modest libertarianism

MODEST LIBERTARIANISM

Randolph ClarkeUniversity of Georgia

1. Introduction

I shall use the term ‘libertarian’ here to refer to accounts of what free willmight be if it is not compatible with determinism, whether it actually exists ornot. My focus will be on libertarian accounts that avoid extravagant metaphys-ical commitments.

Consider initially the following version of such a view. In order for a de-cision to be made freely, it says, the agent must have certain psychologicalcapacities, and he must, on the occasion of making that decision, be able toexercise those capacities.1 He must, for example, be able to regard some con-siderations asreasonsfor action, and he must have and be able to exercise atleast something close to an ordinary capacity to engage in practical reasoningand govern his behavior by his appreciation of practical reasons. It might alsobe required that the reasons he possesses not have been produced in certainrationality-undermining ways, such as via brainwashing. These requirementsthe view will share with attractive compatibilist accounts. It will share as wellthe allowance that the process by which the decision is produced be a causalprocess; indeed, I think that both should require this. When a decision is madefreely, it is made for reasons, and its being made for reasons consists partly inits being caused in a characteristic way by the agent’s having those reasons.The libertarian view will differ in that it will hold that at some point (or points)in this causal process, the causation must not be deterministic; it will have tobe nondeterministic or probabilistic causation. For the time being, let us sup-pose that the indeterminism is required in the direct causation of the decisionitself. When a decision is freely made, the account will say, there remaineduntil the making of that decision a genuine chance that the agent would notmake that decision. This may have been a chance that he would instead makean alternative decision, for different reasons, or it may just have been a chancethat he would make no decision at all right then. The actual decision will havebeen nondeterministically caused by its immediate antecedents, by the agent’s

PHIL 14-2

Philosophical Perspectives, 14, Action and Freedom, 2000

having certain reasons for action and by his having an intention to make up hismind right then.

This type of libertarian account is modest in two respects. It is modest inits metaphysical commitments, appealing to nothing more than what many com-patibilist accounts appeal to plus nondeterministic event causation. There maybe doubts about whether causation can be nondeterministic, but those who takecontemporary physics seriously tend not to harbor them, and there are severalinteresting accounts of probabilistic causation.2 Certainly the doubts here arenot as daunting as those that attach to such notions as the noumenal self oragent causation.

The second respect in which this type of view must be modest is in what itpromises. For it hardly offers a kind of freedom that, it seems, proponents ofmore extravagant libertarian accounts aim to characterize. One could hardlyclaim that, if this modest account is correct, “then we have a prerogative whichsome would attribute only to God: each of us, when we act, is a prime moverunmoved” (Chisholm 1966, 23).

This second point brings us to an obvious objection, one frequently raisedagainst this modest sort of libertarian account. The gist of the objection is thatthe view offersnothing better than what is available with a compatibilistcompetitor—an account that resembles it in every way except in the require-ment of indeterminism. Consider a decision that meets the requirements of themodest libertarian account. There was a chance of the agent’s not making thatdecision. But what is wanted from an account of free will is an account of anagent’s control over which decisions he makes and which actions he per-forms, and the mere chance of not making a certain decision may appear notto enhance the agent’s control at all. The factors that constitute the agent’scontrol in making the decision that we are considering, it may be said, are justthose factors that are shared by the modest libertarian account and a compat-ibilist competitor: the agent’s having and being able to exercise a capacity forrational self-governance, his decision’s being caused by his having certain rea-sons, and so forth. A decision that meets the requirements of the modest lib-ertarian view, it may be objected, is actually made with no greater controlthan is a comparable decision meeting the requirements of the competing com-patibilist account. There is, then, according to this objection, nothing to begained from this modest libertarian account. If free will cannot be given anadequate compatibilist account, then this modest libertarian view is not ade-quate either. And if the modest libertarian view is adequate, its requirement ofindeterminism is superfluous; some compatibilist account will be equallyadequate.

Indeed, it is sometimes objected that such a libertarian view doesworsethan a compatibilist competitor. A decision that meets the requirements of theformer, it is claimed, is made withlesscontrol than is a decision that meets therequirements of the latter. The requirement of indeterminism is worse than su-perfluous; it is destructive of the control that we want an account of free will tocharacterize.

22 / Randolph Clarke

I shall offer some reasons to doubt that this second, stronger objection iscorrect. However, I believe that the first objection is about half right. A deci-sion that meets the requirements of modest libertarianism is made with no greaterdegree of control than is a causally determined decision that is in every otherrespect the same. But the objection may be about half wrong as well. What Iacknowledge to be correct in it does not imply that what is offered by modestlibertarianism isof no more valuethan what is offered by a competing compat-ibilist view. For it may be that the chance of not making the decision, or ofmaking an alternative decision instead, though not increasing the degree of con-trol, adds to the value of the agent’s control. In the final section of this paper, Ishall argue that it is reasonable to maintain that this is in fact so.

Before focusing on this issue, however, an important detail of the modestlibertarian view needs some attention. A large part of this paper will concern adifference between two kinds of modest libertarian account.

2. Locating Indeterminism

The version of modest libertarianism that I sketched places indeterminismin the direct production of the decision: the event that is required to be nonde-terministically rather than deterministically caused is the decision itself. Suchan account requires what we might call “action-centered indeterminism” (sincemaking a decision is performing a mental action). Call this type of modest lib-ertarian view an “action-centered” account.3

Several writers (Dennett 1978; Fischer 1995; and Mele 1995, 1996, and1999) have offered versions of an importantly different type of modest liber-tarianism, one on which indeterminism is located not precisely in making adecision or performing an action but at an earlier point in the process of delib-eration. With this type of view, the events that are required not to be directlydeterministically caused are not actions of any sort; the required indeterminismis non-action-centered. Call this type of modest libertarian view a “non-action-centered” account. In this section I shall defend an action-centered accountagainst some objections that have been raised against it, and I shall present areason for preferring it to a non-action-centered libertarian view.

2a. An Argument against an Action-Centered Account

Mele (1995) holds that libertarians should accept a compatibilist accountof the relation between a deliberator’s evaluative judgment concerning whichcourse of action is best (or better or good enough) and his acquisition of anintention (and between the intention-acquisition and the performance of the ac-tion that has been decided upon); that is, they should allow but not requiredeterministic causal connections here. As do similar views proposed by Den-nett and Fischer, the account recommended by Mele requires indeterminismonly at an earlier stage of the deliberative process. The account may be satis-fied when, for example, it is undetermined which of a certain subset of the

Modest Libertarianism/ 23

agent’s non-occurrent beliefs come to mind in the process of deliberation andcombine with other events and states to bring about the agent’s evaluative judg-ment (214).4 The subset in question consists of “beliefs whose coming or notcoming to mind is not something that one would control even if determinismwere true” (216). Moreover, Mele suggests,

even when an agent is on the verge of reaching a decisive better judgment, the(undetermined) coming to mind of a belief might prompt reservations that lead toreconsideration. So, in a scenario of the imagined kind, what an agent decisivelyjudges best can be causally open as long as deliberation continues. Further, as longas deliberation is in progress it can be causally open when that deliberation willend, for it can be causally open whether a belief will come to mind and prolongdeliberation. (217)

