Do you know what semi-compatibilism is?

First, a confession. Not too long ago, Eddy Nahmias was looking over a paper I had written. In it, I gave some brief characterization of semi-compatibilism. Eddy said “look you moron, I’m pretty sure that’s not what semi-compatibilism is” (though he was much nicer in his choice of phrasing). I thought “what the hell is Eddy talking about? Of course I know what semi-compatibilism is. It is the view that (1) moral responsibility is compatible with determinism and (2) free will is incompatible with determinism. I may not know much, but I know what semi-compatibilism!” But then I though that maybe I should just check with John, seeing as how I’m committed to the value of empirical work for various problems in philosophy. So I emailed him. As it turns out, I had it wrong.

First off, I want to publicly acknowledge that Eddy was right that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Second, I wanted to relate the results of my careful empirical study (i.e., several emails) concerning the nature of semi-compatibilism, in the event that other folks could learn from my mistakes, and in hopes that they might recognize the value of doing careful empirical work. :-)

Semi-compatibilism is the view that responsibility is compatible with determinism. (Though John didn't say it, I suspect he would also think the view is committed to compatibility with indeterminism, too. But I'm not sure). Anyway, semicompatibilism doesn’t say anything one way or another about free will and determinism. Thus, strictly speaking, semi-compatibilism is compatible with BOTH incompatibilism as well as compatibilism about free will and determinism.

Maybe you don’t find this surprising. I don’t sleep much with 2 kids under the age of 18 months, so that’s going to have to be my excuse for not having this straight. Anyway, I found it useful when John reminded me that semi-compatibilism is merely a part of the Total Fischer View on Free Will & Related Stuff™ (my phrasing, not his), and not the name for overall view.

The more complete Fischer view, of which semi-compatibilism is only a part, holds that there is a commonsense notion of free will that (1) is incompatibilist, (2) disconnected from responsibility attributions, and (3) perhaps ought to be expunged. But these views are distinct from the semi-compatibilism. Moreover, John’s views about the sense of possibility (as in ‘can do X’) that is relevant to concerns about free will says nothing one way or another about the truth of semi-compatibilism.

There are several interesting things about all of this, it seems to me. First, it follows that if you are a compatibilist about responsibility and determinism, you are a semi-compatibilist in John’s sense (ignoring some marginal cases that turn on whether or not semi-compatibilism also requires indeterminism). That makes a whole lot of people semi-compatibilists, whether they know it or not. Second, I think semi-compatibilism, at least on the unofficial Official Construal I've given here, raises a number of questions about what is distinctive about semi-compatibilism in particular (though not so much about what is distinctive about John's view). But I’ll save that for another inflammatory Friday post — maybe I’ll call that one “the truth about semi-compatibilism,” just to keep tradition going.

However, the real reason why I posted all of this is that I was hoping that at least one person out there would tell me that they didn’t already know all of the above, so that I could feel a little better about my being wrong. Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?

Comments

[Eddy Nahmias]

Well, first of all, I should say that being confused about what exactly 'semi-compatibilism' labels does not entail that one is a 'moron.' As far as I can tell, Fischer never equivocates on the definition: semicompatibilism is the position that (1) moral responsibility is compatible with determinism even if (2) "the ability to do otherwise" is not. But this view has been described by Kane (2002 intro, 13) to mean (1) plus (2) "freedom" is not, and by Clarke (2003, 10) to mean (1) plus (2) "free will" is not (O'Connor 2000, 21 gets it right), and that's all the research I've done so far.

I only got it right after trying to figure out what makes 'semicompatibilism' different from 'compatibilism.' As far as I can tell, though the name marks out an extremely important position, most compatibilists would likely fall into the semicompatibilist camp (as Manuel suggests), though it gets complicated fast. I would guess that most compatibilists accept, as Fischer does, that the 'ability to do otherwise' in the *unconditional* sense is ruled out by the Consequence argument, but that the sort of freedom required for moral responsibility is not (Lewis-style compats are notable exceptions). But all compats, including Fischer and Frankfurt too, require that in some sense an agent (or at least her action-guiding mechanisms) has the capacity to do otherwise (e.g. in response to different reasons).

