Culpability incompatibilism

Here are three plausible theses:

1. You’re only culpable for a morally wrong choice determined by a relevantly abnormal mental state if you are culpable for that mental state.

2. A mental state that determines a morally wrong choice is relevantly abnormal.

3. You are not culpable for anything that is prior to the first choice you are culpable for.

Given these theses and some technical assumptions, it follows that:

4. If determinism holds, you are not culpable for any morally wrong choice.

For suppose that you are blameworthy for some choice and determinism holds. Let t₁ be the time of the first choice you are culpable for. Choices flow from mental states, and if determinism holds, these mental states determine the choice. So there is a time t₀ at which you have a mental state that determines your culpable choice at t₁. That mental state is abnormal by (2). Hence by (1) you must be culpable for it given that it determines a wrong choice. But this contradicts (3).

The intuition behind (1) is that abnormal mental states remove responsibility, unless either the abnormality is not relevant to the choice, or one has responsibility for the mental state. This is something even a compatibilist should find plausible.

Moreover, the responsibility for the mental state has to have the same valence as the responsibility for the choice: to be culpable for the choice, you must be culpable for the abnormal state; to be praiseworthy for the choice, you must be praiseworthy for the abnormal state. (Imagine this case. To save your friends from a horrific fate, you had to swallow a potion which had a side-effect of making you a kleptomaniac. You are then responsible for your kleptomania, but in a praiseworthy way: you sacrificed your sanity to save your friends. But now the thefts that come from the kleptomania you are not blameworthy for.)

Premise (2) is compatible with there being normal mental states that determine morally good choices, as well as with there being normal mental states that non-deterministically cause morally wrong choices (e.g., a desire for self-preservation can non-deterministically cause an act of cowardice).

What I find interesting about this argument is that it doesn’t have any obvious analogue for praiseworthiness. The conclusion of the argument is a thesis we might call culpability incompatibilism.

The combination of culpability incompatibilism with praiseworthiness compatibilism (the doctrine that praiseworthiness is compatible with determinism) has some attractiveness. Leibniz cites with approval St Augustine’s idea that the best kind of freedom is choosing the best action for the best reasons. Culpability incompatibilist who are praiseworthiness compatibilists can endorse that thesis. Moreover, they can endorse the idea that God is praiseworthy despite being logically incapable of doing wrong. Interestingly, though, praiseworthiness compatibilism makes it difficult to run free will based defenses for the problem of evil.

Are free actions a counterexample to the PSR?

I’ve argued somewhat as follows in the past:

1. Necessarily, no one is responsible for a brute fact—an unexplained contingent fact.

2. Necessarily, someone is responsible for every free decision or free action.

3. So, it is impossible for a free decision or free action to be a brute fact.

But then:

4. Necessarily, a counterexample to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) is a brute fact.

5. So, no free decision or free action can be a counterexample to the PSR.

One may imagine someone, however, arguing that although a free decision or a free action cannot be a counterexample to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, a contrastive report, such as that x freely chose to do A rather than B, could be a counterexample to the Principle of Sufficient Reason. But notice that if x freely chose to do A rather than B, then x is responsible for choosing to do A rather than B. Similarly if x freely chose to do A for reason R rather than B for S, then x is responsible for doing so. Freedom implies responsibility. But no one is responsible for a brute fact, so such contrastive reports cannot be reports of a brute fact.

Objection 1: Incompatibilism is true, and on incompatibilism it is obvious that no possible explanation can be given for why x freely chose to do A for R rather than B for S. Hence the Principle of Sufficient Reason is false.

Response: Given that no one is responsible for what has no explanation, if the “no possible explanation” claim is correct, then free will is impossible. Thus, rather than showing that the PSR is false, the argument would show that if incompatibilism is true, free will is impossible. As a libertarian, I think free will is possible (and actual). But it is important to keep clear on what it is that is really endangered by the argument: it is free will and not the PSR.

Objection 2: Freedom is a necessary but not sufficient condition for responsibility.

Response: I am not sure about this. When I think about what other conditions we need to add to freedom to yield responsibility, the only one I can think of is something like knowledge of what is at stake. But it is arguable that without knowledge of what is at stake, a choice is not free. Moreover, even if one does not know what is at stake with A and B beyond what is contained in the respective reasons R and S, one will still be responsible for choosing A for R rather than B for S if one chooses freely for these reasons. One just won’t be responsible for the further aspects, beyond those captured by R and S, that one does not know.

But let’s grant for the sake of argument that other conditions need to be added to freedom to yield responsibility. If so, then the claim has to be that free but non-responsible decisions or actions or contrastive reports thereof are a counterexample to the PSR although free and responsible ones are not. In other words, one has to hold that the alleged additional conditions that need to be added to freedom to yield responsibility are what secures explicability. But given that the most plausible candidate for the other conditions is knowledge of what is at stake, this is implausible. For a free action based on mistaken or limited knowledge is no less explicable than an action based on full knowledge, once one takes into account the agent’s epistemic deficiency.

