## 1. Free Will and the Problem of Causal Determinism



Compatibilism emerges as a response to a problem posed by causal
determinism. But what problem is that? Well, suppose, as the thesis of
causal determinism tells us, that everything that occurs is the
inevitable result of the laws of nature and the state of the world in
the distant past. If this is the case, then everything human agents do
flows from the laws of nature and the way the world was in the distant
past. But if what we do is simply the consequence of the laws of
nature and the state of the world in the distant past--then we
cannot do anything other than what we ultimately do. Nor are we in any
meaningful sense the ultimate causal source of our actions, since they
have their causal origins in the laws of nature and the state of the
world long ago. Determinism therefore seems to prevent human agents
from having the freedom to do otherwise, and it also seems to prevent
them from being the sources of their actions. If either of these is
true, then it's doubtful that human agents are free or
responsible for their actions in any meaningful sense. 



These lines of argument, which have been regimented in the work of
Ginet (1966), van Inwagen (1975, 1983), Wisdom (1934), Mele (1995),
and Pereboom (1995, 2001), among many others, present a real problem
for those who are inclined to think that we are free and responsible
for our choices and actions and that the natural world might operate
as a deterministic system (or if not completely deterministic, one in
which an indeterminism is merely stochastic noise that is causally
irrelevant at the level of human agency). How to respond to such
arguments? On the one hand, *incompatibilists* accept (some
version of at least one of) these arguments and so insist that our
self-conception as free and responsible agents would be seriously
misguided if causal determinism turns out to be true. Some
incompatibilists argue for these conclusions indirectly--first by
arguing that determinism precludes freedom or control and then second
by arguing that such freedom is necessary for moral responsibility.
Other incompatibilists argue directly that causal determinism
precludes moral responsibility.



Compatibilists, on the other hand, claim that these concerns miss the
mark. Some compatibilists hold this because they think the truth of
causal determinism would not undermine our freedom to do otherwise
(Berofsky 1987, Campbell 1997, Vihvelin 2013, etc.). As a result,
these compatibilists tell us, the truth of causal determinism poses no
threat to our status as morally responsible agents (notice the
enthymematic premise here: the freedom to do otherwise is sufficient
for the kind of control an agent must possess to be morally
responsible for her actions). Other compatibilists show less concern
in rebutting the conclusion that the freedom to do otherwise is
incompatible with determinism. Compatibilists of this stripe reject
the idea that such freedom is necessary for meaningful forms of free
will (e.g., Frankfurt 1969, 1971; Watson 1975, Dennett 1984)--the
"varieties of free will worth wanting," (Dennett
1984). And even more notably, some compatibilists simply deny that
freedom of this sort is in any way connected to morally responsible
agency (e.g., Fischer 1994, Fischer & Ravizza 1998, Scanlon 1998,
Wallace 1994, Sartorio 2016). What we see here is not a unified front
in the face of the incompatibilist challenge(s). Instead,
compatibilists have been careful to identify the precise elements of
incompatibilists' arguments that they take to be erroneous, and
then build their respective theories of freedom and responsibility
with that in mind. 



To help better situate compatibilist theories, we will now consider in
more detail the arguments that incompatibilists have advanced on
behalf of their own theories, since it is these arguments that have
shaped the contours of compatibilist theories. As we mentioned above,
the truth of causal determinism apparently poses a problem for freedom
and responsibility in at least two ways. First, it might entail that
no one has the *freedom to do otherwise*, which is a kind of
power or control over one's actions that many have regarded as
necessary for moral responsibility. Second, it might entail that no
one is the ultimate causal source of his or her actions. That our
actions originate in our free will and not in forces outside of us
also seems like a plausible condition on morally responsible agency.
We take each of these potential threats in turn.


### 1.1 Determinism and Alternative Possibilities



A natural way to think of an agent's control over her conduct at
a moment in time is in terms of her ability to select among, or choose
between, alternative courses of action. This picture of control stems
from common features of our perspectives as practical deliberators
settling on courses of action. If a person is choosing between voting
for Clinton as opposed to Trump, it is plausible to assume that her
freedom with regard to her voting consists, at least partially, in her
ability to choose between these two alternatives. On this account,
acting with free will requires *alternative possibilities*. A
natural way to model this account of free will is in terms of an
agent's future as a garden of forking paths branching off from a
single past. A locus of freely willed action arises when the present
offers, from an agent's (singular) past, more than one path into
the future. On this model of human agency, then, when a person acts of
her own free will, *she could have acted otherwise*.



This conception of free will immediately invites the thought that
determinism might be a threat. For determinism, understood in the
strict sense characterized above, tells us that, at any time, given
the facts of the past and the laws of nature, *only* one future
is possible. But according to the conception of human agency under
consideration, a freely willing agent could have acted other than she
did and, hence, that *more* than one future is possible.



Here is an incompatibilist argument that codifies the considerations
set out above:


1. Any agent, *x*, performs an act *a* of
*x's* own free will iff *x* has control over
*a*.
2. *x* has control over *a* only if *x* has the
ability to select among alternative courses of action to act
*a*.
3. If *x* has the ability to select among alternative courses
of action to act *a*, then there are alternative courses of
action to act *a* open to *x* (i.e., *x* could
have done otherwise than *a*).
4. If determinism is true, then only one future is possible holding
fixed the actual past and the laws of nature.
5. If only one future is possible holding fixed the actual past and
the laws of nature, then there are no alternative courses of action to
any act open to *x* (i.e., *x* could not have done
otherwise than she actually does).
6. Therefore, if determinism is true, it is not the case that any
agent, *x*, performs any act, *a,* of her own free
will.



For ease of reference and discussion throughout this entry, let us
simplify the above argument as follows:


1. If someone acts of her own free will, then she could have done
otherwise. (A - C)
2. If determinism is true, no one can do otherwise than one actually
does. (D - E)
3. Therefore, if determinism is true, no one acts of her own free
will (F).



Call this simplified argument the *Classical Incompatibilist
Argument*. According to the argument, if determinism is true, no
one has access to alternatives of the sort you might plausibly think
to be required for free will.


### 1.2 Determinism and Sourcehood



There is a second conception of the sort of control that might be
necessary for morally responsible agency. This conception starts with
the observation that an agent's control seems to consist in her
playing a crucial role in the production of her actions. Think in
terms of the transparent difference between those events that are
*products of one's agency* and those that are merely
bodily happenings. For instance, consider the choice to pick up a cup
of coffee as opposed to the event of one's heart beating or
one's blood circulating. In the latter cases, one recognizes
events happening to one; in the former, one is the source and producer
of that happening. On this model of human agency, control is
understood in terms of being the source of one's actions.



Fixing just upon this conception of agency, how might determinism pose
a threat to free will? If determinism is true, then what happened in
the distant past, when combined with the laws of nature, is causally
sufficient for the production of every human action. But if this is
so, then, while it might be true that an agent herself is crucially
involved in the production of her action, that action actually has its
source in causal antecedent that *originate* outside of her.
Hence, she, as an agent, is not the *ultimate source* of her
actions.



What is meant here by an ultimate source, and not just a source? An
agent is an ultimate source of her action only if, at the very least,
something necessary for her action originates within the agent
herself. It cannot be located in places and times prior to the
agent's freely willing her action. If an agent is not the
ultimate source of her actions, then her actions do not originate in
her, and if her actions are the outcomes of conditions guaranteeing
them, how can she be said to control them? The conditions sufficient
for their occurrence were already in place long before she even
existed!