Tell me if I'm right about this way of understanding the debate: whereas incompatibilists think free will requires the ability to *exercise* one's general (relevant) cognitive capacities in more than one way given the same past and laws, compatibilists identify free will with the *possession* of those general (relevant) cognitive capacities, capacities which of course involve producing different outputs (decisions, actions) in light of different situations (e.g. reasons). That is, compats, including semicompatibilists, think that the ability to do otherwise required for free will and moral responsibility is, just like our old-fashioned forefathers said, conditional. We just realize the conditional needs to be more complex than they suggested.

Now let's here what John has to say about his term.

[Eddy Nahmias]

Or rather, let's *hear* what John has to say. Is there any way to correct your mistakes once you post, or are our typos and more substantial blunders doomed to permanent status in the virtual world?

[Dan Speak]

In defense of Kane and O'connor's variants (and Manuel's moronic confusion), John sometimes puts the view parenthetically as the thesis that "responsibility is compatible with determinism even if free will (understood in terms of alternative possibilities)is not". My suspicion is that the common misunderstanding comes from this (more titilating) expression. It is easy to leave out the crucial parenthesis and arrive at the misreading.

[Manuel]

Eddy-

Well, I felt like a moron. Though again you are right there is no entailment between confusion about semi-compatibilism and moron-hood. (What is the proper word for that, anyway? 'Moron-hood' doesn't sound right. Moronity? Moronicity? Stupidity?)

Regarding corrections- you can use the 'edit post' function under the "manage" tab for author controls. It is found in the "weblog shortcuts" box under that tab, among other places.

UPDATE: I believe these instructions only work for posts, not comments. But as this update shows, there seems to a way to do it for comments that you entered (under the posts tab) or that were in response to a post you offered.

[Joseph Keim Campbell]

Some thoughts on 'semicompatibilism' and 'free will.'

Whatever John's original intentions were, I don't think that it is a good idea to define 'semicompatibilism' simply as the view that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism. I would guess that MOST philosophers use the term in a way that is closer to Manuel's original definition. Moreover, it is not clear what the term 'semi' is qualifying if semicompatibilsts remain mute about the issue of determinism and alternative possibilities. How do semicompatibilists differ from compatibilists (without qualification)?

This leads me to another issue, e.g. about the meaning of the term 'free will.' Manuel's comments suggest that it is standard to believe that a person has free will iff she has alternative possibilities of action. Though this usage is common it is by no means standard. (I confess that once I argued that Manuel's usage WAS standard but more recently I have seen the light.)

In his paper on the Matrix website, "Neo's Freedom . . . Whoa!," Michael McKenna uses the term 'free will' to designate the freedom relevant condition necessary for moral responsibility, whatever that condition may be. We can then distinguish between alternatives views of free will and origination views of free will. (Michael makes a similar distinction but I think that my terminology might be different.) John Hawthorne uses the term ‘free will’ in this way, also.

Given the above definition of 'free will,' we may then define ‘compatibilism’ as the view that free will is compatible with determinism. (More precisely, it is the view that the free will thesis is compatible with the thesis of determinism, but I don't want to ruin the free spirit of the blog!) This puts all of us compatibilists--semi- and otherwise--together under the same simple heading!

Compatibilists are divided between those who think that free will requires alternatives and those who don't. I suggest that we use the expression 'semi-compatibilism' to designate the position held by the latter group. (I also prefer the simple term 'alternatives' over 'alternative possibilities' since the latter term seems redundant. Are there any non-alternative possibilities, or alternative impossibilities?)

What do we call compatibilists who believe that free will requires alternatives? I use the term 'strong compatibilists' to designate this group. I hate the term, which is odd since I'm the only one that I know who uses it, but I can't think of anything better. Any suggestions?

The above describes the usage that I have recently conformed to after years of thinking about these issues. I'd be interested in knowing if the usage has any problems that I have not anticipated or if anyone has advice about some better terminology!

Thanks, Manuel, for raising an interesting topic!

[Hilary Bok]

I agree that it's a little misleading to define 'semi-compatibilism' in such a way that most compatibilists are also semi-compatibilists. (The' semi' here seems to me to suggest not 'at least halfway to full-blown compatibilism', but 'halfway, and no more.') But I also (slightly off topic) would not use 'alternatives' to mean 'alternatives that are possible, given exactly the same past and laws'. We normally talk about e.g. choosing among several alternatives without implying anything about all-in possibility.