Relativity and an argument for incompatibilism

A common argument for the incompatibility of freedom and determinism goes something like this (where premises 1, 2 and 3 are implicitly assumed to hold at all times):

1. It is currently possible that I will do A only if the past and the laws are compatible with my future doing of A.

2. If determinism is true, then the past and the laws are only compatible with my future doing of what I will in fact do.

3. So, if determinism is true, the only things that it is currently possible that I will do are the things that I will in fact do.

4. Freedom requires that at some time it be possible that I will do something other than what I will in fact do.

But given relativity theory, it is not clear what “the past” means in the above arguments, since past is always relative to some reference frame. There are at least four ways of reading (1):

• Strongest: It is now possible for me to do A only if the events in the complement of my present closed future light-cone and the laws are compatible with my doing A.

• Stronger: It is now possible for me to do A only if for every reference frame R, the past according to R and the laws are compatible with my doing A.

• Weaker: It is now possible for me to do A only if for some reference frame R, the past according to R and the laws are compatible with my doing A.

• Weakest: It is now possible for me to do A only if the events in my present open past light-cone and the laws are compatible with my doing A.

Now, generally we should prefer less strong premises. So we should avoid the Strongest and Stronger readings of (1). But I claim that the analogue of (2) is unjustified if we take the Weaker reading of (1). For suppose A would be a future action. Then the past open light-cone of A will be strictly larger than my current past open light-cone. Determinism tells us that A or its absence is nomically determined by the events in its past open light-cone. But that past open light-cone is strictly larger than my current past open light-cone. And it could be that some event E that is in A’s past open light-cone but not in my current past open light-cone makes a difference as to whether A happens. Then there will be a reference frame R such that this event E would be outside my current past according to R. Thus, A’s or its absence’s being determined by the events in its past open light-cone leaves open the possibility that some event E that isn’t in my current past according to R makes a difference as to whether A happens, and hence that A or its absence need not be determined by the events in my current past according to R.

So, for the argument (1)–(4) to work given relativity, it seems we need the Stronger or Strongest reading for (1).

Is there a better way to fix the argument relativistically? Maybe. I like the idea of replacing (1) with an atemporal formulation:

5. Action A is only free if its non-occurrence is compatible with the laws and the subset of events in A’s causal history that are outside of my life.

Supererogation and determinism

1. If at most one action is possible for one, that action is not supererogatory.

2. If determinism is true, then there is never more than one action possible for one.

3. So, if any action is supererogatory, determinism is false.

There is controversy over (2), but I don’t want to get into that in this post. What about (1)? Well, the standard story about supererogation is something like this: A supererogatory action is one that is better than, or perhaps more burdensome, that some permissible alternative. In any case, supererogatory actions are defined in contrast to a permissible alternative. But that permissible alternative has got to be possible for one to count as a genuine alternative. For instance, suppose I stay up all night with a sick friend. That’s better than going to sleep. But if there is loud music playing which would make it impossible for me to go to sleep and I am tied up so I can’t go elsewhere, then my staying up all night with the friend is not supererogatory.

Internalism about non-derivative responsibility

Internalism about non-derivative responsibility holds that whether one is non-derivatively responsible for a decision depends only on facts about the agent during the time of the decision.

Only an incompatibilist can be an internalist. For suppose that compatibilism is true. Then there will be possible cases of non-derivative responsibility where what the agent decides will be determined by factors just prior to the decision. But of course those factors could have been aberrantly produced in order to determine the particular decision by some super-powerful, super-smart being, and then the agent would not have been responsible for the decision. So whether there is responsibility on compatibilism depends on factors outside the time of the decision.

Speaking for myself, I have a strong direct intuition that internalism about non-derivative responsibility is true. But it would be interesting whether arguments can be constructed for or against such internalism. If so, that might give another way forward in the compatibilism/incompatibilism debate.

A Copenhagen interpretation of classical mechanics

One can always take an indeterministic theory and turn it deterministic in some way or other while preserving empirical predictions. Bohmian mechanics is an example of doing that with quantum mechanics. It's mildly interesting that one can go the other way: take a deterministic theory and turn it indeterministic. I'm going to sketch how to do that.

Suppose we have classical physics with phase space S and a time evolution operator T_t. If the theory is formulated in terms of a constant finite number n of particles, then S will be a 6n-dimensional vector space (three position and three momentum variables for each particle). The time evolution operator takes a point in phrase space and says where the system will be after time t elapses if it starts at that point. I will assume that there is a beginning to time at time zero. The normal story then is that physical reality is modeled by a trajectory function s from times to points of S, such that T_t(s(u))=s(u+t).

Our indeterministic theory will instead say that physical reality is modeled by a (continuous) sequence of probability measures P_t on the phase space S for times t≥0. These probability measures should be thought of as something like a physical field, akin to the wavefunction of quantum mechanics--they represent physical reality, and not just our state of knowledge of it. Mirroring the consciousness-causes-collapse version of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, we now say this. If from time u (exclusive) to time t+u (inclusive) no observation of the system was made, then P_t+u(A)=P_t(T_u⁻¹[A]). I.e., the probability measure is just given by tracking forward by the time-evolution operator in that case.