But indeterminism subsequent to the agent’s making an evaluative judg-ment, as is required by an action-centered account, would be undesirable, Meleargues. He first introduces an important distinction between two types of con-trol that an agent might have over an action or other event or state (211). Thefirst, “proximal control,” concerns the direct (and perhaps also nearly direct)production of certain agent-involving events, such as the agent’s having certainvalues, desires, and beliefs, his making a certain evaluative judgment, his ac-quiring a certain intention, and his performing a certain action. We may sup-pose that the processes by which such events are produced are causal processes.But there is more to proximal control than just the causal nature of this pro-cess; I shall discuss what more there might be below. The second, “ultimatecontrol,” concerns the causal influence of agent-external events or conditions.In order for an agent to have ultimate control over the making of a certaindecision, there must be at no time any minimally causally sufficient conditionfor the agent’s making that decision which includes no event or state internal tothe agent. Thus, agents can have ultimate control over their actions only if de-terminism is false. Proximal control, on the other hand, is to be understood ascompatible with determinism.

Mele then argues that when the direct causation of an agent-involving eventsuch as the making of a decision is nondeterministic, the agent has less proxi-mal control over that event than that possessed by a deterministic counterpart,assuming that the agents have some proximal control, and an equal amount,over some cause of the event. “Imagine,” he suggests,

that it is equally up to each of two agents,S3andS4, what they will (individually)judge it best to do in the situation in which they find themselves and that the equalproximal control over this that the agents possess is nonzero control. If it is caus-ally determined that, whateverS3decisively judges it best att to do att, S3willintend att in accordance with that judgment, then the limitations onS3’s controlover what he intends att (assuming that it is causally determined that he will judgedecisively) are exhausted by any limitations on his control over what he decisively


judges best (and by any limitations imposed by its being causally determined thathe will judge decisively). However, internal indeterminism at the relevant juncturebrings with it limitations of its own. If it is causally open that whateverS4 deci-sively judges it best to do, he does not intend accordingly, thenS4’s control overwhat he intends is limited in a way thatS3’s control in this connection is not.S3has the power to ensure what he will intend by making a better judgment, andS4does not. (212)5

According to this ensurance argument, what is undesirable about indeter-minism located where an action-centered account places it is that it diminishesthe agent’s proximal control over which decision he makes (and hence overwhich intention he acquires).6 With the recommended non-action-centered ac-count, it is acknowledged, the agent may lack deterministic proximal controlover whether a given belief enters into his deliberative process. But, Mele notes,we do not typically have proximal control over this aspect of deliberation any-way, even if determinism is true. And indeterminism at this point need not di-minish the agent’s proximal control over “how he deliberates in light of thebeliefs thatdo enter his deliberation” (215). He may deliberate carefully and inways guided by his own deliberative principles. His evaluative judgment maybe rational, made for reasons, nondeterministically caused by certain of his val-ues, desires, and beliefs that came to mind during deliberation. An account ofthis sort, Mele suggests, will give us a view that provides for ultimate controlwithout sacrificing any (or any significant degree of ) proximal control.

Two main claims are made here concerning why a non-action-centered ac-count should be favored over an action-centered view. The first is that indeter-minism with respect to which considerations come to mind prior to the agent’smaking an evaluative judgment does not diminish the agent’s proximal control(or does not significantly diminish it). The second is that indeterminism sub-sequent to the agent’s evaluative judgment does significantly diminish the agent’sproximal control. Although I think that anyone who accepts the second of theseclaims has reason to reject the first,7 I shall pass over this point and focus onthe second claim. For there are reasons to doubt that it is true.

The crucial premise in the ensurance argument for this second claim is thatS4’s lacking “the power to ensure what he will intend by making a better judg-ment” constitutes a decrease in his proximal control over what he intends. Notefirst that this power is not required for the control that constitutes free will. Inakratic or weak-willed decision, an agent may decide contrary to his better judg-ment. Such an agent does not ensure, by making a better judgment, what hewill intend; and it seems that in an ordinary case of akratic decision, the agentmay lack the power to ensure this just by making the judgment. He may nev-ertheless act with the control that constitutes free will.

Such an agent may have a different power to ensure that he will decide inaccord with, and on the basis of his better judgment. He may be able to per-form certain mental actions—acts of attention, for example—that would so al-


ter the relative strengths of his various motivations that it would then be ensuredthat he would decide to do what he has judged best. But note that even anindeterministic agent such asS4 (who decides non-akratically) can have thispower. As things stand, it is causally open that he decide contrary to his betterjudgment. But he may be able to close this off. He cannot ensure what he willintend just by making his evaluative judgment; but he may be able to ensurewhat he will intend by performing certain mental actions that he is able toperform.

Neither of these points directly undermines Mele’s conclusion concerningS4, for it may be that althoughS4 retains enough control for free will, the in-determinism in his case diminishes proximal control to a significant and un-desirable extent. Or it may be that the indeterminism underminesS4’s freedomby significantly diminishing his proximal control, though not by virtue of elim-inating the guarantee that Mele identifies. To evaluate these possibilities, weneed to consider what sort of control freedom is and what part proximal con-trol plays in it.

2b. Proximal and Actional Control

The freedom that is the focus of libertarian accounts—and indeed, of com-peting compatibilist accounts—is essentially a freedom of action. It is a type ofwhat I shall call “actional control,” a type of control that an agent can havedirectly only over an action. By way of possessing direct control of this typeover action(s), an agent can have indirect actional control over events and statesthat are not actions, but this latter control is derived from the agent’s controlover the action(s).

What is the relation of proximal control to this type of actional control?There are several possibilities here; I shall suggest a construal that, it seems tome, is most likely to illuminate the issues before us in this paper.

First, proximal control may be taken to constitute, wholly or partly, sev-eral different types of direct actional control. Any action at all, whether per-formed by a non-rational agent, an unfree agent, or a free agent, is an exerciseof some type of direct control by the agent, and the proximal causation of thataction—its being caused in a non-deviant way by the agent’s having certaindesires, beliefs, and a certain intention—is at least part of what constitutes thedirect actional control in that instance. (If incompatibilists are correct, then some-thing like what Mele calls “ultimate control” may also partly constitute direct,freedom-level actional control.) Proximal control will also be a constituent inindirect actional control, as when an agent exercises control over the occur-rence of some non-active event by purposefully bringing about that event, in arelatively direct way.

Proximal control, as Mele (225) notes, may also have a non-actional form.Such control is something that one might have over the making of an evalua-tive judgment, even when that event is not an action, and even when one’s


control over the occurrence of that event does not derive from one’s controlover earlier actions. An agent’s proximal control over the making of an evalu-ative judgment would be a matter of the way in which the agent’s deliberativeprocess produces that judgment. This will be a causal process, one that pro-ceeds in a certain way. Its non-actional freedom, Mele suggests, will be its free-dom from certain influences that would undermine the freedom of the subsequentaction that it produces, freedom from such things as compulsion, manipulation,and insanity.