[Manuel]

Hi Joe- Good to have you join the party!

I didn't mean to imply that alt. possibilities is the predominant way to think about free will- it was simply a gloss on how I understood Fischer to cast his view. I agree that the predominant conceptual role played by 'free will' is the freedom condition on moral responsibility. Of course, a number of people, including Nozick & Kane have cited other considerations that are raised about the significance of free will, but even so, I don't take it that these things dislodge the primary concepual role of 'the freedom condition on moral responsibility'.

[Joe Campbell]

Thanks for the comments!

Hilary,
As I use the terrm, 'alternatives' does not designate all-in abilities; it designates freedom relevant abilities of some kind. I think of all-in abilities pretty much the way that John does. Following Manuel's gloss, they are part of the commonsense notion of free will, they are incompatibilist, they are disconnected from moral responsibility attributions and they ought to be expunged! Alternatives theoriests believe that alternatives are essential to free will but there are both incompatibilist alternatives theorists (who identify alternatives with all-in abilities) and compatibilist alternatives theorists (aka strong compatibilists) like myself.

Manuel,
Sorry for being so quick with my assessment about your use of the term 'free will.' And I appreciate the comments about Nozick and Kane. Of course, even if we identify free will with the ability to do otherwise (though not necessarily with all-in ability), it is clear that this ability may be available in situations that have little to do with moral action.

Hope this helps!

[John Fischer]

Well, I was hoping someone would explain to ME what "semi-compatibilism" means. One problem: I can never figure out whether it involves a hyphen.

Anyway, I THINK semicompatibilism is the doctrine that causal determinism is compatible with moral responsibility and further that this is so, even if it turns out that causal determinism rules out the sort of freedom that involves genuine access to alternative possibilities, however one defines this sort of access. Simply put: causal determinism is compatible with moral responsibility, quite apart from considerations pertaining to "could have done otherwise."

Some futher features of the Total Package of Fischer Views: 1. Our moral responsibility should not hinge on whether or not the generalizations describing the universe are universal or merely almost-universal. 2. It is plausible that, when we use "could have done otherwise" literally, we mean "could have extended the actual past, holding the laws fixed"--that is, in Ginet's words, our freedom is the freedom to add to the past, given the laws of nature. This is so, even though there are clearly other notions of possibility in the neighborhood. 3. Moral responsibility is compabitle with causal indeterminism. Thus, the Total Fischer View is (among other things): Supercompatibilistic Semi-compatibilism.

I hope to help to motivate these ideas a bit more in a long introductory essay I am writing for a collection of my papers to be published in 2005 by OUP. Meanwhile, I apologize for my various infelicitous and imprecise formulations of the Doctrine of Semi-compatibilism.

[Joe Campbell]

John, thank you very much for your comments! The “Total Package of Fischer Views” was especially helpful.

You write: “semicompatibilism is the doctrine that causal determinism is compatible with moral responsibility and further that this is so, even if it turns out that causal determinism rules out the sort of freedom that involves genuine access to alternative possibilities.”

Given this definition, it is not clear whether there are ANY compatibilists who are not also semicompatibilists. For instance, I think that determinism is compatible with moral responsibility. I also believe that free will (thought of as merely the freedom relevant condition necessary for moral responsibility) requires alternative possibilities. I do not think that causal determinism rules out this kind of freedom but if it turned out that it did rule out this kind of freedom, I would still be a compatibilist about the determinism/moral responsibility issue. Thus, I am, according to the above definition, a semicompatibilist. Nonetheless, I maintain that free will requires alternative possibilities! We’re still in need of some terminology that separates those compatibilists who think that free will requires alternative possibilities from those who don’t.

Some comments on item (2) of the Total Package.
You write: “It is plausible that, when we use ‘could have done otherwise’ literally, we mean ‘could have extended the actual past, holding the laws fixed’--that is, in Ginet’s words, our freedom is the freedom to add to the past, given the laws of nature. This is so, even though there are clearly other notions of possibility in the neighborhood.” This is the only part of the total package with which I disagree.