On the other hand, suppose that at time t an observation is made. Assume that observations are binary, and correspond to measurable subsets of phase space. Intuitively, when we observe we are checking if reality is in some region A of phase space. (It's easy to generalize this to observations having any countable number of possible outcomes.) Suppose P_t^* is the value that P_t would have had there been no observation at t by the no-observation evolution rule. Then I suppose that with objective chance P_t^*(A) we observe A and with objective chance 1−P_t^*(A) we observe not-A, with the further supposition that if one of these numbers is zero, the corresponding observation physically cannot happen. Then the probability measure P_t equals the conditionalization of P_t^* on the observation that does in fact occur. In other words, if we observe A, then P_t(B)=P_t^*(B|A) and otherwise P_t(B)=P_t^*(B|not-A). And then the deterministic evolution continues as before until the next observation.

As far as I can see, this story generates the same empirical predictions as the original deterministic classical story. Also note that while in this story, collapse was triggered by observation, presumably one can also come up with stories on which collapse is triggered by some other kind of physical process.

So what? Well, here's one thought. Free will is (I and others have argued) incompatible with determinism. One thought experiment that people have raised is this. If you think free will incompatible with determinism, and suddenly the best physics turned out to deterministic, what would you do? Would you deny free will? Or would you become a compatibilist? Well, the above example shows that there is a third option: give an indeterministic but empirically adequate reinterpretation of the physics. (Well, to be honest, this might not entirely solve the problem. For it might be, depending on how the details work out, that past observations narrow down the options for brain states so much that they become deterministic. But at least there would be hope that one wouldn't need to give up on libertarianism.)

The above way of making free will compatible with physical determinism is functionally similar to Kant's idea that our free choices affect the initial conditions of the universe, but without the freaky backwards-like (not exactly backwards, since the noumenal isn't in time) causation.

Here's another thought. Any indeterministic theory can be reinterpreted as a deterministic multiverse theory with traveling minds, while maintaining empirical adequacy. The multiverse traveling minds theory allows for causal closure of a deterministic physics together with robust alternate-possibilities freedom. Combining the two reinterpretations, we could in principle start with a deterministic physics, then reinterpret it in a Copenhagen way, and then impose on top of that the traveling minds interpretation, thereby gaining an empirical equivalent theory with robust alternate-possibilities freedom and no mental-to-physical causation. I bet a lot of people thought this can't be done.

No one can make you freely do a serious wrong

I've just been struck by the obviousness of this principle: It would be unjust for you to be punished for something that someone else made you do.

But it wouldn't be unjust for you to be punished for freely doing something seriously morally wrong. Hence, it is impossible for someone to make you freely do something seriously morally wrong. But if compatibilism is true, then it is possible for someone to make one freely do something seriously wrong: a powerful being could produce a state of the universe long before one's conception that determines one to do that wrong. (In principle a compatibilist could insist--as Ayer did--that it takes away one's freedom when an agent determines one to act a certain way. But this cannot be maintained. Whether I'm free shouldn't depend on ancient history.)

A criticism of some consequence arguments

The standard consequence argument for incompatibilism makes use of the operator Np which abbreviates "p and no one has or has ever had a choice about whether p". Abbreviating the second conjunct as N^*p, we have Np equivalent to "p and N^*p". The argument then makes use of a transfer principle, like:

• beta-2: If Np and p entails q, then Nq.

When I think about beta-2, it seems quite intuitive. The way I tend to think about it is this: "Well, if I have no choice about p, and p entails q, then how can I have a choice about q?" But this line of reasoning commits me not just to beta-2, but to the stronger principle:

• beta-2*: If N^*p and p entails q, then N^*q.

But beta-2* is simply false. For instance, let p be any necessary falsehood. Then clearly N^*p. But if p is a necessary falsehood, then p entails q for every q, and so we conclude—without any assumptions about determinism, freedom and the like—that no one has a choice about anything. And that's unacceptable.

This may be what Mike Almeida is getting at in this interesting discussion which inspired this post.

Of course, this counterexample to beta-2* is not a counterexample to beta-2, since although we have N^*p, we do not have Np, as we do not have p. But if the intuition driving one to beta-2 commits one also to beta-2*, then that undercuts the intuitive justification for beta-2. And that's a problem. One might still say: "Well, yes, we have a counterexample to beta-2*. But beta-2 captures most of the intuitive content of beta-2*, and is not subject to this counterexample." But I think such arguments are not very strong.

This is not, however, a problem if instead of accepting beta-2 on the basis of sheer intuition, one accepts it because it provably follows from a reasonable counterfactual rendering of the N^*p operator.

A simple consequence argument

Say that p and q are nomically equivalent provided that the laws of nature entail that p holds if and only if q does.