We might usefully regard the agent’s non-actional proximal control here asfreedom as well from certain sorts of inefficiency and irrationality that wouldnot be so severe as to undermine the freedom of the agent’s subsequent action.8

For example, if an agent routinely has a number of quite irrelevant consider-ations come to mind while deliberating or routinely makes evaluative judg-ments in a way that is mildly irrational, then the agent may be said to have lesscontrol over this non-actional process than he would have if he made thesejudgments more efficiently and rationally, and yet such inefficiency and irratio-nality need not render his subsequent decisions and actions unfree. Thus, non-actional proximal control may be greater where some non-actional mental processleading to action proceeds in some ideally efficient and rational way, where,for example, only the most relevant values, desires, and beliefs come to mindduring the agent’s deliberation, and the causal process that constitutes his de-liberation proceeds with the utmost efficiency and rationality to produce themost rational judgment concerning which action is best.9

2c. Indeterminism and Proximal Control

With these tools in hand, let us return to an evaluation of the ensuranceargument. Recall that the agentsS3andS4have equal, nonzero proximal con-trol over what they decisively judge it best to do. How shall we understand thiscontrol? Not as even partly constituting direct actional control. Making a judg-ment concerning which alternative action is best is not typically itself an ac-tion; perhaps it never is. (None of Dennett, Fischer, and Mele give any indicationthat they take it to be an action.) An agent might have indirect actional controlover making such a judgment. The proximal part of such control would con-cern what directly brings about the judgment. That would not typically be adecision to make a judgment that a certain action is best; it might be a decisionto make a judgment now. But the crucial aspect of such control would be howthe agent’s judgment is related, on the one hand, to his reasons and, on theother, to extraneous factors. This aspect of the agent’s proximal control overthe making of the judgment is non-actional. Hence, in what follows, in consid-ering an agent’s proximal control over such deliberative events as the makingof an evaluative judgment, I shall focus on non-actional proximal control.

There is a further reason for focusing here on non-actional proximal con-trol rather than indirect actional control. We are concerned ultimately with the


question of the agent’s actional control over the eventual decision. We cannotin general suppose that freedom-level actional control—control of a variety anddegree sufficient to render decision or other action free—derives from earlierfreedom-level actional control. If there is any freedom-level actional control atall, there must be some underived or direct freedom-level actional control. (Afamiliar regress would be generated if for any decision (or other action) by agiven agent to be free, the agent must have performed some earlier free ac-tion.) Thus, sooner or later we must provide an account of directly free deci-sion (or other action), of free decision (or other action) whose freedom doesnot derive from the free performance of earlier actions. We may as well facethat task here.10

Recall that Mele’s view allows (though it does not require) that until ajudgment is made, it remains causally open that new beliefs come to mind andeither prolong deliberation or produce a different judgment. Thus, when an agentmakes an evaluative judgment, it may be that the values, desires, and beliefsthat caused the judgment did not causally determine it; it was the case that theywould cause it unless some new belief came to mind, and none did. This sortof indeterminism in the direct causation of the judgment is said not to detractfrom the agent’s proximal control over the making of the judgment, or not sig-nificantly so.

But if the possibility of a new thought’s occurring at this stage does notdiminish proximal control, it is unclear why the same possibility at later pointsshould diminish proximal control. It might be that even after an agent has de-cisively judged a certain action best, it remains causally open that a new thoughtoccur to the agent, one that decisively favors a different alternative. Similarly,it might be that even after the agent has acquired an intention to perform theaction judged best, it remains causally open that a new thought occur showingthe agent that a different alternative is best. When the agent has acted, it mayhave been the case that the agent’s judgment would cause the acquisition of thecorresponding intention, unless a new thought occurred, and that the intention-acquisition would cause the intended action, unless a new thought occurred,and no new thought occurred. It may also have been the case that only relevantnew thoughts might have occurred, and that if they had, subsequent judgment,intention-acquisition, and action would have been quite rational. On whatgrounds could indeterminism of this sort here be said to diminish proximal con-trol, while indeterminism of a parallel sort prior to the evaluative judgment issaid not to?

It might be said that there are grounds for this claim in our practical needfor deliberation effectively to produce action. We cannot drag out deliberationwith unending reconsideration of judgments we have already made and inten-tions we have already formed. With respect to the first of these, an agent needsto be able to make an evaluative judgment that is, as Mele says, “decisive,” ajudgment that “settles in the agent’s mind the question what (from the perspec-tive of his own desires, beliefs, etc.) it is best or better to do given his circum-


stances” (15). Moreover, the agent needs such judgments to be effective, insome sense, in keeping that question settled in his mind. The causal opennessof new considerations’ coming to mind after an evaluative judgment has beenmade may seem to diminish the agent’s proximal control because it decreasesthe effectiveness of the judgment, an effectiveness for which we have a practi-cal need.

But of course we also have a need for the evaluative judgments that wemake to be well informed, and when a decisive judgment has been made with-out the agent’s having taken account of some important, relevant consideration(because it did not come to mind), it may be preferable that the considerationcome to mind prior to the performance of the chosen action and that the ques-tion of what to do be reconsidered. Any view that allows chanciness with re-spect to which considerations come to mind and when is going to have a hardtime defending the claim that such chanciness prior to the evaluative judgmentdoes not diminish proximal control but after the evaluative judgment it does.11

A second difference might be appealed to in order to draw this distinction.With regard to the making of an evaluative judgment, the proximal control onwhich we are focusing is non-actional. However, when at the end of delibera-tion an agent acquires a certain intention, it is by performing a mental action ofdeciding that the agent acquires that intention. The proximal control here willbe at least partly constitutive of a type of direct actional control.

The indicated difference is certainly there. But I cannot see how it sup-ports the distinction. Hence, if there are grounds for denying that indetermin-ism prior to the making of an evaluative judgment significantly detracts fromproximal control, then a proponent of an action-centered account has groundsfor arguing that indeterminism of the sort we have just considered—the chanceof new considerations’ coming to mind between judgment and decision—neednot significantly diminish proximal control either.

The chance that an agent not decide straightaway in accord with an evalu-ative judgment may be a chance of the agent’s deciding to reconsider that judg-ment, rather than a chance of new considerations’ simply occurring to him. Wedo not always judge well, and in a particular case an agent may have specialreason to doubt the judgment he has just made concerning which course ofaction is best. That reason may leave rationally permissible both his decidingin accord with the judgment and his deciding to reconsider the judgment. Wherethis is so, again, lacking a power to ensure what he will decide by making ajudgment appears not necessarily to constitute any significant decrease in theproximal component of the agent’s direct actional control over the making ofthe decision.

A proponent of an action-centered view may want to make a stronger claim.The sort of indeterminism considered so far involves a chance of new thoughts’coming to mind subsequent to the evaluative judgment or a chance of the agent’sdeciding to reconsider his judgment. A proponent may claim that indepen-dently of there being a chance of either of these things, and even if the chance


is just that the agent decide contrary to the evaluative judgment, indeterminismat this juncture need not significantly diminish proximal control.