First, let me clarify exactly where my disagreement lies. Let’s distinguish between what I will call ‘Fischer’s thesis’ and what I will call ‘Ginet’s thesis.’ Ginet’s thesis is the claim that ‘S could have done otherwise’ literally means ‘S could have extended the actual past, holding the laws fixed.’ Fischer’s thesis is the claim that Ginet’s thesis is plausible. I think that Ginet’s thesis is false and I don’t even think that it is plausible, so I think that Fischer’s thesis is false, also. Here are some reasons for why I reject both theses.

(1) There is no reason to think that the ‘could have’ in ‘S could have done otherwise’ is different from the ‘could have’ in sentences like ‘The hurricane could have destroyed my house’ or ‘I could have died in that car accident.’ I doubt very much that when people utter sentences like the latter two that their underlying beliefs are wedded to the falsity of determinism. I’m sure that there are folks who have no opinion at all about the truth or falsity of determinism who say things like ‘The hurricane could have destroyed my house.’

(2) Many (if not most) philosophers prior to the 20th Century adopted the position that I call ‘strong compatibilism.’ Kant, Hume, Leibniz, Descartes and others all believed that free will requires alternative possibilities but that free will is nonetheless compatible with determinism. But if Ginet’s thesis is correct, holding this position is similar to holding the view that some bachelors are married.

For instance, in his 9 February 1645 letter to Mesland, Descartes claims that we have the power of determining ourselves “to one or other of two contraries, that is to say, to pursue or avoid, to affirm or deny.” He later adds that “when a very evident reason moves us in one direction, although morally speaking we can hardly move in the contrary direction, absolutely speaking we can. For it is always open to us to hold back from pursuing a clearly known good, or from admitting a clearly perceived truth, provided we consider it a good thing to demonstrate the freedom of will by so doing” (CSMK: 245). Descartes was clearly a determinist. Thus, he believed that, even if determinism is true, on at least some occasions some of us could have done otherwise. He did not believe that even if determinism is true some of us could have extended the actual past, holding the laws fixed. No one, to my knowledge, has ever expressed this contradictory position. Descartes might have been wrong about the nature of free will but he was not an idiot. Nor was he under the grips of some linguistic confusion.

For a contemporary defense of strong compatibilism, see my “Compatibilist Alternatives,” included in the Papers on Agency section of this blog. (Thanks to John, too, for posting this paper!)

[Manuel]

A followup to Joe's & Hillary's comments- John, which compatibilists do you think of as not being semi-compatibilists? Lewis, perhaps? Others?

[John Fischer]

The way I think about it, semicompatibilism is the doctrine that considerations pertaining to whether the agent could have done otherwise (or has genuine metaphysical access to alternative possibilities) are irrelevant to ascriptions of moral responsibility. Thus, any compatibilist who believes that moral responsibility requires freedom to do otherwise (or such access) would NOT be a semi-compatibilist.

I take it that any philosopher who explicitly denies Frankfurt's interpretation of the "Frankfurt-examples" but who gives a compatibilistic analysis of the "can" of "could have done otherwise" would NOT be a semicompatibilist. Keith Lehrer is such a compatibilist. I think Robert Audi is as well. There are many other compatibilists who have explicitly given compatibilist accounts of the "can" of "could have done otherwise," but have not explicitly addressed the Frankfurt-type cases (or other arguments, such as the broadly speaking Strawsonian argument) to the effect that moral responsibility does not require alternative possibilities. Whereas I cannot be sure, I assume that many of these are compatibilists but not semi-compatibilists: John Turk Saunders,
Richard Foley, David Lewis, Terence Horgan, Gary Watson, and others.

Semi-compatibilism implies that it is not helpful or illuminating to conceptualize moral responsibility in terms of " the agent could have done otherwise". So any compatibilist who who DOES so interpret moral responsibility would not be a semi-compatibilist.

Granted, even I talk about the general powers of mechanisms or ways that choices are made (actions are performed), but there is a real and important distinction between this way of conceptualizing things and the traditional, alternative possibilities mode. But I guess I'll have to work on this more, as perhaps I have convinced only Mark Ravizza and my mother....