Assume:

1. If q is not up to you, and p is nomically equivalent to q, then p is not up to you.

Suppose determinism. Let L be the laws. Let t₀ be 1000 years ago. Let p be a proposition reporting something you do. Let q be the disjunction of all the nomically possible states of the universe at t₀ that evolve under L in such a way as to make p true. Then, plausibly:

2. p and q are nomically equivalent.

For given the deterministic laws, if p is true, then a thousand years ago the universe must have been such as to have to evolve to make p true.[note 1] And conversely, the laws entail that if it was such, then p is true.

Finally, observe that events a thousand years ago aren't up to you:

3. q is not up to you.

We conclude that p is not up to you. So no actions are up to you if determinism holds.

Quantum collapse and free choices

When I say that something is metaphysically impossible to do, I will mean: metaphysically impossible for creaturely causation. For this post I leave open the question of what God might be able to do through primary causation. The following seems quite plausible to me:

1. If a particle is in a mixed |A>+|B> quantum state, then it is metaphysically impossible to determine the particle to collapse into the |A> state.

It is surely metaphysically possible to determine it about that the particle should have a transition from an |A>+|B> state to an |A> state. But not every transition from an |A>+|B> state to an |A> is a collapse. A collapse seems to be a natural kind of transition under the influence of the wavefunction. One can presumably take a particle in a mixed state, and then determine it to have a particular pure state. But that isn't collapse. That is our change of the particle's state. This seems very plausible to me.

The following seems to me to be just as plausible as (1):

2. If an agent is deciding between A for reasons R and B for reasons S, then it is metaphysically impossible to determine the agent to choose A for R over B for S.

Of course, compatibilists can't say (2). But I find it surprising that in the Frankfurt literature incompatibilists typically grant the denial of (2), allowing that neural manipulators or blockers can induce particular choices. But I see very little reason for an incompatibilist to think (2) true. Of course, it may well be possible to deterministically induce a transition from the state of the agent deciding between A and B to the state of the agent attempting to execute A. But such a transition would seem to me to be very unlikely to be a choice.

Simply doing A after deciding between A and B does not constitute having chosen A. Nor is it sufficient for having chosen A that one does A because of deciding between A and B. For one to have chosen, one's doing of A must be caused in the right way by one's process of decision between A for R and B for S. But it just seems very implausible that an externally determined transition, even if it somehow causally incorporated the process of decision, would be a case of causing in the right way.

Could there perhaps be overdetermination, so that one's transition from deciding between A and B one's doing of A be both an exercise of freedom and externally determined? Quite possibly. But that wouldn't be a case where the choice is overdetermined. Rather, it would be a case where choice and external determination overdetermine the action A. The choice, however, is still un-determined.

But couldn't one make the agent choose A for R over B for S by strengthening the motive force of R or weakening that of S? I don't think so. For as long as each set of reasons has some motive force over and against the other set of reasons, it might yet win, just as a particular in a |A>+0.000001|B> state might yet collapse into the |B> state.

The above doesn't settle one question. While it is not possible to determine that one choose A over B, maybe it is possible to determine that one not choose B, by preventing a choice into a decided-for-B state, while allowing a choice in favor of the decided-for-A state? I see little reason to allow such a possibility.

Schellenberg's deductive argument from evil

Schellenberg has an interesting argument that evil is incompatible with the existence of God. The idea is this. God creates in order to make beings that model God's good features. Now each of the goods that God exemplifies is pure: it logically requires neither the existence nor the permission of evil for its existence, e.g., in the way in which courage requires the existence of evil (either the feared evil or an illusion of it, which is itself). The beings that God creates are thus created to instantiate particular goods that are instances of the same types of goods that God's pure goods are supreme instances of, and that model the divine goods. Thus, God may create a limited knower that it might instantiate the good of knowledge, of which God's omniscience is a supreme instance of.

But now since the goods that God exemplifies are pure and supreme, it seems that God can always do better than creating a creature in order to instantiate impure goods like courage. For any good g that God would want to have instantiated is going to fall under the same type T as some divine good G (indeed, I think Schellenberg thinks they wouldn't be goods if they didn't fall under the same type as some divine good). But the divine good G is pure. So it is possible for there to be a being that instantiates a pure good that falls under T. Moreover, since the supreme good in the type T is the pure divine good G, we shouldn't think that the impure goods in T are somehow better than the pure ones—there should be better and better pure goods in T, approaching the divine good G. So God should create one of these better pure goods.

Now, I think there are at least two things wrong here. The first is that even if the supreme good G falling under T is pure, this does not mean that the pure non-divine goods falling under T are better models of G than the impure ones. For it could be that although they better model G in respect of purity, they more poorely model G in respect of some more important feature.

Second, it could well be that all of the non-divine goods falling under T have to be impure. Here is an analogy. God's self-understanding is an instance of self-divinization: seeing oneself as divine. God's self-understanding will, according to Schellenberg, be an instance of some type T of good. The divine instance of T thus has the property of self-divinization. But no non-divine instance of T has the property of self-divinization: a self-divinizing self-understanding can only be a good when it is had by God. What I said about self-divinization could, in principle, hold for purity. It could be that none of the non-divine instances of T have purity.