A moderate libertarian of this stripe accepts that an agent’s proximal con-trol in making a decision consists just in the decision’s being non-deviantlycaused by appropriate agent-involving events. Further, this theorist holds thatthe degree of proximal control that is exercised depends on which agent-involving events actually cause the decision (and perhaps on what their causalhistories are). What he denies is that the degree of proximal control that theagent exercises depends to any significant extent on whether the causation thatactually occurs is governed by deterministic or nondeterministic laws. The de-gree of proximal control actually exercised in direct actional control, on thisview, is a matter of what actually causes what, not of what might have causedwhat. There may have been a chance of the agent’s exercising less proximalcontrol in making a decision without the agent’s actually having exercised lessproximal control.

When an agent decidescontrary to his evaluative judgment, he does notexercise rational control, but he nevertheless exercises a type of direct actionalcontrol. His decision is an intentional action, and he decides for certain of hisreasons. He thus exercises proximal control in making his decision, even if,given the irrationality of his action-production process, he exercises less of suchcontrol than he would have had he decided rationally. Further, an agent mayact with enough proximal control for direct freedom when he decides irratio-nally, for he may have been able to exercise rational control. Any incompati-bilist will hold that such an agent will have been able to decide rationally onlyif there was some indeterminism in the process leading to his actual decision.And any modest libertarian, it seems, will allow the indeterminism to be lo-cated in the direct causation of the decision, for in this type of case there is noprior non-active event that we could reasonably want to ensure that the agentmake the actual (irrational) decision.

If an agent deciding contrary to his evaluative judgment may exerciseenough proximal control for direct freedom even when there is some indeter-minism in the direct causation of his decision, then it appears that an agentdecidingin accord withhis evaluative judgment may exercise more than enoughproximal control for direct freedom even when indeterminism is so located. Heactually exercises more than enough proximal control, even though there was achance of his exercising less (though still enough). If indeterminism locatedhere diminishes control, then, the decrease does not appear to be of greatsignificance.

2d. An Argument from Luck

Let us consider a second argument that has been offered to show that in-determinism in the direct causation of a decision would diminish control, anargument from luck. Suppose that Isabelle has been deliberating about whether


to A or to B, and she has judged that it would be better toA. She then straight-away decides toA (and then sheA’s). Her decision is nondeterministically causedby her judgment and contemporaneous events and states; even after she hadjudged that it would be better toA, there remained a chance that she decide toB. Then, the objection goes, it is a matter of luck that Isabelle decides as shedoes. And to the extent that something is a matter of luck for an agent, it is outof that agent’s control. Since Isabelle’s proximal control over her decision in-volves luck, that control is less than it would have been had her evaluativejudgment (together with other states and events) causally determined the corre-sponding decision.12

An argument of this sort is, I think, widely accepted. But it is not deci-sive. First, it is clearly notjust a matter of luck that Isabelle decides toA. Forher decision is caused (we may suppose in a non-deviant way) by her reasons,including her judgment that it would be better toA. Still, some sort of luckseems to be involved; there was a chance that these reasons would not causethis decision. However, it needs to be established that this is a type of control-diminishing luck.

It may be thought to be self-evident that the sort of luck involved herediminishes control. However, I suggest that any appearance of self-evidencethat this claim has is due to a conflation of some importantly different kinds ofluck.

Suppose that an agent performs an action—a relatively basic action—aimed at bringing about a certain result, and there is some indeterminism in theprocess leading from that action to the result. For example, Paula hits her putt,and due to certain properties of the ball, the air, and the grass on the green, theprocess leading from that event to the ball’s falling into the hole is a chancyone. Here we have what we may call action-subsequent luck; it concerns whathappens after Paula’s relatively basic action of hitting her putt. If we take Paula’ssinking the putt to be a process that includes the ball’s falling into the hole,then the luck here may also be called action-internal; it concerns as well whathappens within Paula’s less basic action of sinking the putt.13 It is evident, Ithink, that this action-subsequent luck and action-internal luck diminish proxi-mal control. Paula would have greater proximal control over the ball’s fallinginto the hole and over her sinking the putt if her hitting the putt were part of adeterministic cause of the ball’s going into the hole.14

But the indeterminism in Isabelle’s case is located differently; it is locatedin the direct causation of a basic action, in the direct causation of the decision.Suppose that Isabelle has no actional control, whether direct or indirect, overthe making of her evaluative judgment; her proximal control over this event isnon-actional. (This matches what is often the case; and I have defended this sup-position above.) Then, if we want to call the indeterminism here a kind of luck,we can call it action-centered luck. While it is evident that action-subsequentluck and action-internal luck diminish proximal control, it is not at all clear thataction-centered luck detracts from proximal control.15


An analogous point can be made with regard to the ensurance argument.S4, that argument points out, lacks a power to ensure what he will intend bymaking a better judgment, and this lack is supposed to constitute a decrease inthe proximal component of the direct actional control thatS4has in making thedecision—in actively forming the intention. Note that whatS4lacks is a powerto ensure whatactionhe performs by first undergoing somenon-activechange(over which, we have supposed, he has no actional control). Now, consider animportantly different case: Sam lacks a power to ensure what emotion he willexperience by trying to feel a certain way. Sam’s lacking this power does di-minish any indirect actional control over what he experiences that he might beable to exercise just by trying to feel a certain way. But it would be a confusionto allow this fact to lead us to find plausible the main premise of the ensuranceargument. For what Sam lacks is a power to ensure whatnon-activechange hewill undergo by firstactivelytrying to bring about a certain change, and that isvery different from lacking a power to ensure whatactionone will perform byfirst undergoing somenon-activechange. While it is quite clear that lackingthe first of these powers would constitute a diminution of a type of actionalcontrol, it is certainly not so clear that lacking the second constitutes a de-crease in any component of direct actional control.

Finally, as I suggested above, even if indeterminism located where an action-centered libertarian account places itdoesdiminish proximal control, the de-crease appears not to be so great as to undermine the agent’s freedom. It issignificant, I think, that contemporary compatibilists do notrequire the deter-ministic causation of directly free actions,16 and that, similarly, Mele’s libertar-ian account does notrequiredeterministic causation of the intention-acquisitionand the action that has been decided upon. Of course, the intent may just be toallow that there be some insignificant indeterminism, some vanishingly smallchance of the occurrence of something bizarre that will never in fact happen(as, we are told, there is a tiny chance that a pebble tossed onto a solid tabletop will pass right through it rather than bouncing off ). But there is good rea-son to allow for more than this. For a decision whose direct causation is inde-terministic may be nonetheless intentional and rational, an exercise of the agent’sability to consider the reasons favoring the relevant alternatives and make hisdecision rationally on the basis of that consideration and free from influencessuch as compulsion and brainwashing. And these are the sorts of features thatcompatibilists, with good reason, generally cite as constituting the freedom ofa decision or other action. Thus, there is no clear reason to think that the prox-imal control provided by an action-centered libertarian view is not enough prox-imal control for freedom.