Here is an incompatibilist argument that codifies the considerations
set out above:


1. Any agent, *x*, performs an any act, *a,* of her own
free will iff *x* has control over *a*.
2. *x* has control over *a* only if *x* is the
ultimate source of *a*.
3. If *x* is the ultimate source of *a*, then some
condition, *b,* necessary for *a,* originates with
*x*.
4. If any condition, *b,* originates with *x*, then
there are no conditions sufficient for *b* independent of
*x*.
5. If determinism is true, then the facts of the past, in conjunction
with the laws of nature, entail every truth about the future.
6. If the facts of the past, in conjunction with the laws of nature,
entail every truth about the future, then for any condition,
*b*, necessary for any action, *a,* performed by any
agent, *x*, there are conditions independent of *x* (in
*x's* remote past, before *x's* birth) that
are sufficient for *b*.
7. If, for any condition, *b*, necessary for any action,
*a,* performed by any agent, *x*, there are conditions
independent of *x* that are sufficient for *b*, then no
agent, *x*, is the ultimate source of any action, *a*.
(This follows from C and D.)
8. If determinism is true, then no agent, *x*, is the ultimate
source of any action, *a*. (This follows from E, F, and
G.)
9. Therefore, if determinism is true, then no agent, *x*,
performs any action, *a*, of her own free will. (This follows
from A, B, and H.)



For ease of reference and discussion throughout this entry, let us
simplify the above argument as follows:


1. A person acts of her own free will only if she is its ultimate
source. (A - B)
2. If determinism is true, no one is the ultimate source of her
actions. (C - H)
3. Therefore, if determinism is true, no one acts of her own free
will (I).



Call this simplified argument the *Source Incompatibilist
Argument*. It is important to see that the demand for alternative
possibilities is not (at least not obviously) relevant to this
incompatibilist argument. Suppose that a putatively freely willing
agent had access to the relevant sort of alternative possibilities.
According to the Source Incompatibilist Argument, a *further*
condition is that she must have been the ultimate source of her freely
willed actions. That is, the sourcehood theorist denies that
alternative possibilities are enough to guarantee freedom.


### 1.3 Compatibilists Replies



In response to these arguments, compatibilists have denied that
freedom requires the ability to do otherwise; that causal determinism
precludes the ability to do otherwise; and that freedom or control
require sourcehood. [Compatibilists have only rarely denied Premise 2
of the *Source Incompatibilist Argument* (McKenna 2008 and
perhaps Bjornsson & Persson 2012 are important exceptions.] But
compatibilists's denials of these premises have not been
flatfooted. Instead they are grounded in attractive conceptions of
human agency. So in what follows, we'll turn to the details of
such theories, and in so doing, uncover just how distinct
compatibilist theories answer the incompatibilist arguments set out
above. 


## 2. Classical Compatibilism



Compatibilism's place in contemporary philosophy has developed
in at least three stages. The first stage involves the classical form
of compatibilism, which was developed in the modern era by the
empiricists Hobbes and Hume, and reinvigorated in the early part of
the twentieth century. The second stage involves three distinct
contributions in the 1960s, contributions that challenged many of the
dialectical presuppositions driving classical compatibilism. The third
stage involves various contemporary forms of compatibilism, forms that
diverge from the classical variety and that emerged out of, or
resonate with, at least one of the three contributions found in the
second transitional stage. This section is devoted to the first stage,
that of classical compatibilism.


### 2.1 Freedom According to Classical Compatibilism



According to one strand within classical compatibilism, freedom is
nothing more than an agent's ability to do what she wishes in
the absence of impediments that would otherwise stand in her way. For
instance, Hobbes offers an exemplary expression of classical
compatibilism when he claims that a person's freedom consists in
his finding "no stop, in doing what he has the will, desire, or
inclination to doe [*sic*]" (*Leviathan*, p.108). On
this view, freedom involves two components, a positive and a negative
one. The positive component (doing what one wills, desires, or
inclines to do) consists in nothing more than what is involved in the
power of agency. The negative component (finding "no
stop") consists in acting unencumbered or unimpeded. Typically,
the classical compatibilists' benchmark of impeded or encumbered
action is compelled action. Compelled action arises when one is forced
by some external source to act contrary to one's will.



For the classical compatibilist, then, free will is an ability to do
what one wants. It is therefore plausible to conclude that the truth
of determinism does not entail that agents lack free will since it
does not entail that agents never do what they wish to do, nor that
agents are necessarily encumbered in acting. Compatibilism is thus
vindicated.



But how convincing is the classical compatibilist account of free
will? As it stands, it cries out for refinement. To cite just one
shortcoming, various mental illnesses can cause a person to act as she
wants and do so unencumbered; yet, intuitively, it would seem that she
does not act of her own free will. For example, imagine a person
suffering from a form of psychosis that causes full-fledged
hallucinations. While hallucinating, she might "act as she wants
unencumbered," but she could hardly be said to be acting of her
own free will. Consequently, the classical compatibilist owes us more.
To see how it might be supplemented, we turn to a distinctively
incompatibilist way of undermining classical compatibilism


### 2.2 The Classical Compatibilist Conditional Analysis



Consider the following incompatibilist objection to the classical
compatibilist account of free will:



If determinism is true, and if at any given time, an unimpeded agent
is completely determined to have the wants that she does have, and if
those wants causally determine her actions, then, even though she does
do what she wants to do, *she cannot ever do otherwise*. She
satisfies the classical compatibilist conditions for free will. But
free will requires the ability to do otherwise, and determinism is
incompatible with this. Hence, the classical compatibilist account of
free will is inadequate. Determinism is incompatible with free will
and moral responsibility because determinism is incompatible with the
ability to do otherwise.



The classical compatibilist account of freedom set out thus far can be
thought of as accounting for *one-way* freedom, which fixes
only on what a person does do, not on what alternatives she had to
what she did. The incompatibilist challenge at issue here is that such
freedom, even if necessary, is insufficient in the absence of a
further freedom to do other than as one does. 



Classical compatibilists have responded by arguing that determinism
*is* compatible with the ability to do otherwise. To show this,
they attempted to analyze an agent's ability to do otherwise in
conditional terms (e.g., Hume, *Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding*, p.73; Ayer 1954; or Hobart 1934). Since
determinism is a thesis about what must happen in the future *given
the actual past*, determinism is consistent with the future being
different *given a different past*. So the classical
compatibilists analyzed any assertion that an agent could have done
otherwise as a conditional assertion reporting what an agent would
have done under certain counterfactual conditions. These conditions
involved variations on what a freely willing agent wanted (chose,
willed, or decided) to do at the time of her freely willed action.
Suppose that an agent freely willed *X*. According to the
classical compatibilist *conditional analysis*, to say that, at
the time of acting, she could have done *Y* and not *X*
is just to say that, *had* she wanted (chosen, willed, or
decided) to do *Y* and not *X* at that time,
*then* she would have done *Y* and not done *X*.
Her ability to have done otherwise at the time at which she acted
consisted in some such counterfactual truth.



But given that a determined agent is determined at the time of action
to have the wants that she does have, how is it helpful to state what
she would have done had she had different wants than the wants that
she did have? Assuming the truth of determinism, at the time at which
she acted she could have had no other wants than the wants that her
causal history determined her to have. 



In response, the classical compatibilist holds that that the
conditional analysis brings into relief a rich picture of freedom. In
assessing an agent's action, the analysis accurately
distinguishes those actions she would have performed if she wanted,
from those actions she could not have performed even if she wanted.
This, the classical compatibilist held, effectively distinguishes
those alternative courses of action that were within the scope of the
agent's abilities at the time of action, from those courses of
action that were not. This just is the distinction between what an
agent was free to do and what she was not free to do. This is not at
all a superficial freedom; it demarcates what persons have within
their control from what falls outside that purview.