Here is a non-trivial case. Here is a good feature of God: God is responsible for choosing correctly. This good feature is an instance of some type of good. Presumably the relevant type T to consider is: being responsible for choosing rightly. But now any creature that is responsible for choosing rightly has to be able to choose wrongly (maybe not at this point, but at some point). This is controversial, but since Schellenberg expressly says he accepts the Free Will Defense, he should accept something like this. God, on the other hand, is responsible for choosing rightly without the ability to choose wrongly. How to hold these things together is a difficult question (maybe divine simplicity is relevant; maybe the fact that a deterministic creature would have all its actions externally caused is relevant), but theists who accept the Free Will Defense generally do hold them together. Given this, while a divine instance of T will be pure, necessarily every creaturely instance of T will be impure, and Schellenberg's argument fails. Basically, the Free Will Defense defeats Schellenberg's new argument, even though the argument was designed to get around the Free Will Defense.

The above is right on non-Molinist versions of the Free Will Defense. But the point needs to be modified on the Molinist version of the Free Will Defense. If the Molinist version of the Free Will Defense works (and I think it doesn't, but again Schellenberg seems not to object to it), and if responsibility for choosing rightly requires signficant freedom, then it is possible that every feasible world (world God can create given the conditionals of free will) that contains a creature responsible for choosing rightly also contains a creature that chooses wrongly. If so, then it's possible that God could model responsibility for right choices only in worlds where there happens to be a wrong choice as well.

Why does brainwashing take away responsibility?

Everybody agrees that brainwashing can remove responsibility for the resulting actions. But how does it do that?

In some cases, brainwashing removes decisions--you just act an automaton without making any decisions. Bracket those cases of brainwashing as not to my purpose. The cases of interest are ones where decisions are still made, but they are made inevitable by the complex of beliefs, desires, habits, values, etc.--the character, for short--implanted by the brainwasher. Of these cases, some will still be not useful for my purposes, namely those where the implanted character is so distorted that decisions coming from the character are not responsible simply by reason of insanity.

The interesting case, for discussion of compatibilism, is where the character is the sort of character that could also result from an ordinary life, and if it resulted from that ordinary life, decisions flowing from that character would be ones that the agent is responsible for.

So now our question is: Why is it that when this character results from the brainwasher's activity, the agent is not responsible for the decisions flowing from it, even though if the character were to have developed naturally, the agent would have been responsible?

I want to propose a simple explanation: In the paradigmatic case when the character (or, more precisely, its relevant features) results from the brainwasher's activity, the agent is not responsible for the character (that this is true is uncontroversial; but my point is not just that this is true, but that it is the answer to the question). Decisions that inevitably flow from a character that one is not responsible for, in external circumstances that we may also suppose one is not responsible for, are decisions that one is not responsible for. When the character results from an ordinary life, one is responsible for the character. But when the character results from brainwashing, typically one is not (the case where one freely volunteered to be brainwashed in this way is a nice test case--in that case, one does have at least some responsibility).

But now we see, just as in yesterday's post, that incompatibilism follows. For what makes us responsible for a character or circumstances are decisions that we are responsible for and that lead in an appropriate way to having that character. If we are only responsible for a decision that inevitably flows from a character in some external circumstances when we are responsible for the character or at least for the external circumstances, then the first responsible decision we make cannot be one that is made inevitable by character and external circumstance.

The way to challenge this argument is to offer alternate explanations of why it is that when character comes from brainwashing one is not responsible for actions that inevitably flow from that character given the external circumstances. My proposal was that the answer is that one's isn't responsible for the character in that case. An alternate proposal is that it is the inevitability that takes away responsibility. This alternative certainly cannot be accepted by the compatibilist.

No one but you yourself can reliably make you be evil

This argument for incompatibilism is inspired by an excellent paper by Patrick Todd that I just heard. I don't know if Patrick would endorse the argument I give, though.
Start with this principle:

1. No one but you yourself can reliably make you be evil.

Explanation is needed. Evil isn't just a bad here—it is a particularly serious kind of bad. Nor is being evil just a matter of having an evil character. For I could, through no fault of my own, be brainwashed into having an evil character, but that wouldn't make me be evil. If I were brainwashed into having a seriously bad character, my actions and my character would be worthy of condemnation, but I would be deserving of pity, and not the kind of condemnation that evil people deserve.
Now, people can cause you to be evil. For instance, they can present you with the temptation to do an evil, and if you fall prey to it your character becomes distorted and they have successfully caused you to be evil. But this temptation was either one that you were very likely to fall prey to or it is not on that you were very likely to fall prey to.
If it was a temptation that you were very likely to fall prey to, then you already had an evil character. For a character that makes one very likely to fall prey to a temptation to do an evil seems to be an evil character. So, the tempter did not make you have an evil character. This may seem to show that the tempter did not make you be evil, but that's not right—it leaves out one possibility, which is that previously you had an evil character but were not evil, because you were not sufficiently culpable for the evil character, but now that you've falled into this temptation, that made you be evil. But I think this can't be so. For if an evil character that you were not sufficiently culpable for made the evil action very likely, then you were not very culpable for the evil action—you were only somewhat culpable for it—and that isn't enough to make you be evil. So if the temptation was one that you were very likely to fall prey to, then either you were already evil, or else you lacked sufficient culpability, and you still lack sufficient culpability.
Oone might worry about boundary cases. Let's say you're pretty bad, but not quite evil. You're just one micromoriarty short of being evil. In that case, maybe, the tempter can produce a temptation such that very likely you'll take it, and then it'll push you over the edge, giving you that micromoriarty, and make you be evil. But I think it's not correct to say then that the tempter made you evil. The tempter only helped you a little bit—you already were almost all the way there.
On the other hand, suppose that the temptation was one you were not very likely to fall prey to. Then quite possibly you did become evil, but because you were not very likely to fall prey to the temptation, the tempter's method by which he made you evil wasn't a reliable method, and so we still do not have a counterexample.
One might have another worry about the argument. There may be some temptations that only a moral hero would have much chance at withstanding. Let's say that only a moral hero would have much chance at failing to betray her friend given some particularly nasty torture T. But we can imagine that if she betrays, she will acquire an evil character. So if you're not a moral hero, it will be very likely that the torture will make you betray, and hence will become evil. But I deny that in this case you will become evil—only your character will. The reason is that temptation that only a moral hero would have much chance at withstanding makes you only slightly culpable, and that isn't enough to make you be evil, unless you were already just a shade short of being evil.
What I said above about single temptations generalizes to long-term plans of temptation. If the plan is pretty sure to work, you already have an evil character, or else you don't become culpable when you fall prey to the plan.
Suppose that (1) is correct. Then we can have the following argument against compatibilism:

2. If compatibilism is true—i.e., if freedom is compatible with all one's mental life being determined—then by setting up appropriate environmental and genetic conditions, one can reliably make someone be evil.
3. Therefore, compatibilism is false. (By 1 and 2)

Compatibilism vs. incompatibilism

For what it's worth, I think the upshot of my recent posts on regress arguments and free will is this: Whether compatibilism is true or not depends largely on whether

1. It is possible that x is to some extent responsible for a deterministically caused state of affairs A even though x is in no way responsible for any of A's causes?

I am not completely wedded to every detail of the formulation (it might be better to use a non-disjunctive account of "responsible" and say: "even though x is neither identical with nor responsible for any of A's causes", and add the proviso that it is only by agent causation that x could be a cause), but the above gets the basic idea across. If (1) is true, then compatibilism is surely right. And if (1) is false, the incompatibilism is surely right. That is what matters.

Are the answers to (1) and (2) (which will be given at the bottom) positive? I think not. Here is something that is more a statement of intuitions rather than an argument.

3. If (1) is true, then it is possible for a person to be intentionally produced fully formed, and for its character, beliefs, desires and external circumstances to immediately causally determine a choice that the person is at least somewhat responsible for.
4. But the consequent of (3) is false.
5. Hence (1) is false.

And so compatibilism is false.

Here is my intuition for thinking (3) to be true. If a choice is immediately causally determined by character, beliefs, desires and external circumstances that the agent (if one can even call her that) is in no way responsible for, then the only thing that matters for determining whether the agent is responsible for the choice is the extent, if any, to which the agent was responsible for this character, beliefs, desires and external circumstances. Nothing else about their causal history matters. The responsibility-relevant thing is the extent to which the agent is responsible for them.

My reason for thinking (4) to be true is even less developed and philosophical. It's one of those "arguments" by restatement of what is to be proved. It just seems right to say that if I choose the character, beliefs, desires and external circumstances so as to ensure that the person I produce in that state is thereby immediately caused to choose A, then that person is not free in that choice. (I should note, though, that at least one person who is very friendly to compatibilism—Mele—is committed to (4). So my intuition in (4) does not beg the question.)

Finally, since I think the real issue is about sources, not about determinism or even deterministic causation, I think the really interesting question is not so much whether (1) is true, but whether

2. It is possible that x is to some extent responsible for a state of affairs A even though x is in no way responsible for any of A's causes?

If the answer to (2) is positive, probably the answer to (1) is positive as well, though this is a controversial conditional. And of course if the answer to (2) is negative, then the answer to (1) has to be negative.

I know, also, that Heath has a way of separating the responsibility question from (1) and (2) by vagueness about responsibility. I think that's mistaken, because more sophisticated versions of the 3-5 argument can be used to argue that responsibility does not increase in deterministic transactions. But that's rather more controversial. Anyway, I don't like non-epistemic vagueness when something important, like responsibility, is at stake.

An equivocating argument?

1. If I am responsible for an event E, then I am responsible for at least one of the causes of E. (Premise)
2. There are no infinite regresses or circles among the events I am responsible for. (Premise)
3. Therefore, any event E for which I am responsible has among its antecedents a cause that I am responsible for and which is not an event. (By 1 and 2)
4. All causes are either events or agents. (Premise)
5. Therefore, any event E for which I am responsible has among its antecedents an agent that I am responsible for. (By 3 and 4)
6. Therefore, if I am responsible for any event, agent causation occurs.