[John Fischer]

Joe: you truncated the quote from me! Among other things, I said that semicompatibilism is the doctrine that moral responsibility does not require genuine access to alternative possibilities, NO MATTER HOW THIS ACCESS IS DEFINED. So: the semicompatibilist would deny that moral responsibility requires that the agent could have done otherwise, in a broad range of compatibilist senses or ways of explicating "could have done otherwise," including those of Lewis, Horgan, Lehrer, Saunders, Foley, and so forth.

[tnadelhoffer]

It has always seemed strange to me to suggest that the question of whether an agent "could have done otherwise"--in whatever sense you deem acceptable--is irrelevant to questios of moral responsibility. Consider, for instance, the possibility that "free will" is a family-resemblance concept best viewed along the of exemplar theories of concept use and intuition formation (e.g Gopnik). Moreover, consider the possibility--indeed, I would say that it is more than that!--that paradigm cases of free will and moral responsibilty involve cases where agents "could have done otherwise" in the old soft-compatibilist sense (i.e. absence of external coercion and/or internal pscyhological abnormalities). If this were true (and I, for one, have never been convinced by arguments to the contrary), then why should I buy into soft-compatibilism? Perhaps it looks like I am trying to dredge up the dreaded "paradigm case argument"--and perhaps I am. In any event, I am interested to hear from those of you who think the paradigm case argument is either useless or misguided--especially given that recent empirical work in concept formation and usage suggests that exemplar theory is correct for a number of our concepts. And as far as I can tell, "free will" is a strong candidate for this sort of analysis.

[tnadelhoffer]

I meant to say "why should I buy into semi (not soft) compatibilism?"

[John Fischer]

I think that Peter Van Inwagen, in his book An Essay on Free Will, has decisive arguments against the "Paradigm Case" Approach. Consider, for example, the possibility that neuroscientists (or Martians--assume there is a difference!) implanted a chip in your brain at birth and have been directly manipulating you... It would seem that you would be perfectly free, according to the Paradigm Case approach.

I am convinced by the Frankfurt-type arguments that moral responsibility does NOT require that the agent is free, in the circumstances, to do otherwise (or choose otherwise). The structure of the cases, involving a signature sort of preemptive overdetermination, convince me (upon careful--I think--and certainly extensive [!] consideration) that the genuine availability of alternative patheways is irrelevant to ascriptions of responsibility.

Yes, I suppose this will seem "strange"--that is what makes semi-compatibilism so interesting and different! If you would like to reject it, then it would be interesting to know how you would respond to the Frankfurt-type cases (or the Strawsonian arguments presented by R.Jay Wallace, for that matter).

Hmmm... the above thread reminds me of a remark allegedly made by A.J Ayer, having heard Alvin Plantinga's lectures at Oxford on necessity: "I have lived in vain..."

[tnadelhoffer]

I suppose that the problem I have with van Inwagen's objection to the paradigm case argument is the fact that fanciful examples involving aliens, evil neuroscientists, overdetermination, and other types of imaginative Frankfurtean thought experiments--rather than the mundane sorts of examples that we actually encounter as we go about our everyday lives--have never resonated with me. After all, even if I buy into the paradigm case argument, it is obviously open for me to concede that there are going to be border line cases where deciding whether someone is free and morally responsible will be difficult--if not impossible. It is not as if I am forced by this argument to conclude that the ability to do otherwise is necessary for moral responsibility--only that paradigm cases of moral responsibility will involve agents who could have done otherwise. That leaves open the possibility that there may be some cases where an agent is morally responsible even though he could not have done otherwise. But I see no reason for concluding that this mere possibility in any way shows that the ability to do otherwise is in NO WAY relevant for ascriptions of moral responsibility. To conclude this would be like concluding that just because we can imagine a game that cannot actually be played (because, for instance, we have made the pieces 300 feet tall or the game is designed to self-destruct as soon as anyone attempts to play it), it follows that the potentional for being played has nothing at all to do with what it normally means to be a game. Of course it does! But that does not mean that ALL games are playable--just the overwhelming majority of them. I suppose the Frankfurtean examples only undermine the paradigm case argument if it is assumed that those who opt for this line of reasoning assume that the ability to do otherwise is necessary for moral responsibility. But since a number of people (including myself) find this argument attractive for broadly Wittgensteinian reasons they are likely to be averse to attempting to cash out "could have done otherwise," or "free will" in terms of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions in the first place. Perhaps it is this desire--to isolate that which is essential to all cases of moral responsibility--that leads people to abandon the paradigm case argument or to adopt semi-compatibilism in the face of Frankfurtean thought experiments. But are there any non-question begging ways of showing that any account of free will and/or moral responsibility must be given in terms of essential defintions, etc.? If so, I look forward to hearing them. I would also be interested in hearing what people think about the relevance of exemplar theories of concept learning and usage for the free will debate--especially as it relates to my current attempt to get the foot of the paradigm case back in the door.