Despite the classical compatibilists' ingenuity, their analysis
of *could have done otherwise* failed decisively. The classical
compatibilists wanted to show their incompatibilist interlocutors that
when one asserted that a freely willing agent had alternatives
available to her--that is, when it was asserted that she could
have done otherwise--that assertion could be analyzed as a
conditional statement, a statement that is perspicuously compatible
with determinism. But as it turned out, the analysis was refuted when
it was shown that the conditional statements sometimes yielded the
improper result that a person was able to do otherwise even though it
was clear that at the time the person acted, she had no such
alternative and therefore was not able to do otherwise in the
pertinent sense (Chisholm 1964, in Watson (ed.) 1982, pp.26-7;
or van Inwagen 1983, pp. 114-9). Here is such an example:



Suppose that Danielle is psychologically incapable of wanting to touch
a blond haired dog. Imagine that, on her sixteenth birthday, unaware
of her condition, her father brings her two puppies to choose between,
one being a blond haired Lab, the other a black haired Lab. He tells
Danielle just to pick up whichever of the two she pleases and that he
will return the other puppy to the pet store. Danielle happily, and
unencumbered, does what she wants and picks up the black Lab.



When Danielle picked up the black Lab, was she able to pick up the
blond Lab? It seems not. Picking up the blond Lab was an alternative
that was not available to her. In this respect, *she could not have
done otherwise*. Given her psychological condition, she cannot
even form a want to touch a blond Lab, hence she could not pick one
up. But notice that, *if* she wanted to pick up the blond Lab,
*then she would have done so*. Of course, if she wanted to pick
up the blond Lab, then she would not suffer from the very
psychological disorder that causes her to be unable to pick up blond
haired doggies. The classical compatibilist analysis of 'could
have done otherwise' thus fails. According to the analysis, when
Danielle picked up the black Lab, she *was* able to pick up the
blonde Lab, even though, due to her psychological condition, she
*was not* able to do so in the relevant respect. Hence, the
analysis yields the wrong result.



So even if an unencumbered agent does what she wants, if she is
determined, at least as the incompatibilist maintains, she could not
have done otherwise. Since, as the objection goes, freedom of will
requires freedom involving alternative possibilities, classical
compatibilist freedom falls.


### 2.3 The Lasting Influence of the Conditional Analysis



The classical compatibilists failed to answer the Classical
Incompatibilist Argument. What they attempted to do by way of the
conditional analysis was deny the claim that if determinism is true,
no one can do otherwise. But, given their failure, it was incumbent
upon them to respond to the argument in some manner. It is only
dialectically fair to acknowledge that determinism does pose a
*prima facie* threat to free will when free will is understood
as requiring the ability to do otherwise. The Classical
Incompatibilist Argument is merely a codification of this natural
thought. In light of the failure of the classical
compatibilists' conditional analysis, the burden of proof rests
squarely on the compatibilists. How can the freedom to do otherwise be
reconciled with determinism? As we'll see below, contemporary
compatibilists attempt to speak to this issue.


## 3. Compatibilism in Transition



In the 1960s, three major contributions to the free will debate
radically altered it. One was an incompatibilist argument that put
crisply the intuition that a determined agent lacks control over
alternatives. This argument, first developed by Carl Ginet, came to be
known as the *Consequence Argument* (Ginet 1966). Another
contribution was Harry Frankfurt's argument against the
*Principle of Alternative Possibilities* (PAP), a principle
stating that an agent is morally responsible for what she does only if
she can do otherwise (Frankfurt 1969). Finally, P.F. Strawson
defended compatibilism by inviting both compatibilists and
incompatibilists to attend more carefully to the central role of
interpersonal relationships and the *reactive attitudes* in
understanding the concept of moral responsibility (Strawson 1962).
Each of these contributions changed dramatically the way that the free
will problem is addressed in contemporary discussions. No account of
free will, compatibilist or incompatibilist, is advanced today without
taking into account at least one (if not more) of these three
pieces.


### 3.1 The Consequence Argument



This argument invokes a compelling pattern of inference (one that is
perhaps lurking in the background of the Classical Incompatibilist
Argument) regarding claims about what is *power necessary* for
a person. Power necessity, as applied to true propositions (or facts),
concerns what is *not* within a person's power. Or, put
differently, it concerns facts that a person does not have power over.
*To say that a person does not have power over a fact is to say
that she cannot act in such a way that the fact would not obtain*.
To illustrate, no person has power over the truths of mathematics.
That is, no person can act in such a way that the truths of
mathematics would be false. Hence, the truths of mathematics are, for
any person, power necessities.



The intuitive pattern of inference applied to these claims is this. If
a person has no power over a certain fact, and if she also has no
power over the further fact that the original fact has some other fact
as a consequence, then she also has no power over the consequent fact.
Powerlessness, it seems, transfers from one fact to its consequences.
For example, if poker-playing Diamond Jim, who is holding only two
pairs, has no power over the fact that Calamity Sam draws a straight
flush, and if a straight flush beats two pairs (and assuming Jim has
no power to alter this fact), then it follows that Jim has no power
over the fact that Sam's hand beats Jim's. This general
pattern of inference is applied to the thesis of causal determinism to
yield a powerful argument for incompatibilism. The argument requires
the assumption that determinism is true, and that the facts of the
past and the laws of nature are fixed. Given these assumptions, here
is a rough, non-technical sketch of the argument:


1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of
nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the
laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is
true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.



According to the Consequence Argument, *if* determinism is
true, it appears that no person has any power to alter how her own
future will unfold.



This argument shook compatibilists, and rightly so. The classical
compatibilists' failure to analyze statements of an
agent's abilities in terms of counterfactual conditionals left
the compatibilists with no perspicuous retort to the crucial second
premise of the Classical Incompatibilist Argument. And the Consequence
Argument provides powerful support for this argument's second
premise. If, according to the Argument, determinism implies that the
future will unfold in only one way given the past and the laws, and if
no one has any power to alter its unfolding in that particular way,
then it seems that no one can do other than she does.



It is fair to say that the Consequence Argument earned the
incompatibilists an important dialectical advantage. Compatibilists
owe us an account of what's was wrong with the Consequence
Argument, and perhaps also, some positive account of the ability to do
otherwise. So even though many compatibilists are committed to
thinking that the Consequence Argument is unsound, it nevertheless set
the agenda for many contemporary compatibilist theories of free will
and moral responsibility.


### 3.2 A Challenge to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities



One compatibilist strategy for responding to the Classical
Incompatibilist Argument is to concede that perhaps the Consequence
Argument provides us with good reason for thinking that determinism
rules out the ability to do otherwise while maintaining that such an
ability is not necessary for free will. In other words, the
compatibilist might sidestep the issues raised by the Consequence
Argument by directly attacking the first premise of the Classical
Incompatibilist Argument, which states is if a person acts of her own
free will, then she could have done otherwise. This compatibilist
response rejects a conception of human agency that locates control in
the ability to do otherwise. Alternatively, it seeks to ground an
agent's control over his action in other features of his or her
agency. In "Alternate Possibilities and Moral
Responsibility," (1969) Harry Frankfurt powerfully develops an
argument that gives compatibilists the resources to argue in just this
way.



Frankfurt's argument was directed against the Principle of
Alternative Possibilities (PAP):



*PAP*: A person is morally responsible for what she does do
only if she can do otherwise.



Central to Frankfurt's attack on PAP are a class of examples in
which an agent is morally responsible for her conduct, but could not,
at the time of the pertinent action, do otherwise. Here is a close
approximation to the example Frankfurt presented in his original
paper:



Jones has resolved to shoot Smith. Black has learned of Jones's
plan and wants Jones to shoot Smith. But Black would prefer that Jones
shoot Smith on his own. However, concerned that Jones might waver in
his resolve to shoot Smith, Black secretly arranges things so that, if
Jones should show any sign at all that he will not shoot Smith
(something Black has the resources to detect), Black will be able to
manipulate Jones in such a way that Jones will shoot Smith. As things
transpire, Jones follows through with his plans and shoots Smith for
his own reasons. No one else in any way threatened or coerced Jones,
offered Jones a bribe, or even suggested that he shoot Smith. Jones
shot Smith under his own steam. Black never intervened.