I think the argument is unsound because (4) is false. Causes can be events or substances. (Actually, I think only substances, but the weaker claim is all I need.) With this substitution, I get the conclusion that substance causation has occurs if I am responsible for any event. But then when we examine the substances I am responsible for, I think we will eventually get another regress. For substances other than myself, such as my dog (if I have any), I am responsible for only because I took on that responsibility. To avoid regress, I must arrive at a substance that I innately have responsibility for. And that's myself. Hence, there there is an agent who is a substance cause (namely I myself), and an agent who is a substance cause is an agent cause.

The equivocation is in (1), in that I am differently responsible for myself and for events. Maybe it's better to call it an argument from a disjunctive notion of responsibility rather than an equivocating argument.

An argument for libertarian free will

The following homely, unoriginal, and obvious argument seems not be a hot part of current discussions, but I've just been struck by the obviousness of its soundness. Start with the following obvious fact:

1. If I am to any degree responsible for a decision or mental state E, then either E is identical with or the result of a libertarian free choice by me, or E is at least in part the result of an earlier decision or distinct mental state for which I am to some degree responsible.

Add the following very plausible premises:

2. I have made only many finitely many decisions and have had only finitely many distinct mental states.
3. There in fact are no causal circles.

It follows from (1)-(3), perhaps with some tweaks (I'm being rather rough here), that if I am to any degree responsible for any decision or mental state, then I have made a libertarian free choice.

Reformed Christianity and sufficient grace

Scripture promises that:

1. For any temptation, the faithful Christian will receive a grace sufficient to withstand that temptation.

The phrase "the faithful Christian" here has a meaning that differs depending on the interpretation of various texts, but suggests a Christian in God's good graces, as it were. In a Catholic setting, we can precisify this as: "a Christian in a state of grace." In a Reformed setting, we can take the phrase as coextensive with "one of the Elect after gaining faith". The following also seems true:

2. Some faithful Christians succumb to temptation.

There are some small groups of Christians that deny (2). I take the denial of (2) to be quite implausible, unless one just defines a "faithful Christian" as one who withstands temptation, in which case (1) is hard to make non-trivial sense of, or unless one has a very narrow notion of sin (e.g., transgression of one of the Ten Commandments, understood in a narrowly literal way).

But (1) and (2) are in apparent conflict. For it follows from (1) and (2) that:

3. Some faithful Christians fall to a temptation that they have received a grace sufficient to withstand.

This immediately implies that "a grace sufficient to do A" is not a grace the presence of which suffices to ensure that one does A. But now it is really puzzling what "sufficient" could mean in this context.

Incompatibilist Christians, such as many Catholics, have a story to tell here. They can say that what (1) says is that the faithful Christian receives a grace sufficient to make withstanding the temptation be within one's power or maybe even well within one's power (this could happen by supernaturally augmenting that power, or by decreasing the force of the temptation, or both). In other words, these Christians say that "sufficient" in "sufficient grace" does not mean "sufficient for withstanding" but "sufficient for the (reasonable?) possibility of withstanding". This is a perfectly fine use of the word "sufficient". It seems imaginable that the doctor gives me medication that is "sufficient" to remove a headache, but the effects of the medication are negated by the ingestion of alcohol. What we mean by saying that the medication is sufficient to remove a headache is that it puts the removal of the headache within one's power, if only one follows the doctor's instructions.

But the puzzle is greater for Christians of a more Reformed bent, who normally see a grace sufficient for A as in fact a grace that necessitates A. This is, after all, the standard Reformed view of salvific grace: anybody who has received the grace sufficient for salvation is one of the Elect, and because of the receipt of the grace is necessarily going to be saved.

The question now is whether a Reformed Christian can give a different story about sanctifying grace, so that a person can receive a grace sufficient to withstand temptation and yet fall to that temptation. If not, then Reformed Christianity is not tenable in the light of (1) and (2).

It is possible for a Reformed Christian to have the following moderate view: While salvation is a matter of divinely determined predestination, and faith is necessitated by grace, nonetheless faithful Christians have libertarian freedom in respect of things that do not affect whether they are saved. In particular, then, if the Reformed Christian does not think sins rule out salvation, she may then given the same account of how (1) and (2) can be both be true as more generally incompatibilist Christians do. She can say that we get a grace sufficient to make it possible for us to overcome temptation.

But what about a Reformed Christian who denies that we have any libertarian freedom, e.g., because of a strong view of divine sovereignty or because she is convinced by Jonathan Edwards' and Hume's arguments against libertarianism[note 1]? Then the problem presented by (1) and (2) may be insoluble. In what sense has God given George the grace to withstand the temptation to get drunk if God in his sovereignty has placed George in a position where George cannot but get drunk?