[John Fischer]

Tom, thanks for your thoughtful ruminations. There may well be limits on any productive interaction, given your methodological constraints (what will and will not "resonate" with you).

No doubt the following intrpretation of your argumentative strategy is exceedingly simplistic and unfair, but it almost seems to me that you are arguing as follows. Freedom JUST IS DEFINED in terms of the ordinary criteria of ascriptions of freedom. That is, freedom is not the real phenomenon, whatever it is, that is ordinarily picked out it certain ways: it is criterially given, or defined by, our ordinary ways of picking it out. Now you people like Frankfurt, Fischer, Van Inwagen, Mele (!) come along with examples that are not "ordinary"--so they can't show my view false! These "unusual" examples can't be used to show my view false!

Hmm... This is rather a tight circle, isn't it?

Although I doubt whether you would be in any way worried about this, but clearly your methodology would call into question the usefulness of most (in my view) interesting philosophical thought-experiements, from Gyges Ring to Descartes' Evil Demon to Gettier's Examples to the Twin Earth cases to the... Don't you folks in the FSU Empiricism Liberation Front ever worry that you are being just a tad bit arrogant?

As I said in my contribution to your blog's thread on intuitions in philosophy, these are of course very large and complex issues that won't be resolved quickly or easily. I prefer a methodology that takes seriously our considered judgments over a range of cases, but also demands a wide reflective equilibrium that places those judgments within the context of logic, metaphysics, and the best science.

[tnadelhoffer]

I wanted to briefly sketch a response to Fischer’s earlier request for me to clarify how I would respond to Frankfurt-style cases (I do not arrogantly pretend that what I am going to say is either novel or helpful—only that it is an honest attempt to respond to Frankfurt and Fischer, respectively):

The principle that Frankfurt was trying to undermine with tales of neuro-scientists and the like can roughly be summarized as follows:

PAP: If an agent is morally responsible for x-ing, then it must have been possible for her not to have x-ed.

Frankfurt’s counter-examples to PAP seem to show that it is false—i.e. that an agent can be morally responsible for x-ing even if it was not possible for her to avoid x-ing. In response to Frankfurt, some philosophers wanted to replace PAP with something along the following lines:

PAPD: If an agent is morally responsible for x-ing, then it must have been possible for her to have decided not to x.

The charge is that in the original Frankfurt cases the only reason that the agent is responsible in the scenario where Black does not intervene is that the agent could have decided otherwise even if she could not have done otherwise. And this difference purportedly explains why the agent is morally responsible even though she could not have done otherwise.

As should be expected, philosophers (e.g. Fischer, Mele and Robb) tried to rescue the Frankfurt-style cases by either introducing indeterminism into the causal chain leading up to the decision or by allowing Black to intervene before the agent decided to x. On way of responding to this line of reasoning is to simply push PAP and PAPD further back along the following (somewhat Kantian) lines:

PAPI: If an agent is morally responsible for x-ing, then it must have been possible for her not to have intended to x.

This move is motivated by the fact that deciding to x may require an agent to be more settled on x-ing than simply intending to x does. If, however, some philosophers are not persuaded by this difference between the requisite settledness of desires and intentions, we could offer the following replacement principle for PAP, PAPD, and PAPI:

PAPD(2): If an agent is morally responsible for x-ing, then it must have been possible for her not to have desired to x.