In this example, Jones shot Smith on his own, and did so unencumbered
-- did so freely. But, given Black's presence in the
scenario, Jones could not have failed to shoot Smith (i.e., he could
not have done otherwise). Hence, we have a counterexample to PAP.



If Frankfurt's argument against PAP is sound, the free will
debate has been systematically miscast through much of the history of
philosophy. *If* determinism threatens free will and moral
responsibility, it is *not* because it is incompatible with the
ability to do otherwise. Even if determinism *is* incompatible
with a sort of freedom involving the ability to do otherwise, *it
is not the kind of freedom required for moral responsibility*.



Perhaps not surprisingly, an enormous (and intricate) literature has
emerged around the success of Frankfurt's argument and, in
particular, around the example Frankfurt offered as contrary to PAP.
The debate is very much alive, and no clear victor has emerged (in the
way that the incompatibilists can rightly claim to have laid to rest
the compatibilists' conditional analysis strategy (see section
3.3)). Regardless, what is most relevant to this essay is that
Frankfurt's argument inspired many compatibilists to begin
thinking about accounts of freedom or control that unabashedly turn
away from alternative possibilities.


### 3.3 Focus upon the Reactive Attitudes



In "Freedom and Resentment" (1962), P.F. Strawson broke
ranks with the classical compatibilists. Strawson developed three
distinct arguments for compatibilism, arguments quite different from
those the classical compatibilists endorsed. But more valuable than
his arguments was his general theory of what moral responsibility is,
and hence, what is at stake in arguing about it. Strawson held that
both the incompatibilists and the compatibilists had misconstrued the
nature of moral responsibility. Each disputant, Strawson suggested,
advanced arguments in support of or against a distorted simulacrum of
the real deal.



To understand moral responsibility properly, Strawson invited his
reader to consider the *reactive attitudes* one has towards
another when she recognizes in another's conduct an attitude of
ill will. The reactions that flow naturally from witnessing ill will
are themselves attitudes that are directed at the perpetrator's
intentions or attitudes. When a perpetrator wrongs a person, she, the
wronged party, typically has a personal reactive attitude of
resentment. When the perpetrator wrongs another, some third party, the
natural reactive attitude is moral indignation, which amounts to a
"vicarious analogue" of resentment felt on behalf of the
wronged party. When one is oneself the wronging party, reflecting upon
or coming to realize the wrong done to another, the natural reactive
attitude is guilt.



Strawson wanted contestants to the free will debate to see more
clearly than they had that excusing a person -- electing not to
hold her blameworthy -- involves more than some objective
judgment that she did not do such and such, or did not intend so and
so, and therefore does not merit some treatment or other. It involves
a suspension or withdrawal of certain morally reactive attitudes,
attitudes involving emotional responses. On Strawson's view,
what it is to hold a person morally responsible for wrong conduct
*is* nothing more than the propensity towards, or the
sustaining of, a moral reactive attitude like indignation. Crucially,
the indignation is in response to the perceived attitude of ill will
or culpable motive in the conduct of the person being held
responsible. Hence, Strawson explains, posing the question of whether
the entire framework of moral responsibility should be given up as
irrational (if it were discovered that determinism is true) is
tantamount to posing the question of whether persons in the
interpersonal community -- that is, in real life -- should
forswear having reactive attitudes towards persons who wrong others,
and who sometimes do so intentionally. Strawson invites us to see that
the morally reactive attitudes that are the constitutive basis of our
moral responsibility practices, as well as the interpersonal relations
and expectations that give structure to these attitudes, are deeply
interwoven into human life. These attitudes, relations and
expectations are so much an expression of natural, basic features of
our social lives -- of their emotional textures -- that it
is practically inconceivable to imagine how they *could be*
given up.


## 4. Contemporary Compatibilism



Three major contributions in the 1960s profoundly altered the face of
compatibilism: the incompatibilists' Consequence Argument,
Frankfurt's attack on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities
(PAP), and Strawson's focus upon the reactive attitudes. Every
resultant compatibilist account in the contemporary literature is
shaped in some way by at least one of these influences. This section
will focus upon six of the most significant contemporary compatibilist
positions. Those wishing to learn about cutting edge work can read the
supplement on
 Compatibilism: The State of the Art.


### 4.1 Compatibilism about the Freedom to Do Otherwise



The Consequence Argument (section 3.1) makes a strong case for the
incompatibility of determinism and the freedom to do otherwise.
Assuming that determinism is true, it states that:


1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of
nature.
2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the
laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is
true).
3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.



Compatibilists who accept that alternative possibilities are necessary
for moral responsibility must show what is wrong with this powerful
argument. They also should offer some account of what John Martin
Fischer (1994) has called *regulative control*--a form of
control agents possess when they can bring about *X* and can refrain
from bringing about *X*-- that makes clear how it is possible even
at a determined world. We will first consider three different
compatibilist attempts to unseat the Consequence Argument. Then we
will consider how some compatibilists, the so-called New
Dispositionalists, explain regulative control, that is, how they might
explain the freedom to do otherwise in a way that is compatible with
causal determinism.


#### 4.1.1 Challenging Power Necessity and the Past



Some compatibilists have argued against the first premise of the
Consequence Argument by attempting to show that a person *can*
act in such a way that the past would be different. Consider the
difference between a person in the present who has the ability to act
in such a way that *she alters the past*, as opposed to a
person who has the ability to act in such a way such that, *if she
did so act, the past would have been different*. Notice that the
former ability is outlandish; it would require magical powers. But the
latter ability is, at least by comparison, uncontroversial. It merely
indicates that a person who acted a certain way at a certain time
possessed abilities to act in various sorts of ways. Had she exercised
one of those abilities, and thereby acted differently, then the past
leading up to her action would have been different. To illustrate how
comparatively mild such a claim about an agent's ability and the
past might be, think about a logically similar sort of claim that is
simply about what would be required for an agent to act differently.
For example, consider the claim, *If I were dancing on the French
Riviera right now, I'd be a lot richer than I am*. Certainly
this claim does not mean that if I go to the French Riviera to dance,
I will *thereby* be made richer. It only means that were I to
have gone there to tango, I would have to have had a lot more cash
beforehand in order to finance my escapades. Some compatibilists
(e.g., Saunders 1968; Perry 2010; Dorr 2016) have argued that
incompatibilist defenders of the Consequence Argument rely upon the
outlandish notion of ability in the first premise of their argument.
But, these compatibilists maintain, the first premise is falsified
when interpreted with a milder notion of ability.


#### 4.1.2 Challenging Power Necessity and the Laws of Nature



Other compatibilists have argued against the first premise of the
Consequence Argument in a parallel way by attempting to show that a
person *can* act in such a way that a law of nature would not
obtain. As with the distinction drawn regarding ability and the past,
consider the difference between a person who has the ability to act in
such a way that *she violates a law of nature*, as opposed to a
person (at a deterministic world) who has the ability to act in such a
way that, *if she were to so act, some law of nature that does
obtain would not*. Notice that the former ability would require
magical powers. According to the compatibilist, the latter, by
contrast, would require nothing outlandish. It merely tells us that a
person who acted a certain way at a certain time possessed abilities
to act in various sorts of ways. Had she exercised one of those
abilities, and thereby acted differently, then the laws of nature that
would have entailed what she did in that hypothetical situation would
be different from the actual laws of nature that did entail what she
did actually do. This latter ability does not assume that agents are
able to violate laws of nature; it just assumes that whatever the laws
of nature are (at least at deterministic worlds), they must be such as
to entail, given the past, what an agent will do. If an agent acts
differently in some possible world than she acts in the actual world,
then some other set of laws will be the ones that entail what she does
in that world. Some compatibilists (most notably Lewis 1981, but see
also Graham 2008 and Pendergraft 2011), fixing upon ability
pertaining to the laws of nature, have argued that incompatibilist
defenders of the Consequence Argument rely upon the outlandish notion
of ability in the first premise of their argument. But, these
compatibilists maintain, that first premise is falsified when
interpreted with an uncontroversial notion of ability.


