or some such).
It comes down to whether it is held or not held that there is a necessary inseparability between an entity called agent and a choice. In effect agent is defined as that which produces a choice (or desire and anger or whatever is ascribed to agent)and a choice is that which is produced by an agent.
One can respond that it does not follow necessarily from a sense or idea of an agent producing a choice-- that therefore there is no such thing as choice without an agent.
One may offer arguments against this or simply respond by defining a choice as an action or preference which is produced only by an agent and an agent being that which produces a choice, or one may simply say--"I see (or I apperceive or something) a necessary connection between agent and choice"
A reply to this: I see or apperceive (or alternately I define) choice and agent to be such that there is no necessary connection between agent and choice and that choice can exist without agent and is independent of agent.
Which ice cream is better, vanilla or chocolate?
It may be asserted that the correct model that depicts choice ( moral or otherwise) is exemplified by a context in which there is a choice as to whether chocolate or vanilla ice cream tastes better-----where the agent (assuming in the first place that there is an agent) is a bystander as it were and what tastes better simply arises or happens or appears independently of whether the agent desires or wishes one ice cream to taste better or worse; In other words the news of better and worse ice cream arises independently of the agent. Another way to put it is that the agent does not manufacture a choice; the agent is not the thing which creates a choice.
If this is the model for all choice, including moral choice, then an agent has no responsibility because an agent, whatever it is, did not create the decision. Rather the decision, the choice, arises independently of an agent and can exist without an agent.
You can counter that we must preserve the moral actor in moral situations as the foundation for ethical and legal systems (i.e it would be wrong to do otherwise)
and the repost to this it can be that, well, the universe or the creative principle of existence or some such created the choice and if the body that is the instrument of the universe or something transgresses then you can put the body away. (This would be to say that there is an agent making the choice but just not an individual agent special to a body--but you don't even need this kind of agent ultimately).
Of course, then you have the problem of motivation.
The story goes that if an action to be morally wrong and jailable must be deliberate then intention must be a part of the picture and only an agent can have intention.
I reply that motivation may be considered to arise independently of any posited agent, just as choice does.
The upshot is that it seems there does not need to be an agent for an action to be a jailable offense.
This is the point of view of a Ninja wielding an Ockham Razor.

[Randolph Clarke]

I gather we're to consider an action that is open to you to perform and that, if performed, will be performed freely.

And the claim, I take it, is that if it is highly improbable that you'll perform that action, then you aren't able to perform it.

Suppose that the action in question is a basic action--something you do without doing anything else as a means. And suppose that what's improbable is not that your attempt to perform that action will succeed, but rather that you will try to perform it. Perhaps it is certain that if you try you'll succeed.

Then, I don't see why the mere improbability of the action precludes your being able to perform it. It's not as though the improbability brings with it any difficulty; on the contrary, if you try, you're sure to succeed.

One might be worried about the problem of luck here. But since we're supposing that the action, if performed, will be performed freely, it seems we're supposing that problem solved.

[Mike]

_And suppose that what's improbable is not that your attempt to perform that action will succeed, but rather that you will try to perform it. Perhaps it is certain that if you try you'll succeed. Then, I don't see why the mere improbability of the action precludes your being able to perform it_.

Wasn't the suggestion that you will in those circumstances not be able to perform the action in the sense required by PAP? That seems right. Suppose A is a basic action and that I cannot attempt to do A unless I first sink 10 consecutive free throws. Now suppose I fail and never perform A. I could have sunk 10 free throws and performed A, though it was improbable that I would have. It does seem that I'm not to blame for failing to perform A *and* I could have performed A.