2e. An Argument for an Action-Centered Account

Let us turn now to a consideration favoring an action-centered account overits rival. The type of view advanced by Dennett, Fischer, and Mele allows that


an agent may have freedom-level actional control over a decision even if thatdecision is causally determined by events over none of which has the agentever had any freedom-level actional control whatsoever, whether direct or in-direct. The account will have to allow that a free decision (or other action) maybe so determined; otherwise, it will not be possible for the account to providefor an individual’s first free decision (or other action).17 But a libertarian mayreasonably object that this runs contrary to incompatibilism, that a decision (orother action) so determined cannot be free. (Such a libertarian may allow that adetermined action may beindirectly free, but only if some part of any deter-mining cause of it either is or is a causal result of an earlier free action of thatagent.)

A reason for libertarians to so object stems from the Consequence Argu-ment. The most widely accepted arguments for incompatibilism are detailedversions of this basic argument, which may be informally stated as follows:

If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws ofnature and events in the remote past. But it is not up to us what went onbefore we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are.Therefore, the consequences of these things (including our present acts)are not up to us.18

Here, the notion of something’s being up to us is that of our having, throughour capacity to act freely, a certain sort of influence over that thing. In theterminology I have been using in this paper, it is the notion of our having somefreedom-level actional control, either direct or indirect, over that thing.

Anyone who accepts this argument should reject the claim that the type ofview advanced by Dennett, Fischer, and Mele correctly characterizes decisionsthat are free—up to the agents who make them. This type of view allows thatfree decisions may be causally determined by events that are not up to us. Itthus allows that free decisions may be consequences of the laws of nature andearlier events that are not up to us. But the consequences of these things, ac-cording to the Consequence Argument, are not up to us—are not things overwhich we have any freedom-level actional control, either direct or indirect.

(It does not matter to one who accepts the Consequence Argument that theevents that Dennett, Fischer, and Mele allow may determine our free decisions(e.g., the evaluative judgments) do not occur in the remote past, before we wereborn. The point of appealing in that argument to events that occurred so longago is simply that it will be generally accepted that such events are not up tous. But, as we have seen, Dennett, Fischer, and Mele, on pain of regress, mustaccept that the events that they allow may determine our free decisions areevents that are not up to us (in the relevant sense).)

The Consequence Argument supports a different conception of ultimate con-trol, or a conception of a different type of ultimate control from that proposedby Mele. Let us call this “action-centered ultimate control.” In order for an


agent to have action-centered ultimate control over the making of a certain de-cision, there must be at no time any minimally causally sufficient condition forthe agent’s making that decision over which the agent has no direct or indirect,freedom-level actional control. Action-centered libertarian views provide foraction-centered ultimate control, while non-action-centered views do not.

On an action-centered view, an agent’s freedom-level control stems fromhis performance of directly free actions. It is by acting with direct freedom thathe ensures that certain things are the case, including that those actions are per-formed. This provides proponents of such a view with a further reply to theensurance argument.S4, Mele pointed out, lacks the power to ensure what hewill intend by making an evaluative judgment. However, where the intention isacquired actively, in the making of a decision, the reply is thatS4may never-theless have the power to ensure what he will intendby making a decision. Hiscontrol, or his power to ensure what he decides is centered on his action ofdeciding, not on something that occurs prior to that action and over which healtogether lacks freedom-level actional control. And, according to the argumentwe have just considered, this is as it should be.

3. Judging the Value of Actional Control

An action-centered, modest libertarian account provides for something thatno compatibilist account can secure: action-centered ultimate control. It pro-vides for this variety of control in addition to proximal control. I have pre-sented reasons in support of a claim that the indeterminism required by thataccount does not diminish the agent’s proximal control, or at least does not di-minish it so much that it is not enough proximal control for free action. But onemay still think that the account cannot secure exactly as much proximal controlas can a compatibilist account, and one may wonder why we should not preferthe latter. And even if one thinks there is no less proximal control with the action-centered libertarian account, one may wonder why we should want ultimate con-trol of any sort, whether action-centered or not. Why should we not, indeed, findmost desirable an ideally felicitous deterministic action-producing process? Whyshould we not prefer that always when we deliberate, the most relevant consid-erations efficiently come to mind, we rationally make evaluative judgments onthe basis of them, these judgments effectively cut off further consideration, werationally decide and act in accord with these judgments, and all this is causallydetermined to occur, so that there is no chance of anything’s going in a less-than-ideal way?

Any version of modest libertarianism faces this challenge. But it is onethat I think can be met. There are reasons to prefer that a modest libertarianview—and in particular, an action-centered one—is true, and it can be rationalto judge the actional control we have if such a view is correct to be better, ofgreater value, than what we would have even in an ideal deterministic world.


One of those reasons isnot, I think, that the ultimate control—whetheraction-centered or not—plus the proximal control secured by a modest libertar-ian view is agreater degreeof control than is the proximal control secured byany compatibilist account. A modest libertarian view adds an additional varietyof control to proximal control, but the combination doesn’t leave us with greateror more control. That is because the ultimate control secured by such a view iswholly negative: it is a matter of the absence of any determining cause of acertain sort (on an action-centered view, a determining cause over which theagent has no freedom-level actional control). The satisfaction of this whollynegative condition does not leave the agent with any additional positive pow-ers to determine which decision he makes. The positive determinative powerssecured by a modest libertarian view are just those stemming from the causalpowers of the agent’s mental attitudes, some of which are exerted in his exer-cise of proximal control, and these are no greater than what is secured by acompatibilist competitor. The account, then, does not increase the degree oramount of actional control, even if it secures a new variety of actional control.

Nevertheless, though negative in this respect, the ultimate control pro-vided by a modest libertarian account suffices to render the future genuinelyopen on at least some occasions when an agent deliberates. On an action-centered view, sometimes when an agent deliberates and makes a decision, thereremains until the making of the decision a genuine chance that the decision notbe made. The decision is a genuine branch point in a probabilistic unfolding ofhistory. This sort of openness is absent from any deterministic world. And onemay reasonably judge that it is partly constitutive of some things that are in-trinsically valuable, some things that are absent from any world without it.

There are a number of candidates for intrinsically valuable things that arepartly constituted by the kind of openness just described. I shall discuss a few,but I shall not try to be exhaustive.

Consider first the way things seem to us in deliberation. When an agent isdeliberating about whether toA or to B, it generally seems to that agent asthough, in some sense, it is open that heA and open that heB. It has beenargued that an agentcannot deliberate without believing of each alternativethat he is considering that hecanpursue that alternative. I think that this claimis too strong.19 But we do generally take it for granted that each of the alterna-tives we are considering is in some sense open. Even if, strictly speaking, weare capable of deliberating without believing this, the presumption is practi-cally inescapable. It is deeply a part of our nature, or our second nature, topresume this when we deliberate. Whatever we may think during our philosoph-ical reflections about the openness of the future, when we become engaged indeliberation about what to do, this openness is something we presume.