#### 4.1.3 Challenging the Inferences Based upon Power Necessity



Michael Slote (1982) attempted to refute the Consequence Argument by
showing that its central inference is invalid. The central point
towards which Slote works is that notions like *unavoidability*
(or *power necessity*) are sensitive to contexts in a way that
only "selectively" permits the sort of inference at work
in the Consequence Argument. Let us work with the idea of
unavoidability. According to Slote, when we say that something is
unavoidable for a person, we have in mind "selective"
contexts in which the facts pertaining to the unavoidability have
nothing to do with that person -- the facts bypass that
person's agency altogether (Slote 1982, p.19). It is
unavoidable for me, for instance, that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, or
that most motor vehicles now run on gasoline. Nothing about my agency
-- about what I can do -- can alter such facts. This
suggests that unavoidability is misapplied when it concerns aspects of
a person's own agency. But notice that in the Consequence
Argument unavoidability (or power necessity) trades between a context
in which the notion is appropriately applied, and one in which,
according to Slote, it is not. The first premise cites considerations
that have nothing to do with a person's agency -- facts
prior to her birth, and the laws of nature. It is claimed that these
facts are unavoidable for a person, but from this a conclusion is
drawn that the very actions a person performs are unavoidable for her.
Yet this, Slote and other compatibilists (such as Dennett 1984a;
McKay & Johnson 1996) have suggested, is to draw incompatibilist
conclusions illicitly from reasonable claims regarding
unavoidability.


#### 4.1.4 Accounting for the Freedom to Do Otherwise



Even if some compatibilist reply proves that the Consequence Argument
is unsound, this alone would not amount to a positive argument for
compatibilism. It would merely mean that one key argument for the
incompatibility of determinism and regulative control is untenable.
But that is consistent with the *incompatibility* of
determinism and regulative control. Indeed, some argue for this
incompatibility without relying upon the potentially problematic
assumptions about power necessity at work in the Consequence Argument
(Fischer 1994; and Ginet 1990, 2003). Furthermore, even if the
compatibilist could discredit all current arguments for the
incompatibility of determinism and regulative control, it still
behooves her to offer a positive argument demonstrating the
compatibility of determinism and regulative control. Compatibilists
wishing to defend regulative control, such Berofsky (1987, 1995,
2012), Campbell (1997), Nelkin (2011), and Vihvelin (2013), still have
their work cut out for them.


#### 4.1.5 The New Dispositionalism



Recently several compatibilists have offered a positive account of
regulative control (e.g., Fara 2008; M. Smith 2003; and Vihvelin 2004,
2013). Call the view these compatibilists advance, the *new
dispositionalism*.



In advancing a compatibilist thesis, Vihvelin speaks of the ability to
do otherwise (and especially choose otherwise) in terms of a bundle of
dispositions (2004, p. 429). Likewise, Fara proposes a dispositional
analysis of the ability to do otherwise. And Smith speaks of the
rational capacities to believe and desire otherwise (and so,
presumably, do otherwise) in terms of a "raft of
possibilities" (2003, p.27). For Fara, Vihvelin, and Smith, we
assess claims about the disposition constitutive of the ability to do
otherwise, or the dispositions in the bundle, or the possibilities in
the raft, by attending to the intrinsic properties of an agent in
virtue of which she acts when she tries (Fara 2008, p.861), or the
causal bases of the pertinent dispositions (Vihvelin 2004, p. 436), or
the underlying structure of a rational capacity (Smith, p. 29). How
so? Fara does not say, though it seems likely he would agree to
something like the proposals offered by Vihvelin and Smith. According
to them, we hold fixed the relevant causal base or underlying
structure of an agent's disposition to, say, wave hello to a
friend, or tell the truth under interrogation, and we consider various
counterfactual conditions in which that causal base or underlying
structure operates unimpaired. Does the agent in an appropriately rich
range of such counterfactual conditions wave hello or tell the truth?
If she does, then even if in the actual world she does not wave hello
or tell the truth, she was able to do so. She had at the time of
action the pertinent agential abilities or capacities. And this is
true even if that world is determined (see, e.g., Vihvelin 2004,
437). Why? Because there is no basis for contending that when we test
the relevant dispositions at other possible worlds, we have to
restrict the worlds to ones in which we hold fixed the past and the
laws. Note how the problems with the classical compatibilists'
counterfactual analysis are circumvented. If we are attending to the
causal base of the relevant dispositions, we can easily see how
Danielle's relevant causal base is ill-equipped for picking up
blond haired dogs.



The new dispositionalism clearly improves upon classical
compatibilism. But how does it fare in its own right? Do we have here
a compelling positive account of the ability--and so the
freedom--to do otherwise that is compatible with determinism? One
slippery matter has to do with the way the relevant worlds are
identified in the preceding paragraph. We have to restrict our
attention to possible worlds in which the causal base of, or
underlying structure for, the ability operates unimpaired. Some will
claim that this restriction is not dialectically innocent. Consider a
Frankfurt example (section 4.2). Suppose Jones freely shoots Smith,
but if he were about to do otherwise, Black would cause Jones to do so
against his (Jones's) will. When Jones shoots Smith on his own,
he does so freely and is morally responsible, despite the fact that,
due to Black's presence, he was not free to do otherwise. Fara
(2008, pp.854-5), Nelkin (2012), Smith (2003, p. 19), and
Vihvelin (2000, 2004, pp.445-8, 2013) say otherwise. They say
Jones could have done otherwise, was able to do otherwise, and was
free to do otherwise when he shot Smith on his own. Why? Roughly,
because if we fix on the underlying causal structure implicated in
Smith's shooting Jones on his own, and if we go only to other
worlds in which that causal structure operates unimpeded, we will rule
out worlds in which the counterfactual intervener Black is at play.
Then we will be able to specify a range of true counterfactuals in
which an agent had some reason, for instance, to do otherwise, and she
did otherwise. The delicate question here, one which we will not
attempt to resolve, is whether *in accounting for the freedom to do
otherwise* the new dispositionalists are entitled to restrict
attention only to worlds in which the relevant causal base operates
unimpeded.



Other compatibilists, most notably, John Martin Fischer (1994), and
Fischer and Mark Ravizza (1998) (see section 5.5 below), have appealed
to similar restrictions. But in doing so, they only mean to explain
the nature of the freedom or control exhibited in how the agent did
act--that is, what Fischer has termed her *guidance
control*. In striking contrast to how the new dispositionalists
reason, they do not think they are thereby entitled to claim that an
agent in a Frankfurt example is free to do otherwise. So it is
possible that what the new dispositionalists have identified with the
pertinent counterfactuals they fix upon is not the freedom to do
otherwise, but instead, a freedom located in what an agent does do
(which is a matter of guidance control, not regulative control). This,
at least, is how compatibilists like Fischer and Ravizza would reason.
[For a lively debate over just this issue, see the exchange between
Fischer (2008) and Vihvelin (2008).]