This principle would explain why we blame the common thief, but not the kleptomaniac. Moreover, it would seemingly cover all of the cases that were covered by the original version of PAP while at the same time minimizing the force of Frankfurt’s original argument. Given that we reformulate PAP in terms of PAPD(2), it is unclear how the Frankfurt style cases are supposed to work. After all, unless Black’s over-determining mechanism operates antecedent to the formation of the agent’s desires, PAPD(2) will not be undermined by the scenario. If, on the other hand, the device does operate prior to the agent’s conative mechanisms, it becomes difficult to understand how the device is supposed to work (i.e. what mental data it will use to enable Black to know in advance if the agent is desiring, planning, intending, and deciding not to x). Perhaps it will rely on antecedent--entirely subconscious--deterministic mental processes as markers for the agent’s future beliefs, desires, intentions, and decisions. But then the agent seems to lose responsibility whether Black intervenes or not. Keep in mind, either Black intervenes at this pre-deliberative stage—in which case the agent is not going to be morally responsible for her actions—or he does not intervene, in which case the agent’s pre-deliberative mental processes, and not Black’s intervention, will be to causally responsible for her x-ing. But notice, given that the processes in question are subconscious (i.e. not within the control of the agent) and given that these subconscious processes inevitably lead the agent to x (if they did not have this effect, Black would have intervened at the pre-deliberative stage), then it seems strange to suggest that the agent is morally responsible for x-ing. In which case, we have an instance of a variant of PAP shielding the agent from Frankfurt’s attempt to say that she is responsible even though she could not have done otherwise. I am confident that this is sort of move is likely either overly simplistic or overly well worn to be of much interests to those of you who are free will specialists. I look forward to being corrected once again. Hopefully, this time around the attempts to do so will be a bit less "chippy"--to borrow a term from an earlier thread here at gfp.

[Joe Campbell]

John: Sorry for the truncated quote. I agree with your recent explication of semicompatibilism as “the doctrine that considerations pertaining to whether the agent could have done otherwise (or has genuine metaphysical access to alternative possibilities) are irrelevant to ascriptions of moral responsibility.” (I also agree that this idea was contained in the part of your comments that I did not quote!) Here there is a clear difference between semicompatibilism and what I call ‘strong compatibilism.’ Manuel’s comment that “Semi-compatibilism is the view that responsibility is compatible with determinism” is not quite right. Whether the semicomatibilist thinks that free will is compatible with determinism will depend on what one means by ‘free will.’ If free will is just the freedom relevant condition necessary for moral responsibility (as I use the term), then the semicompatibilist will be a compatibilist about free will and moral responsibility, too. If free will requires alternative possibilities of action, then the semicompatibilist may well remain mute on the issue. Is this right?

Two other comments on the above, very helpful discussion.
First, a few questions for John and a comment. John, are you saying that van Inwagen manipulation cases provide a decisive objection to strong compatibilism? Or do they only provide an argument against the Paradigm Case Approach? (In which case they are really just a response to one argument in favor of strong compatibilism.) Also, aren’t manipulation cases equally threatening to other theories of free will, for instance the agent causation view? As I see it, manipulation cases are just a reflection of the fact that there is a lack of consensus about the nature of free will. Someone puts forth a set of conditions that she claims is sufficient for free action; someone else disagrees and constructs an example where the conditions hold but 'intuitively' the action is not free since it is the product of 'manipulation.' Can't this be done with regard to ANY set of supposed sufficient conditions? (Admittedly it will be harder to do with some than with others.) I agree that manipulation cases are worrisome but I don’t think that they are more worrisome for the strong compatibilist than they are for any other theorist. (I have more to say on this if need be.)

Second, my reasons for sticking with strong compatibilism are a little different than the ones offered by Thomas Nadelhoffer above. (Perhaps not too different, though.) I don’t see anything wrong with the use of abstract examples like the Frankfurt examples or van Inwagen’s manipulation cases. Rather, I feel a certain duty to capture AS MUCH of the ordinary, common sense notion of free will as we can. Ordinary folk think that if one has free will, then she could have done otherwise, so I think so, too. I accept that the Frankfurt examples clearly show that there is a sense of ‘could have done otherwise’ that is irrelevant to issues of moral responsibility, e.g., the ‘all-in sense.’ I just don’t feel any pressure to IDENTIFY this sense with the sense of ‘could have done otherwise’ that IS relevant to issues of moral responsibility.