It is no straightforward matter to say what sort of openness is presumed byus when we deliberate. But an individual may reasonably believe that it is thesort of openness secured by a modest libertarian view—a sort that cannot be


present in any deterministic world—thathe commonly presumes, or that suchan account, unlike a compatibilist view, provides a faithful articulation of therather vague view that he commonly presumes.20 Such an individual, then, mayreasonably hold that if determinism is true, then whenever he deliberates, he issubject to an illusion. He may grant that the illusion is strictly avoidable; itmay be possible for him, at least on occasion, to deliberate without making thepresumption. But he may find it, as I think we do find it, practically impossibleto do this on a consistent basis. And since it is practically impossible for us notever to deliberate, he may reasonably hold that if determinism is true, then heis routinely subject to a practically unavoidable illusion.

The sort of openness provided by a modest libertarian view, then, may bereasonably valued as partly constitutive of the non-illusoriness of deliberation,which is a property making for goodness. This is one consideration that canprovide a reason for preferring the truth of a modest libertarian account even tothe sort of ideal deterministic production of decision and action describedearlier.21

The openness secured by a modest libertarian account, together with theproximal control provided by that account, may be reasonably thought to bepartly constitutive of other goods that would not be available in any determin-istic world. If which decisions we make is sometimes open in the indicatedway, and if in making them we exercise the sort of proximal control secured bya modest libertarian account, then some of our decisions may make a signifi-cant difference to how things go (including what kinds of persons we become).Of course, even if determinism is true, there is a way in which our decisionsgenerally make a difference: had we not made them, things would have gonedifferently. With the truth of an action-centered modest libertarian view, ourdecisions may still make a difference in this way. But they may make a differ-ence in a second way as well: they may be branch points in a probabilisticunfolding of history, branch points over which we exercise direct, freedom-level actional control. There may have been a real chance of things not going acertain way, and these decisions may be the events that set things going thatway. In making the decisions, then,we will be making a significant differencein how things go, in this second as well as in the first way. And one may rea-sonably think that it is intrinsically good to be making a difference in this waywith some of one’s decisions, that this sort of making a difference is an intrin-sically good thing.22 Since it could not be present in a deterministic world, thisconsideration provides a reason to prefer a modest libertarian to a compatibilistaccount.

This same openness combined with proximal control may be what is rep-resented in a kind of life-hope (“our outlooks on our own futures”—Honderich(1988, 380)) that will be realizable only if a libertarian account is true. Ourhopes concerning our own futures are not just hopes that certain states of af-fairs will come about. “My hopes,” Honderich (383-84) notes, “are typically


hopes that I will make something happen, bring something into existence, keepit, or change it—that I will succeed through my own actions in securing certainstates of affairs.” Even if determinism is true, my decisions and actions maysecure certain states of affairs, in that my decisions and actions bring aboutthese states of affairs. With the truth of a modest libertarian view, my decisionsand actions may still secure certain states of affairs in that way. But they mayalso secure the states of affairs in a second way, by bringing about (by an ex-ercise of freedom-level actional control) things for which, until the occurrenceof certain decisions and actions of mine, there had always been some real chanceof their not obtaining. One may reasonably judge that it is better if one mayhave realizable life-hopes representing one’s decisions’ and actions’ securingthings in both of these ways.23

The issue most frequently discussed in connection with free decision andaction is moral responsibility. Here I think it is not reasonable to think that amodest libertarian account improves on a good compatibilist view. This is asignificant limitation on the claims that can be made for the former account.

If determinism is true, it is still the case that there are certain kinds ofjustifications for praise and blame, reward and punishment. These sorts of re-actions express our feelings and our judgments about past behavior; they maycontribute to moral education and may encourage good behavior and deter bad;and they may help to protect us from miscreants. Incompatibilists typically hold,however, that a very important type of justification would always be lacking:none of these reactions could ever be deserved. Less categorically, some incom-patibilists allow that, in a deterministic world, there might be a type of desertof these kinds of reactions or of some version of these reactions, or that theymay be deserved to a degree. But it is then said that there would be an impor-tant type of desert missing, or that an important version of these reactions wouldnot be deserved, or these reactions would not be fully deserved.24

Whatever the implications of determinism for desert really are, the impli-cations of modest libertarianism for desert are, it seems, the same. The truth ofa modest libertarian view provides for a type of ultimate control that is absentfrom any deterministic world, and that ultimacy secures a type of openness.But the ultimacy and the openness provided by such a view are wholly nega-tive: they are entirely a matter of the absence of a determining cause of a cer-tain sort. The positive agential powers secured by such a view are just thoseprovided by a good compatibilist account. And if compatibilist accounts fail toprovide an adequate grounding for desert, this shortcoming is to be remediednot just by subtracting something from these views but by (also) adding some-thing, some additional positive agential powers to determine what one decidesand does. Hence, only a libertarian account that secures greater positive agen-tial powers can provide more of a grounding for desert than can a good com-patibilist view.25 Since a modest libertarian view secures no greater positiveagential powers, it provides no more of a grounding for desert.


(Similar remarks apply regarding the appropriateness of reactive attitudessuch as guilt, indignation, resentment, pride, and gratitude. Whatever the rightview is regarding the compatibility of determinism with the appropriateness ofthese attitudes, it seems clear that the same holds for the compatibility of theirappropriateness with the truth of a modest libertarian account, for a reason ex-actly analogous to that just given with respect to desert.)26

What about the summational judgment that, overall, the non-illusoriness, dif-ference making, and life-hopes secured by the truth of a modest libertarian ac-count render the truth of such a view better than the truth of any compatibilistview, even under ideal circumstances? The latter would guarantee for us a cer-tain efficiency and rationality in deliberation, decision, and action. Of course,in ideal cases, the truth of a modest libertarian view would deliver the same ef-ficiency and rationality; but it could not provide the guarantee. This guaranteewould have to be weighed against what the libertarian view would provide.

Where there is often a chance that an agent will decide contrary to hisevaluative judgment, it is likely that some of his decisions and subsequent ac-tions will be irrational. Although even rational judgments about which alterna-tive is better or best can be mistaken, in many cases acting contrary to rationalevaluative judgments will constitute and produce less of what is good than wouldacting in accord with them. There will be a loss of good, then, if rather thanour having ideally deterministic action-production systems, our decisions areproduced as characterized by an action-centered modest libertarian account.

Can one reasonably judge that such a loss is more than compensated for bythe good things secured by a modest libertarian account but not by any com-patibilist view? That depends on what the libertarian account says about theprobabilities of irrational decisions. What is an acceptable trade-off may varyfrom case to case, but in general it would seem better that where the costs ofdeciding and acting irrationally were great, the chance of so deciding was small.One might, then, prefer a modest libertarian view on which, in many cases atleast, judging an alternative better or best rendered it highly probable that onewould decide in accord with that judgment.

A proponent of such a view must face the question whether libertarian free-dom must be diminished as the chance of doing otherwise decreases. If therehad to be some inverse relation between the difficulty of doing something orthe amount of effort required to do it, on the one hand, and the probability ofone’s doing it, on the other, that might support an affirmative answer to thisquestion. But clearly there need be no such relation. (After all, there is none indeterministic worlds, where it may be extremely difficult for an agent to dosomething despite the fact that there has never been any chance that he wouldfail.) And other than such a relation, it is hard to see what would support anaffirmative answer.