### 4.2 Hierarchical Compatibilism



On the back of his rejection of the Principle of Alternative
Possibilities, Harry Frankfurt (1971) developed a compatibilist theory
that does not appeal to regulative control in any way.
Frankfurt's *hierarchical mesh theory* can instead be
seen as a development of classical compatibilist attempts to
understand freedom in terms of an agent's unencumbered ability
to get what she wants (see Section 3.1.). More precisely, Frankfurt
explains freely willed action in terms of actions that issue from
desires that suitably mesh with hierarchically ordered elements of a
person's psychology. The key idea is that a person who acts of
her own free will acts from desires that are nested within more
encompassing elements of her self. On this view, when a freely willing
agent acts, her actions emanate from *her* rather than from
something foreign.


#### 4.2.1 Higher-Order Desires and Free Will



Frankfurt distinguishes between first-order and second-order desires.
This serves as the basis for his hierarchical account of freedom. The
former desires have as their objects actions, such as eating a slice
of cheesecake, taking in a movie, or gyrating one's hips to the
sweet sounds of B. B. King. The latter are desires about desires. They
have as their objects, desires of the first-order, such as the desire
to have the motivation to exercise daily (something that, regrettably,
too many of us lack): "If only I *wanted* to go to the
gym today, then it would be easy for me to get my tail off this
couch!"



Amongst the first-order desires that a person has, some are ones that
*do not* move her to action, such as one's (unsatisfied)
desire to say to her boss what she knows that she should not. Other
first-order desires, however, *do* move a person to action,
such as one's (satisfied) desire to follow through on her
boss's request. Frankfurt identifies an agent's
*will* with her effective first-order desire, the one moving a
person, as Frankfurt puts it, "all the way to action"
(1971, p. 84).



Frankfurt also distinguishes between different sorts of second-order
desires. Some are merely desires to have first-order desires, but
*not* that those first-order desires would comprise her will.
Frankfurt uses the example of a psychotherapist who wishes to
experience a desire for narcotics so as to understand a patient
better. The therapist has no wish that this desire be effective in
leading her to action (1971, pp.84-5). She wants to know what it
is like to feel the craving for the drug; she has no wish to take it.
On the other hand, other second-order desires that a person has are
desires for *effective* first-order desires, desires that would
comprise her will, and would thereby be effective in moving her all
the way to action. For instance, the dieter who is constantly
frustrated by her sugar cravings might desire a more effective desire
for health, one that would be more effective in guiding her eating
habits than it often is. These second-order desires Frankfurt calls
*second-order volitions*. There is no theoretical limit to how
highly-ordered one's desires might be. The dieter in the above
example might develop a third-order desire for her second-order desire
(regarding her desire for health) not to play such a dominant role in
her daily deliberations. Other things, she might reason, are of more
importance in life than concerning herself with her dietary
motivations.



Once this conceptual apparatus is in place, Frankfurt contrasts
different sorts of addicts to illustrate his concept of free will.
Consider first the *unwilling addict*, who is someone that has
both a first-order desire to take the drug, and a first-order desire
not to take the drug. Crucially, however, the unwilling addict also
has a second-order volition that her first-order desire to take the
drug *not be her will*. This is the basis for her
unwillingness. Regrettably, her irresistible addictive desire to take
the drug constitutes her will. Next, consider the case of the
*willing addict*. The willing addict, like the unwilling
addict, has conflicting first-order desires as regards taking the drug
to which she is addicted. But the willing addict, by way of a
second-order volition, embraces her addictive first-order desire to
take the drug. She wants to be as she is and act as she does.



It is now easy to illustrate Frankfurt's hierarchical theory of
free will. The unwilling addict does not take the drug of her own free
will since her will conflicts at a higher level with what she wishes
it to be. The willing addict, however, takes the drug of her own free
will since her will meshes with what she wishes it to be.
Frankurt's theory can now be set out as follows:



One acts of her own free will if and only if her action issues from
the will she wants.



It might seem strange that Frankfurt's willing addict acts of
her own free will since, due to her addiction, she could not do
otherwise. But recall that Frankfurt does not believe that freedom
involving alternative possibilities is required for moral
responsibility. Frankfurt instead believes that the freedom pertinent
to moral responsibility concerns what an agent does do and her actual
basis for doing it. That is, Frankfurt believes that it is, to again
return to Fischer's helpful distinction, guidance control that
is necessary for moral responsibility, not regulative control. The
willing addict possesses the sort of freedom required for moral
responsibility because the will leading to her action is the one that
she wishes it to be; she acts with guidance control.


#### 4.2.2 Two Problems for a Hierarchical Theory



Frankfurt's hierarchical theory has faced intense scrutiny. Here
we consider two objections that emerge from structural aspects of it.
One has to do with its hierarchical nature. The other has to do with
its relying exclusively upon a mesh between different features of an
agent's psychology. (For a discussion of Frankfurt's
attempts to respond to these problems, see section A of the
supplement,
 Compatibilism: The State of the Art.)



Consider the *hierarchical problem*. According to Frankfurt, a
person facing a problem with regard to her will's freedom faces
a situation in which she is conflicted about one (or more) of her
first-order desires. Which desire "speaks for" the agent?
With which desire can she be identified? To resolve conflicts between
first-order desires (or between an agent's attitudes about a
specific first-order desire), Frankfurt tells us that a person forms a
second-order desire that has as its object the first-order desire(s)
she wants to move her to action. By this means, an agent endorses or
identifies with one of the first-order desires and, if all goes
smoothly, that one becomes her will. Through this process, she draws
within the sphere of her self one sort of desire and alienates
another. But here, a problem arises. A person cannot be identified
with her first-order desires because she can be alienated from them.
Yet she can also be alienated from second, or even at higher-orders
(Watson 1975). After all, she might find herself both wanting that
some specific first-order desire be her will and horrified at the
thought (i.e., not want it to be the case that that particular
first-order desire be her will). Hence, the problem of an
agent's free will can reappear at these ever ascending stages.
If this is correct, Frankfurt's view is incomplete. Maybe his
account of free will does articulate a necessary condition for acting
of one's own free will, but it appears not to be sufficient. It
needs supplementing so as to avoid the problem of a spiraling
reoccurrence of challenges to an agent's freedom.



Next consider the *mesh problem*. According to Frankfurt, if
freely willed action for which an agent is morally responsible wholly
depends on the relation between an agent's will and her
second-order volitions, then it does not matter in any way how an
agent came to have that particular mesh. But cases can be constructed
that seem to suggest that it *does* matter how an agent came to
have a particular mesh between her first-order and her second-order
desires. (For example, see Slote 1980; and Fischer & Ravizza 1998,
pp. 194-206.) Using Frankfurt's own example of the willing
addict, suppose that the addict's second-order willingness is
itself caused by the effects of the drug use. Suppose that the drug
use has impaired her evaluations or preferences arising at a
second-order of reflection on her own mental states. Or, setting this
sort of case aside, imagine that an agent is brainwashed or
manipulated through some means or another, say by hypnosis, or by
aliens zapping a person into having a different set of psychological
preferences than those that she would otherwise have. In all of these
cases--just call them *manipulation cases*--Frankfurt
seems committed to the view that such agents act of their own free
will and are morally responsible so long as the appropriate
psychological mesh is in place, no matter what sort of (merely
apparent) freedom and responsibility-undermining history gave way to
an agent's having that particular mesh.



This highlights the real difficulty Frankfurt's view faces in
light of the Source Incompatibilist Argument. Since Frankfurt holds
that what matters for moral responsibility is the relationship between
an agent's effective first-order desire and her second-order
volition, and not the source of those respective desires, he is
committed to thinking that even if the desires are implanted by some
alien force, the agent can still be responsible for acting on them.
But many have found it dubious that an agent could be responsible for
an action that flows from motives that can be traced back to forces
outside of the agent. In response, Frankfurt must show that being the
source of one's motives is not needed for moral responsibility.
If he cannot, then it seems that the source incompatibilist has the
upper hand. She can straightforwardly argue that, if one sort alien
causal history that gives rise to the Frankfurtian mesh undermines
agents' freedom and responsibility, then why wouldn't a
deterministic history do the same?