Perhaps the main difference between my view and John’s is that John thinks that the ‘could have’ in ‘could have done otherwise’ is different than the ‘could have’ in other kinds of sentences that do not explicitly talk about alternative possibilities of action. For this reason, ‘could have done otherwise’ just means ‘could have done otherwise in the all-in sense.’ (John is not alone here; this seems to be the prevalent view among contemporary philosophers.) This concedes too much to incompatibilists: they were right all along about what ‘could have done otherwise’ means. I’m not willing to do this just yet.

As I see it, no specification of the non-modal facts will allow us to distinguish the free individual from the one that is not free. We will always need to utilize some modal concept like reasons responsiveness that ultimately involves not just what one does but what one would have done had the situation been a little different—e.g., if she had had different reasons. No doubt John believes that even if there is a ‘could have’ lying below the surface, it is different from the ‘could have’ in the traditional meaning of ‘could have done otherwise.’ My hope is that in the end our ‘could have done otherwise’ talk will line up nicely with the relevant modal notions and a compatibilist theory preserving much of our common sense notion of free will may be offered.

[Jason Turner]

I have a question about how to understand semicompatibilism now. The following version seems untenable, for somewhat trivial reasons:
"semicompatibilism is the doctrine that moral responsibility does not require genuine access to alternative possibilities, NO MATTER HOW THIS ACCESS IS DEFINED." Simply define "genuine access to alternative possibilities" (or GAP) as any one of a number of things entailed by a minimal account of free will. Here's a rough version of one: S has GAP iff there is a possible world where S (throw in counterparts as needed) does otherwise or where the mechanism that produced S's action in the actual world does not produce the same action.

Now, I doubt anyone's foolhardy enough to float such an analysis of GAP, but it is at least open that some other (slightly more plausible, I hope) 'strong compatibilist' analysis will be such as to be entailed by any act that counts as free on semicompatibilist theories of free will.

The natural impulse (mine, at least, when I feel like a semicompatibilist) is to dismiss these readings as irrelevant since they are implausible and it's just obvious the semantic value of "alternative possibilities" or "could have done otherwise" is much more robust. But this minimally requires adding the rider "so long as it's plausible" to the capatalized clause in the above definition. This, however, seems to require that certain readings of (say) "could have done otherwise" are implausible -- readings, I suspect, that at least some compatibilists think *are* plausible.

My question is (roughly) whether what "seems" to be the case here is correct. Are semicompatibilists committed to the claim that certain analyses (e.g. conditional ones) of "could have done otherwise" and "alternative possibilities" are simply implausible? And if so, does the semicompatibilist leave it open that there are some other plausible analyses that are weaker than the all-out alternatives analysis but not so weak as to be entailed by an agent's acting (on a semicompatibilist theory) freely, or need semicompatibilists hold that "can"- and "alternatives"-talk is best analyzed in an all-out fashion?

[John Fischer]

Jason: I think most people would use the term, "all-in", rather than "all-out"; the standard usage follows J.L. Austin here. Anyway, I think of semi-compatibilism qua semi-compatibilism as not committed to any particular view about how to analyze "could have done otherwise". Of course, some such analyses will be less plausible than others. What is distinctive of semi-compatibilism, in my view, is the contention that causal determinism does not rule out moral responsibility in virtue of threatening "could have done otherwise," however one analyzes the latter. This is because the semi-compatibilist contends that in making responsibility attributions, one ought to prescind from issues pertaining to whether the agent could have done otherwise.

Now of course a particular semi-compatibilist will have a Total Package of Views, and in this bundle or package will presumably be a view on constraints on the analysis of the relevant notion of "could" or "possibility."

[Randy]

For the record, Clarke (2003: 10) says that semicompatibilists accept Frankfurt's argument (against PAP)and "take responsibility to be compatible with determinism, while (at least) allowing that determinism may preclude free will." Earlier (p. 3), I indicate that I take free will to require having an ability to do otherwise. So my characterization counts as semicompatibilists those compatibilists about responsibility who are either incompatibilist or uncommitted on the compatibility of determinism and the ability to do otherwise.

I hope this doesn't sound chippy.