It seems to me that one can reasonably judge that the truth of a modestlibertarian account that incorporates the suggested view about probabilities would


be better than the truth of a compatibilist competitor. But the judgment is cer-tainly not rationally required; it seems that reasonable individuals may ratio-nally come down on either side of this question.27

There is, then, a third respect in which the libertarianism discussed here ismodest. An adherent of it may well think that his compatibilist opponents aremistaken. But he should not think that they need be less rationally justified inholding their view than he is in holding his, nor that their justification needdepend on their ignorance of anything he can bring to their attention. Of course,it may be that he can persuade some of them to change their minds, but if hecan’t, it may be neither his fault nor theirs. His claim for his view, it seems,should acknowledge that it is less than compelling. But we should all be somodest when it comes to this issue.28

Notes

1. I take decision to be a type of mental action, an action of forming an intention toperform a certain type of action. It may be that not all intention-acquisition is ac-tion, and of course there is action that is not the formation of an intention. ThoughI shall focus here on decision, similar things can be said concerning other types ofaction.

Note also that here I am concerned with requirements fordirect freedom. Thedistinction between direct and indirect freedom will be discussed in section 2b.

2. For some examples, see Lewis (1973, postscript B); Eells (1991); and Tooley (1987,289–96).

3. It is important to be clear about the type of indeterminism that is required by anaction-centered account. Such a view doesnot add an event to those that figure in acompatibilist account of the production of a free decision; what is required isnotthat some additional, undetermined event occur between the agent’s having certainreasons and his making a certain decision, or between his making a certain evalua-tive judgment and his making the decision, where that undetermined event then con-tributes to causing the decision. Nor are there required to be any gaps or breaks inthe causal chain leading to the decision. What is required is just that the direct cau-sation of the decision by the agent’s having certain reasons, or by his having thosereasons and his making a certain evaluative judgment, be governed by a nondeter-ministic law rather than a deterministic one.

4. This “doxastic” indeterminism is presented as just one illustration of a type of pro-cess that Mele finds conducive to libertarian control. He notes:

Other indeterministic scenarios may also be considered. For example, one mayexplore the benefits and costs of its being causally undetermined which of ashifting subset ofdesirescome to mind at a time, or which of a changing seg-ment of beliefs an agent activelyattendsto at a given time, or exactlyhow anagent attends to various beliefs or desires of his at certain times. (221)

5. An incompatibilist might object to the claim that “the limitations onS3’s controlover what he intends att...are exhausted by any limitations on his control over what


he decisively judges best... .” For it might be held that the very fact thatS3’s intention-acquisition is causally determined constitutes a limitation on his control over whathe intends att. However, it must be noted that Mele’s claim about the limitations oncontrol concerns limitations onS3’s proximalcontrol, and it isproximalcontrol thatis said to be greater in the case ofS3. Mele does not believe there is a different,valuable, freedom-relevant type of control that might be possessed byS4but not byS3because the latter’s intention-acquisition is causally determined. Even if Mele ismistaken about this point, he might be right in what he says regarding proximalcontrol. (I shall return in section 2e to the issue of whether there might be thisadditional type of control.)

6. A somewhat different objection might be raised against an action-centered view. Itmight be said that were the agent to judge that it is best toA and then decide toB,then the agent would be deciding irrationally; and it may be claimed that it is ir-rational (or “insane”) to want to be able to decide irrationally. As will become clearin section 2c, the first claim here is mistaken; it may happen that an agent judges acertain course of action best and then, before making a decision, realizes that hewas mistaken. The second claim as well is quite dubious; for an illuminating dis-cussion of it, see Fischer and Ravizza (1992).

Even if one can rationally want to have an ability to decide contrary to one’sevaluative judgment, it may be thought that an action-centered modest libertarianaccount provides merely for thechanceof one’s so deciding and not for theabilityto so decide. The issue here is the agent’s control over which decision he makes.That is the issue on which I focus in the text.

7. Recall that Mele restricts indeterminism to those beliefs whose coming or not com-ing to mind we do not control even if determinism is true. Indeterminism here willnot detract from any proximal control that weactuallyhave over those beliefs. How-ever, in addition to considering a scenario in which the uncontrolled coming or notcoming to mind of these beliefs is not determined, we should consider scenarios,both deterministic and indeterministic, in which wedo have some proximal controlover which beliefs come to mind. For example, it might be that, whenever an agentdeliberates, all and only the most relevant beliefs, or all and only those that he hastime to consider, come to mind, and that those beliefs then figure ina highly efficient and rational way in the production of an evaluative judgment.If this process were deterministic, then just by setting himself to deliberate, an agentcould ensure a high degree of efficiency and rationality in his deliberations. Thiswould seem to constitute a desirable type of proximal control in deliberation. Then,if indeterminism subsequent to an evaluative judgment significantly diminishes prox-imal control at that stage, it appears that indeterminism that affected which beliefscome to mind in deliberation would likewise leave us with significantly less prox-imal control than wemighthave at this stage. If we believe that indeterminism sub-sequent to an evaluative judgment significantly diminishes control, then, it seems,we should prefer a deterministic world in which we have the described proximalcontrol over which beliefs come to mind in deliberation to a world in which a viewlike that proposed by Dennett, Fischer, and Mele is true. Indeterminism of the sortposited by that view might not diminish what wedo have, but if we are concernedwith which varieties of control are best, we should not take our (contingent) imper-fections as fixed. (A similar point is raised in Clarke (forthcoming).)


Note, however, that this criticism assumes that indeterminism subsequent to anevaluative judgment significantly diminishes proximal control. I shall question thatassumption.

8. The rationale for this expansion of the notion of non-actional proximal control isthat such control concerns features of an action-production process that contributeto the control the agent has in acting. This actional control or practical freedomrequires an ability to exerciserational control in acting. Features of an action-production process that decrease rationality may detract from that actional controlwithout undermining freedom altogether.

9. It is in terms of such a notion of non-actional control that we might understandsuch Kantian slogans as “the realm of reason is the realm of freedom.” Certainlyreasoning need not involve any actional control or practical freedom. But it mayalways involve some degree of non-actional control.

10. A libertarian account might require that, in order for a decision (or other action) tobe directly free, the agent must have had some actional control—though not neces-sarily freedom-level—over earlier events. This sort of requirement would not pro-duce the vicious regress described in the text. I shall ignore this possibility for thetime being, but I return to it in section 2e, note 17.

11. Here it may be said against all types of modest libertarianism that what we shouldfind most desirable is an ideally felicitous deterministic action-producing process.We should prefer that the most relevant considerations efficiently come to mind,that we rationally make evaluative judgments on the basis of them, that these judg-ments effectively cut off further consideration, that we rationally decide and act inaccord with them, and that all of this be determined to happen whenever we delib-erate. We should prefer that we have a power to ensure all of this just by beginningto deliberate concerning which of certain alternative actions to perform. We shouldvalue this sort of felicitous determinism over a deliberative process that has indeter-minism located at any juncture whatsoever.