### 4.3 The Reason View



In *Freedom within Reason* (1990), as well as in several
provocative papers (1980, 1987), Susan Wolf develops a theory of free
will and moral responsibility that highlights a mesh between an
agent's action and what she (correctly) regards as valuable. For
Wolf, free will concerns an agent's ability to act in accord
with the True and the Good. Unlike Frankfurt's, the conditions
of Wolf's mesh theory require an anchor external to the
agent's internal psychological states (the True and the Good).
The crucial question for Wolf concerns whether an agent is able to act
upon moral reasons. Hence, Wolf embraces the title, *The Reason
View*. A related, though importantly different version of the
Reason View has more recently been defended by Nelkin (2011).



In her effort to make free will track moral reasons, Wolf (and later
Nelkin) develops a surprising asymmetry thesis according to which
praiseworthy conduct does not require the freedom to do otherwise but
blameworthy behavior does (1980; and 1990, pp.79-81). Put in
terms of guidance and regulative control, only blameworthy conduct
requires regulative control. Guidance control is sufficient for
praiseworthy conduct. Wolf's reasoning is that, if an agent does
act in accord with the True and the Good, and if indeed she is so
psychologically determined that she cannot but act in accord with the
True and the Good, her inability to act otherwise does not threaten
the sort of freedom that morally responsible agents need. For how
could her freedom be in any way enhanced simply by adding an ability
to act irrationally? But blameworthy behavior, Wolf reasons, does
require regulative control since, if an agent acts contrary to the
True and the Good, but is so psychologically determined that she
cannot act in accord with it, then, being unable to act as reason
requires, it would be unreasonable to blame her.



Because Wolf's asymmetrical view requires regulative control in
the case of blameworthy actions, her compatibilism is open to
refutation by incompatibilist arguments designed to show that
determinism is incompatible with freedom involving alternative
possibilities. As a result, Wolf argues that physical determination
does not entail psychological determination. She then argues that
physical determination is consistent with the ability to do otherwise
because the relevant ability is one that only requires the falsity of
psychological determinism, which is a thesis she takes to have no
support. (Interestingly, this means that although Wolf is a
compatibilist about blameworthiness and physical determinism, she is
an incompatibilist about blameworthiness and psychological
determinsim.)



What about the Source Incompatibilist Argument? On Wolf's view,
if an agent does act from reasons, and if her reasons are (or are
susceptible to) the True and the Good, then she as an agent is a
source of conduct that carries with it (or is able to carry with it)
the stamp of moral reason. Enough said. But what about the Source
Incompatibilist Argument, and the premise concerning ultimacy that
seems to plague most every brand of compatibilism: A person acts of
her own free will only if she is its ultimate source? Like
Frankfurt's mesh theory, Wolf's too is endangered by the
thought that an agent could be artificially manipulated in a
responsibility-undermining manner into satisfying the mesh
Wolf's theory demands. And mightn't such manipulation be
no different than the manner in which a deterministic world shapes an
agent to have the psychological structure and motives she has? Does
not the prospect of manipulation cases show that without ultimacy, an
agent cannot be the proper source of her action? So it appears that
Wolf is at the same crossroads as is Frankfurt. Either she must show
what is defective in the manipulation cases so as to distinguish
agents so manipulated from the sort of proper mesh demanded by her
theory, or she must bite the same bullet and accept that these sorts
of manipulated agents, by the conditions of her theory, do act of
their own free wills and are morally responsible for their
conduct.


### 4.4 Reasons-Responsive Compatibilism



Several compatibilists have suggested that freely willed actions issue
from volitional features of agency that are sensitive to an
appropriate range of reasons (see Dennett 1984a; Fingarette 1972;
Gert & Duggan 1979; Glover 1970; MacIntyre 1957; Neely 1974; and
Nozick 1981). Agents who are unresponsive to appropriate rational
considerations (such as compulsives or neurotics) do not act of their
own free wills. But agents who *are* responsive to some range
of rational considerations do. This view has been artfully refined in
recent years by Fischer (1987, 1994), and
subsequently, Fischer and Ravizza (1998). (For a more advanced
discussion of Fischer and Ravizza's view, which many regard as
the gold standard for contemporary compatibilism, see section B of the
supplement
 Compatibilism: The State of the Art.)
 



A *reasons-responsiveness theory* turns upon dispositional
features of an agent's relation to reasons issuing in freely
willed action. Appropriately reasons-responsive conduct is sensitive
to rational considerations. Importantly, the view is not merely that
an agent would display herself in some counterfactual situations to be
responsive to reasons, but rather that her responsiveness to reasons
in some counterfactual situations is evidence that her actual conduct
*itself* -- the causes giving rise to *it* --
is also in response to rational considerations. (Amendments need to be
added to accommodate cases of spur-of-the-moment, or impulsive freely
willed action.)


#### 4.4.1 Agent-Based Reasons-Responsiveness



The most natural way to understand a reasons-responsive theory is in
terms of an *agent's* responsiveness to reasons. To
illustrate, suppose that Frank Zappa plays the banjo of his own free
will. According to a reasons-responsive theory, his playing the banjo
freely at that time requires that if, in at least some hypothetical
cases, he had reason not to, then he would refrain from playing the
banjo. For instance, if Jimi Hendrix were to have stepped into
Frank's recording studio and asked Frank to play his electric
guitar, Frank would have wanted to make Jimi happy and thus would have
gladly put his banjo aside and picked up his electric guitar. It
seems, then, that for Frank to play the banjo of his own free will,
Frank -- *the agent* -- must have regulative control
and not merely guidance control over his playing. His freedom must
consist partially in his ability to act upon alternatives.


#### 4.4.2 A Tension between Reasons-Responsiveness and Frankfurt Examples



Notice that, because Frankfurt examples challenge the
incompatibilists' demand for regulative control, they also
challenge an *agent-based* reasons-responsive theory (Fischer
& Ravizza 1998, pp. 34-41). Imagine that the benevolent demon
Jerry Garcia wants Frank to play the banjo at the relevant time. Jerry
would much prefer that Frank play the banjo on his own. But worried
that Frank might elect not to play the banjo, Jerry covertly arranges
things so as to manipulate Frank if the need arises. If Frank should
show any indication that he will not play the banjo, Jerry will
manipulate Frank so that Frank will play the banjo. Hence, when Frank
does play the banjo uninfluenced by Jerry's possible
intervention, he does so of his own free will. But he has neither
regulative control, nor does he seem to be reasons-responsive, with
respect to his banjo playing. Due to Jerry's presence, he cannot
but play the banjo *even if Jimi Hendrix were to ask Frank to play
his guitar*.



To alleviate the tension between a reasons-responsive theory and
Frankfurt examples, Fischer argued that reasons-responsive
compatibilism can be cast in such a way that it involves only guidance
control. Consider the example with Frank, Jimi, and Jerry. Frank did
not have regulative control over his playing the banjo since
Jerry's presence ensured that Frank play the banjo even if Jimi
were to ask Frank to play his guitar. The scenario in which Jimi asks
Frank not to play his banjo is one that Frank normally *would*
find to be a compelling reason to refrain from his banjo playing.
Hence, *by his own lights*, Frank *would* find
Jimi's request compelling. Yet, due to Jerry's presence,
*Frank* is not responsive to such a weighty reason. What would
be required to illustrate responsiveness would be to subtract Jerry
from the scenario. This would do the trick. So suppose that Frank
plays the banjo of his own free will, even with Jerry passively
standing by. How can it be shown that Frank's conduct was, in
some manner, reasons-responsive? How can it be shown that what he
actually did was in response to a reason? Well, *if* Jimi
Hendrix had asked Frank not to play the banjo but the guitar instead,
*and* if Jerry's presence were to be subtracted from the
situation, *then* Frank would respond to Jimi's request
and play the guitar and not the banjo. This suggests that Frank does
play the banjo of his own free will even in the actual situation in
which Jerry is passively standing by.


