digging deeper into determinism

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Page 1: Digging Deeper into Determinism

Mind Association

Digging Deeper into DeterminismAuthor(s): Don LockeSource: Mind, New Series, Vol. 89, No. 353 (Jan., 1980), pp. 87-89Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2253506 .

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Page 2: Digging Deeper into Determinism

DISCUSSIONS

Digging Deeper into Determinism

DON LOCKE

Arguments for the incompatibility of free will and determinism com- monly depend on the claim that if all events are caused then, for every action, the agent could not have acted otherwise than he did. But as Winston Nesbitt and Stewart Candlish have recently pointed out ('Determinism and the Ability to do Otherwise', Mind, I978, pp. 415- 420), this claim is far from obvious, even ignoring the many and sophis- ticated attempts to avoid it by an appropriate analysis of causation, or of 'could have', or both. 'For while it is clear why it should be thought that if it is determined that one will do something on a given occasion then one will not in fact do anything else on that occasion, it is much less clear why it should be thought that if it is determined that one will do something on a given occasion, then one will be incapable of doing anything else on that occasion' (p. 415). Surely determinism does not have 'the peculiar consequence that on any particular occasion, one's abilities are restricted in number to just one, namely the ability to do precisely as one does' (p. 4I7)! What has happened, Nesbitt and Candlish suggest, is that incompatibilists have committed the familiar modal fallacy of arguing from LCpq to CpLq, by arguing from 'Necessarily, if determinism is true, then one will not do otherwise than one does on any particular occasion' (which Nesbitt and Candlish are themselves prepared to accept) to 'If determinism is true, then one cannot do other than one does on any particular occasion' (which is what the incompatibilist's argument requires).

Now first of all it is worth being clear that, in claiming that the agent could not have acted differently, the incompatibilist need not be claiming that his abilities are restricted to just one. Take an example where it is as clear as it ever can be that I cannot do other than what I am doing: where I fall over a cliff and, lacking any parachutes, jet thrusters or efficacious magic, plummet towards the ground at an acceleration of 9-8 metres per second per second. Yet even then I do not lose my ability to type or drive a car-at least not until I hit the ground-any more than I lose my ability to drive when I am in my study and my car is safely locked in my garage. What is the case, rather, is that I am not, in those circumstances, in a position to exercise those abilities. It is for this reason that I have elsewhere distinguished the 'can' of ability from the 'can' of being able (see 'The "Can" of Being Able', Philosophia, I976, sec. i). The question at issue in the free will debate is not whether determinism deprives me of my abilities, but whether it means that I am, on any particular occasion, unable to exercise any such abilities except those which, at the time, I happen to be exercising.

Nevertheless, however we interpret the 'can' it remains true, as Nesbitt and Candlish insist, that what follows from determinism is not that the

87

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Page 3: Digging Deeper into Determinism

88 DON LOCKE:

agent cannot act differently, but only (albeit necessarily) that he will not act differently. Thus what is incompatible with determinism is not being able to act differently but only, as they put it, 'One's doing otherwise than one in fact does' (p. 4I7). But unhappily this seems to be a mis-statement of the conclusion they actually wish to draw, since it is of course a tautology that no-one will ever do other than they in fact do. This is not for the reason which Nesbitt and Candlish give, that it is logically impossible to do something else as well as what you in fact do; but because, as they fail to note, it is equally impossible to do something else instead of what you in fact do. There is, therefore, some irony in their remark that 'this distinction disposes of many apparent contradictions and tautologies involved in talk of doing otherwise than one in fact does' (p. 4I7 n.)!

However it is clear enough that the conclusion which Nesbitt and Candlish mean to derive from the truth of determinism is not that a man will do what a man will do, but rather that for any particular action x, there will be causal circumstances such that it follows necessarily that the agent does x and not something else instead. And no doubt they will insist, as before, that this means only that the circumstances are such that the agent will not do anything other than x, not that he cannot: he remains able to act otherwise, even though he won't. But consider what an idle, illusory, freedom of action this provides us with: although I can act differently, the circumstances are such as to ensure that I will not; the freedom to do other than I am caused to do is a freedom which I possess, even a freedom I can exercise, but one which I never will! Perhaps it is the emptiness of this escape from the incompatibilist's argument that has made philosophers as cavalier in their use of modal terms as any other speaker of idiomatic English, who will typically say, for example, 'If it's Tuesday it must be Belgium' when what he means, strictly, is 'Necessarily, if it's Tuesday, then it is Belgium'. But there is a further reason for insisting that determinism means that no-one can ever do anything other than what they do do.

I take it that Nesbitt and Candlish are also prepared to accept that if an action has a cause then it follows necessarily that the agent will perform that action and not any other: if the circumstances are sufficient to cause x then-necessarily the agent will do x. Indeed this seems yet another tautology, given the most obvious interpretation of causal sufficiency. But this is of the form LCpq, which is equivalent to LNKpNq, which is in turn equivalent to NMKpNq. So it follows, by the simplest of logical transformations, that it is impossible both that the action has a cause and that the agent acts differently: it is impossible that the circum- stances are causally sufficient for x, and yet the agent does not do x. Thus, if determinism is true, it follows that it is impossible for anyone ever to act differently in the circumstances that actually obtain. It is not merely that they will not act differently, given the circumstances; it is also the case that they cannot act differently in the circumstances, i.e. the combination of those particular circumstances and a different action is an impossible one, given that the circumstances cause the action. And that is incompatibilism enough for me.

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Page 4: Digging Deeper into Determinism

DIGGING DEEPER INTO DETERMINISM 89

This, of course, is the nub of the free will debate: not whether it would be possible for the agent to act differently in different circumstances, but whether he can act differently in the circumstances in which he actually finds himself. Compatibilists are wont to offer hypothetical analyses of being able in terms of what the agent would do if he were differently situated, without noticing how this reduces the crucial claim (he can act differently in these very circumstances) to something either irrelevant or unintelligible (he would act differently in different circumstances in these very circumstances) (see 'The "Can" of Being Able', sec. 7). Indeed this familiar mistake is repeated in the paper which immediately follows that of Nesbitt and Candlish, Richard Foley's 'Compatibilism' (Mind, 1978, pp. 42I-428).

Finally, Nesbitt and Candlish suggest that although Austin may have shown that 'He can do otherwise' does not entail 'He will do otherwise if he tries', the reverse entailment may still hold, and that will suffice to show that determinism is compatible with being able to act otherwise given, as seems plausible, that determinism is compatible with being able to act otherwise if you try. But there is a familiar objection to this reverse entailment also, one which appears in Foley's paper (p. 423) though it dates back not merely to Chisholm, as Foley suggests, but to Moore (Ethics, pp. 2I7-2I8): that for any pair of statements 'A will do x if A does y' and 'A can do x', the former may be true and the latter false, if A cannot do y (and, it is essential to add, A has no other way of doing x). Thus it might be the case that I will easily escape this rattlesnake if I try but, transfixed with fear as I am, I do not, and cannot, even try. So, unless there is some other means of escape, e.g. Buffalo Bill with loaded six-shooter at the ready, then I cannot escape the snake, even though it is true that I will if I try. Indeed if, as follows from determinism, the circumstances are always such that it is causally impossible to act differ- ently in those circumstances, then it also follows that in those circum- stances it is causally impossible to do anything else, e.g. trying, which would result in the agent's acting differently. The appeal to hypotheticals, as always, merely pushes the problem back a step, and the essential incompatibility between free will and determinism remains as before.

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

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