DATOS GENERALES

Hume’s attempt to solve the problem of freedom of action by dissolv-ing it certainly has its charms. However, although Hume’s compati-bilist position has had many followers, it has also come in for some heavy criticism. We need not challenge the claim that freedom of action is a matter of having the ability to do otherwise than you do.

What has instead come in for criticism is Hume’s dispositional analy-sis,Thesis 3.The trouble is that with some ingenuity one can imagine a situation in which a person could have done otherwise than she

does, yet still is not free. The same Taylor whom we met in the dis-cussion of quantum indeterminacy has thought of just such a case.

Taylor asks us to imagine a diabolical neuroscientist who can stim-ulate various parts of your brain by radio transmission. (In a later section we are going to see that this hypothetical case is not so far-fetched.) He pushes one set of buttons, and you form the intention to grab the orange that is before you; he pushes another set of but-tons, and you form the intention to kiss the nearest dog on the nose.

These intentions aren’t just minor urges, either; they’re powerful enough to make you act on them unless some external physical force gets in your way. Now consider the dog-kissing intention: Suppose it results in your smooching a nearby St. Bernard, slobber and all. It sure seems that you aren’t a free agent when you do that, any more than you would be if you kissed the dog as a result of a Tourette’s syndrome episode. However, it is still true that had you chosen to do otherwise, you would have done otherwise. For instance, Taylor’s neuroscientist might have pushed different buttons and stimulated different parts of your brain to make you intend and then attempt to kiss the nearest police officer. In that case, you would have done otherwise than kiss the St. Bernard. But so what? In neither case would you have been free.

The point of this example is that Hume’s dispositional analysis of freedom seems doubtful. In particular, it appears that Thesis 3’s right side (the counteractual part) can be true without the left side (the being-free part) being true. The person whose brain is being stimu-lated by the neuroscientist, for instance, satisfies the could-have-done-otherwise part, but nevertheless does not seem free. So the two sides of the dispositional analysis are not equivalent, and so the entire statement does not seem correct.Yet Thesis 3 was a crucial linchpin for Hume’s compatibilist project. As a result, his compatibilist project seems to be in trouble.

Taylor sees this as the death of compatibilism. Instead he espouses a form of incompatibilism known as libertarianism. The libertarian holds that in at least some situations you can be sure that you are per-forming a free action. Consider again that situation in which you are deciding whether to adhere to that promise to keep your friend’s secret.You weigh the importance of integrity against the attraction of getting some laughs from the other friends who are with you right now eating lunch. It is kind of tempting. Suppose further that after some struggle you resolve to keep that promise after all: Lunch is not as fun as it might have been, but at least you’ve been true to your

Are You Free? 131

friend. The libertarian holds that in this situation the only thing that causes your action of refraining from breaking the promise is your decision to do so. Yet that decision is not itself caused by anything either within you or outside of you.Accordingly, that decision to keep the promise is an event, but it is not an event that has a prior suffi-cient material condition. Some libertarians use the term “agent-causality” to refer to cases of this kind: When an action of mine is brought about by agent-causality, it is caused by me, but its being caused by me is not something that itself has a prior sufficient mate-rial condition.The buck stops with me.

To clarify her position the libertarian now needs to make a choice about the status of those decisions. Such a decision is either itself a material event, or, if one is sympathetic with dualism, perhaps instead it is a nonmaterial event. If it is a material event, then we will have a material event that lacks a prior sufficient material condition. If that is so, then it follows that UD, universal determinism, cannot be true.

Hence if the libertarian opts for materialism, then she will have to deny that UD is true.Another option, by contrast, is to hold that these decisions are nonmaterial. On this dualist version of libertarianism, the theorist may adhere to UD but pays the price of inheriting the problems that beset dualism generally.We discussed these problems in Chapter 5.

Consider the materialist form of libertarianism. (For the rest of this chapter I will restrict my discussion to this form of the theory.) It has to deny UD. How could a philosopher have the temerity to reject this thesis which, leaving aside quantum indeterminacy, is so well supported by empirical evidence? A philosopher might reply that her denial of UD is based on empirical evidence too, but empirical evidence of a kind that is more secure and immediate than any evi-dence that we might have for UD. What could that evievi-dence be?

Introspection!

Return to the case in which you were deliberating about whether to keep your friend’s secret.You can, the libertarian will suggest, look inside yourself and observe yourself choosing what to do with the same certainty you have when you know whether you’re in pain or whether something on your tongue tastes sweet. (Recall that we introduced the notion of introspection during our discussion of Descartes in Chapter 5.) In all three of these cases you know simply by introspection what is happening. However, it might be said, intro-spection is the most secure and reliable form of empirical knowledge;

our knowledge of such things as causal relations among objects out-side of us is comparatively indirect and comparatively shaky. For this reason, one might suggest that we can gain introspective certainty of a fact that overturns something as empirically well established as UD.

Please let this sink in for a moment. If the materialist libertarian is correct, then we can know by introspection and some simple logical deduction that not every material event has a prior and sufficient material cause.Those that involve the exercise of my will are a case in point. Of course, if we are to be confident that this is a sound line of reasoning, in which the argument is not only valid but the premises are also true, then we had better be sure that introspection justifies the confidence that we are taking it to justify. In fact we will see reasons for doubting whether we are really entitled to that confidence.