There are, I think, three types of reply that can be made to this objection.One is that we are not in fact so ideally efficient and rational, and that forcreatures with our practical limitations it is better to have, somewhere in the de-liberative process, genuine chance. But this is a strikingly poor reply for a liber-tarian to make. Libertarians should hold thatno sort of actional control that evenan idealized deterministic agent could have is as valuable as is direct libertariancontrol. Indeterminism is not supposed to be needed to give us somethingsecond-best.

Two claims that would make better replies are considered in the text below.They are that indeterministic proximal control need not belessproximal controlthan deterministic proximal control, and that even if it is less proximal control, itscombination with action-centered ultimate control may be more valuable than any-thing we could have given determinism.

12. Mele (1999) raises this sort of problem of luck for libertarian views.13. If one prefers to think that Paula’s sinking the putt is (identical with) her hitting the

putt (or some even more basic action—e.g., her moving her arms in a certain way),then one may say that the luck here is just action-subsequent.

14. A similar point is made by Kane (1996, 144). He describes what he calls “anteced-ent determining control,” a power to determine ahead of time how things will turn


out. Indeterminism located between one’s doing something and an outcome will, heacknowledges, undermine antecedent determining control. But this is not the onlylocation that indeterminism might have, and this sort of control is not the only de-sirable sort.

15. The point can be put differently. Compare Isabelle with Diane, who is exactly thesame except that Diane’s judging thatA is better, together with contemporaneousevents and states, causally determines her deciding toA. I have been putting theaction-centered theorist’s claim as stating that the indeterminism does not diminishIsabelle’s proximal control over her decision. But the claim could be made differ-ently: the determinism does not increase Diane’s proximal control. The issue here iswhat degree of the proximal component of direct actional controlDianemight haveover the making of her decision. The fact that some agent-involving event overwhich she has no actional control is part of a deterministic (rather than part of anindeterministic) cause of her decision does not clearly increase any component ofher actional control over that decision.

16. For a compatibilist’s argument that such deterministic causation should not be seenas necessary for the control that is required for moral responsibility, see the finalsection of Fischer (forthcoming).

17. As I noted earlier, a non-action-centered account could require that this proximalcontrol be indirect actional control. However, on pain of regress, the account couldnot require that it befreedom-levelactional control. And according to the objectionabout to be considered, it is precisely what the non-action-centered account cannotrequire—viz., that if there is any determining cause of a free decision or other ac-tion, it must have as a part something over which the agent has (direct or indirect)freedom-levelactional control—it is precisely this that must be required by an ad-equate libertarian view.

The argument in this section tells as well against the view advanced in Ek-strom (1999, ch. 4). She requires that, in order for a decision to be directly free,some action—viz., the active formation of a preference—that precedes the deci-sion must be nondeterministically caused. It is allowed that the preference-formationcausally determine the decision, and it is not required that the active formation ofthe preference be afree action. Then, as with the kind of view advanced by Den-nett, Fischer, and Mele, it is allowed that there may be a determining cause of thedecision over no part of which has the agent ever had anyfreedom-levelactionalcontrol.

18. Van Inwagen (1983, 16).19. For discussion of this point, see Clarke (1992).20. Some individuals believe that the sort of openness that seems to them to lie ahead

in deliberation is a sort that could be there even if determinism were true. See, forexample, Mele (1995, 135–37). I do not claim that such individuals are mistaken inso believing, nor that they are not rationally justified in holding that belief. Myclaim is that some other individuals may be rationally justified in holding the con-trary belief.

21. Nathan (1992, 30–31 and 38) suggests that we may desire free will for the sake ofnot being subject to a certain illusion, one closely related to the illusion I discuss.

22. Swinburne (1996, 37) writes that “It is a good for any agent to have a free choice,for that makes him an ultimate source of the way things happen in the universe... .


And if he exercises that choice in forwarding the good, that is a further good forhim. But the good of forwarding the good is a lot better if the agent has a freechoice between good and evil, not just between alternative goods, for then his choiceis deeply significant for the way the world goes.” By a free choice, he means onethat is not causally determined. I would suggest that the “deep significance” of anundetermined free choice is better seen as not restricted to cases where the openalternatives are good and evil.

23. Honderich holds that it is part of the content of our life-hopes that we will “initiate”at least some of our actions (1988, 384 and following). The idea of initiating, hesays, implies “that our futures are in partopen, alterable, or unfixed” (385). But itimplies more: “Talk of initiating, making, giving rise to, bringing about, producing,and so on implies...an activity that is not itself a product.” (387) A modest libertar-ian view cannot do justice to this latter notion, even if it can secure something morethan can any compatibilist account.

Similarly, Honderich (389) maintains that “True chance, at any rate on a largescale, would be about as damaging to hope as fixity. To take it that I, in or as myself, give rise to my actions, is not to make them a matter of randomness.” It isclear that given the truth of a modest libertarian view, which decisions an agentmakes is not a matter ofmerechance. The agent exercises proximal control—andnot a greatly lesser degree than would a deterministic counterpart—in making di-rectly free decisions. This may not suffice for the hope Honderich has in mind, butit may suffice for a kind of libertarian life-hope.

24. For a subtle treatment of these issues, see Honderich (1988, ch. 10).25. If there is a libertarian view that provides for greater positive agential powers it is,

I believe, an agent-causal view. In Clarke (1996) I discuss different versions of suchan account and identify reasons favoring one particular version. A major drawbackof such views is, of course, that there is more reason to doubt their truth than thereis to doubt the truth of a modest libertarian account.

26. I have said that one mightreasonablyjudge that certain things partly constituted bythe openness secured by a modest libertarian account are good or better than theircompatibilist versions. I intend that one may be rationally justified in making andholding these judgments. Such judgments may, of course, be consistent with othersmade by an individual, and what is judged regarding libertarian control may standin some explanatory relations to what is judged regarding some related matter-s.Whether there can be more to the justification of these value judgments dependson the broader issue of how value judgments may be rationally justified. It seems tome that justification can turn on a value judgment’s relations not just to other valuejudgments but also to the individual’s beliefs about other matters, his desires, hispreferences, his caring about certain things, and his reflection on the objects of valuejudgments. When, for example, an individual carefully considers a variety of ac-tional control, thinks clearly about how it compares with competing varieties andhow it relates to other things he values, and finds that he prefers that variety, that hecares more about having it, and that it seems to him to be better, the judgment thatit is better may well have some degree of rational grounding in the reflections fromwhich it arises.

27. There may also be summational judgments that are different but not inconsistent.For example, an individual may judge that in the context of a certain kind of life,


the control secured by a modest libertarian view is better. That judgment might beconsistent with one made by a second individual that in the context of a differentkind of life, the control secured by a compatibilist view is better. (And it might bereasonable to judge that neither of these kinds of life is, on the whole, better thanthe other.)

Alternatively, an individual might judge that, given certain fairly fixed fea-tures of his personality, it is better for him to have one of these types of control. Asecond individual might, again, make a different but not inconsistent judgment aboutwhich it would be better for him to have. Lack of agreement here need not bedisagreement.

28. I wish to thank Ish Haji, Al Mele, and Michael Zimmerman for helpful commentson earlier versions of this paper. I am grateful also to audiences at Davidson Col-lege, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and University of Vermont.

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