Perhaps, though, the determinist Reformed Christian can give the following story. Many compatibilists think that if we understand "capable" appropriately, we can still say that if George freely does A, he was capable of refraining from doing A. The sense of "capable" here would be a lack of physical or mental compulsion to do A, say (the details are hard to work out), a lack that is compatible with the claim that the agent's character determines the agent to do A. Maybe, then, the compatibilist can give the familiar answer above: God gives the faithful Christian a grace sufficient to make the Christian in this sense capable of withstanding the temptation. Except that now "capable" must be understood in the compatibilist sense. In other words, grace removes the physical and mental compulsion to fall prey to the temptation, but does not necessarily repair one's character in such a way that one would withstand the temptation.

But this answer, I think, fails. First of all, if we include threats of suffering and pain under the head of "physical compulsion", and a habitual attraction to something under the head of "mental compulsion", then on this broader reading of physical and mental compulsion, God's grace does not always remove the compulsion. On the contrary, in the cases of martyrs or people overcoming addictions, the threat of suffering or the habitual attraction remain present, and grace enables one to overcome the threat or habit.

So for the answer to have any hope of working, we must understand "compulsion" fairly narrowly. But then we have the following problem. If I am compelled, in that narrow sense, to do something, then I am not responsible for that action. If I am physically compelled in a narrow sense to throw a rock, e.g., by electrodes implanted in my brain, then I am not sinning by throwing the rock. But temptation in this context is, by definition, temptation to sin. So on this view, the grace to withstand temptation is what actually makes the sin possible, since without the grace one would be compelled, in the narrow sense, to do the bad thing, and while the action would be bad, it would not be a sin (technically speaking, it might be a material but not a formal sin). The view that the grace of withstanding temptation that faithful Christians are promised is what makes sin possible seems deeply unsatisfactory. Moreover, on such a view the grace is quite pointless, since without the grace one would be guaranteed not to sin, as one would be acting under compulsion.

Maybe there is some further story the determinist Reformed Christian can give that would reconcile (1) and (2). But at least absent such a story, we have good reason not to be determinist Reformed Christians.

An argument for incompatibilism

The following argument is valid:

1. Normally, if an embodied person freely does A, then x could have done otherwise than she did. (Premise)
2. It is a common occurrence that an embodied person freely does something. (Premise)
3. If a general conditional holds normally, and specific cases of the antecedent are common, then it is nomically possible that the antecedent and consequent hold simultaneously. (Premise)
4. Therefore, it is nomically possible that there be an embodied person x and an action A such that x does A freely and x could have not done A. (By (1)-(3))
5. Metaphysically necessarily, if an embodied person x does A freely and x could have done otherwise, then determinism is false. (Premise)
6. Therefore, it is nomically possible that determinism does not hold. (By (4) and (5))
7. If determinism holds, then it holds of nomic necessity. (Premise)
8. Therefore, determinism does not hold. (By (6) and (7))

Observe that the Principle of Alternate Possibilities in (1) is not subject to any Frankfurt-style counterexamples. I got this Principle based on an idea of David Alexander, but I don't think he endorses this version.

I think the tough question is whether (3) holds. But I think it at least holds as a probabilistic principle: if normally (if p, then q), and if cases of p are common, then probably a case of both p and q is nomically possible. In fact, a stronger probabilistic claim seems to hold: probably some case of both p and q actually holds. (When I talk about cases, I am assuming that the conditional is a quantified one: for all x, if P(x), then Q(x).) If so, then the conclusion would be that probably determinism does not hold. (Not earthshaking in light of the fact that there is some direct reason from physics to think it does not hold.) But the stronger non-probabilistic claim is also plausible. How could something be normal and yet nomically impossible?

[Edited to fix typo in argument and attribution of PAP.]

Logical fatalism, compatibilism and theism

In my previous post, I discussed logical fatalism and the options available. One of these options I labeled as "compatibilism" which I defined as the denial of the principle:
(1) If it is now necessary that I will do A, then I will not be freely doing A.
I was wrong to label the denial of this "compatibilism". It is possible to deny (1) and still hold that free will and determinism are incompatible, as long as one holds:
(1*) If a present state of affairs outside of me deterministically causes me to do A, then I will not be freely doing A.
Someone who denies (1) but accepts (1*) will still be an incompatibilist as long as we assume that in a deterministic system earlier states of affairs not only determine later ones but deterministically cause the later ones, so that if determinism holds, the state of the universe prior to my conception would deterministically cause all my actions, and hence vitiating my freedom. (C deterministically causes E provided C causes E and the occurrence of C cannot but cause E.)

Thus, there is a nice variant of the option I called "compatibilism" available: deny (1) but hold on to (1*). It is also worth noting that theists have independent reason to do this. It is necessarily true that God does not choose evils. We then need to deny (1) (or its variant for non-actions, but the same goes for it) in order to hold on to the idea that God is responsible for not choosing evils. And we can hold on to (1*), because nothing external to God causes his actions.

So while I find (*) implausible, denying (1) but holding on to (1*) may be the best solution since by holding on to (1*) one gets to maintain most of our incompatibilistic intuitions about free will.