#### 4.4.3 A Mechanism-Based Reasons-Responsive Theory



Illustrating reasons-responsiveness in a Frankfurt example seems to
require recognizing counterfactual conditions in which an agent acts
otherwise in response to reasons. But in a Frankfurt example, one has
to subtract from those conditions the presence of the ensuring
conditions (the counterfactual intervener) designed to guarantee that
the agent not act otherwise. How can this move be legitimate? How is
it not just an arbitrary addendum to cram together two compatibilist
themes that otherwise appear to be at odds (reasons-responsiveness and
Frankfurt examples)? It is not arbitrary, and here is why. Think about
what happens in the actual scenario of a Frankfurt example. As things
unfold, the demon is *inactive*. The agent acts for her own
reasons. But now, focusing solely on *what the agent does* in
this actual scenario, and the reasons that give her a basis for doing
what she does, consider what deliberative features of her agency
played the causal role in the *actual sequence* of events
bringing about her action. So, just fix upon whatever constitutes that
narrower range of agential characteristics within the wider spectrum
of all of the features that made up Frank Zappa, the agent. Since it
is only that narrower spectrum that we propose to identify with the
causal production of Frank's conduct, just call it the
*mechanism* that produces his action.



Once we have located the mechanism of action that is at work in the
actual causal sequence of a Frankfurt example, we can turn our
attention to understanding the dispositional features of *it*
as a causal mechanism. If other reasons bear upon it*,* then it
would be sensitive to some of those reasons. It would produce
different conduct in some reasonable range of cases. If it would,
*then that very mechanism is responsive to reasons*. Confirming
that that very mechanism is responsive to reasons would not merely
illustrate that, in scenarios other than the actual, the agent acts
upon a mechanism sensitive to reasons. It would also illustrate that
in the Frankfurt scenario in which the agent really *does* act,
what *does* play a role in the actual causal sequence of her
action is some feature of *her* agency (a mechanism) that
*itself* is *in fact* a response to a reason.



Fischer offers an *actual-sequence, mechanism-based,
reasons-responsive* analysis of guidance control. He maintains
that his analysis of guidance control is compatible with determinism.
According to Fischer, an agent, and the mechanism of her action, can
be entirely determined in the actual sequence of events in which she
acts. Yet the actual manner in which her mechanism responds to reasons
could be appropriately sensitive to reasons such that, if different
reasons were to bear upon it, it would respond differently, and the
agent whose mechanism it is would act differently than she does
act.



Recently, however, Carolina Sartorio (2016) has argued that
actual-sequence compatibilist do not need to appeal to mechanisms in
order to vindicate their theories. According to Sartorio, we can
explain Frank's responsibility by appeal to the actual causes of
his behavior, which are, she claims, much richer than has previously
been realized. Not only is his behavior caused by his sensitive to
reasons there are, on Sartorio's view, it is also caused by
*the absence* of other reasons (in this case, e.g., the absence
of Jimi's request is itself a cause in the actual-sequence).



#### 4.4.4 Assessing Reasons-Responsive Compatibilism



Fischer's reasons-responsiveness compatibilist starts by
rejecting the key premise of the Classical Incompatibilist Argument,
in that it rejects the thesis that freedom of the sort required for
moral responsibility requires the ability to do otherwise. But how
does Fischer's view stack up against the Source Incompatibilist
Argument? The challenge Fischer faces here, which is pushed forcefully
by Pereboom (2001) and Mele (2019), is the same as that faced by
Frankfurt and Wolf. The source incompatibilist maintains that it is a
necessary condition of free will that one be an ultimate source of her
action, and determinism is incompatible with one's being an
ultimate source of her action. The compatibilist's task is to
show that her treatment of the source of an agent's conduct is
sufficient for free will. But the source incompatibilist will point to
manipulation cases that suggest that some causal histories giving rise
to compatibilist-friendly psychological structures, such as
reasons-responsive mechanisms, are freedom and responsibility
undermining. If so, then why is determinism any different from a
manipulation case? The burden, it seems, is on the compatibilist to
show how it is that manipulation cases differ from a normal
deterministic history. The compatibilist's only other strategy
is simply to deny that the pertinent manipulated agents are not free
and morally responsible. This problem is not lost on
reasons-responsiveness compatibilists, of course (see Fischer 2004 for
one attempt to address these issues).


### 4.5 Strawsonian Compatibilism



Finally, let's consider views inspired by Strawson's
compatibilism.



Several contemporary philosophers have advanced Strawsonian themes.
For example, Gary Watson (1987) sought to elaborate these themes by
thinking of our moral responsibility practices, and in particular the
morally reactive attitudes, along the lines of a communication-based
theory in which a morally responsible agent's competence turns
in some way upon being a potential interlocutor to moral conversations
between her and the moral community in which she operates. On this
view, the control condition for moral responsibility would have to fit
the capacity to communicate morally through word and deed with members
of the moral community.



In a somewhat different development of Strawson's thought, John
Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza hold that an account of guidance
control aids in providing the conditions of application for the
concept of moral responsibility, a concept that they maintain is
Strawsonian (1998, pp.1-27). Fischer and Ravizza intend their
Strawsonian theory as an amendment to Strawson's suggestion that
moral responsibility is to be associated with the reactions of those
within the moral community to members of the community. They advise
that moral responsibility be developed by thinking in terms of the
*propriety conditions* for the morally reactive attitudes. 



Susan Wolf defends (with significant reservations) the Strawsonian
thesis that the interpersonal viewpoint (that permits access to the
morally reactive attitudes) is one that a freely willing agent cannot
give up (1981). Wolf diverges at points with Strawson's own
manner of defending this. But Wolf's central thesis is
Strawsonian. A person cannot fully forswear the point of view of the
interpersonal attitudes, and this point of view is the point of view
from whence our morally reactive attitudes gain their force and figure
in our conduct. (Related defenses of the Strawsonian thesis are also
found in Shabo 2012 and Coates 2018.)



Paul Russell (1995) has also defended a form of Strawsonian
compatibilism, the central features of which he finds anticipated in
Hume's writings on free will and moral responsibility. According
to Russell, we can learn from Hume, as Strawson did, to understand our
moral responsibility practices as fundamentally a matter of our
sentiments and our social expectations as structured and sustained by
these sentiments. Fixing on our moral natures, as we should, dispels
any presumption that determinism would somehow pose a threat to our
conceptions of freedom and moral responsibility.



R. Jay Wallace (1994) offers an extension of Strawson's general
strategy in terms of moral norms of fairness for holding responsible
reflected in our moral responsibility practices (1994,
pp.103-9). From these moral norms--and not from the mere
naturalistic facts that we have these practices--Wallace proceeds
to uncover the conditions required for being responsible.
Wallace's position has emerged as a serious alternative to the
sorts of approaches to the free will problem that take as their
theoretical starting point the nature of persons, or the
action-theoretic characteristics of the process issuing in freely
willed action. 



And finally, perhaps the most detailed recent defense of Strawsonian
compatibilism is due to David Shoemaker (2017). Shoemaker argues for a
response-dependent account of moral responsibility first by defending
a response-dependent account of amusement. He then argues the norms of
humor are tightly parallel to those of responsibility-entailing
emotions like anger. And from there, he builds his response-dependent
account of moral responsibility.