What Makes You You
9. Compatibilism
What we have seen is that it is no use trying to resist the Argument from Determinism by rejecting determinism, since I can always
shift to the Doomed Regardless Argument. Indeed, what we have just seen is that free action might require determinism, since undetermined random actions can never be free. Thus, one might be tempted by a different strategy, a compatibilist strategy, which grants the truth of determinism (DT1) but insists that free action is actually entirely compatible with determinism.
Don’t get too excited. A compatibilist still has to find some premise to deny in the Argument from Determinism (as well as the Doomed Regardless Argument). Here again is the argument:
The Argument from Determinism (DT1) Determinism is true
(DT2) If determinism is true, then you are never able to do otherwise
(DT3) If you are never able to do otherwise, then none of your actions are free
(DT4) So, none of your actions are free
The compatibilist does not deny DT1. So, she has to reject either DT2 or DT3. Let’s consider the prospects of each of these options.
9.1 The Consequence Argument
The idea behind DT2 was that, if determinism is true, then all of your actions are consequences of things that you are powerless to change—the laws of nature and the distant past—which in turn means that the actions themselves are things you are powerless to change. Let’s break down this line of reasoning.
The Consequence Argument
(CQ1) If determinism is true, then what you do is always a consequence of the laws of nature and the distant past
(CQ2) You have no control over the laws of nature or the distant past
(CQ3) So, if determinism is true, then what you do is always a consequence of things over which you have no control
(CQ4) If what you do is always a consequence of things over which you have no control, then you are never able to do otherwise
(DT2) So, if determinism is true, you are never able to do otherwise
The idea behind CQ1 is that, given determinism, everything that is happening and will happen is physically necessitated by events in the distant past, and what your body and brain do is no exception. Notice that CQ1 is not saying that determinism is true.
Nor is it saying that what you do is always a consequence of the laws of nature and the distant past. Rather, it’s drawing a conceptual connection between two things: if everything is determined by the laws and the distant past then everything you do is determined by the laws and the distant past. By analogy, suppose that Kristina just got carded at the bar. Even if you think that Kristina is over 21 and is old enough order a drink, you could still agree that if Kristina is under 21 then she isn’t old enough to order a drink. Likewise, even if you reject determinism, you could (and should) still accept CQ1.
CQ2 is certainly true as well: try as you might, you can’t change the physical laws and you can’t change what happened before you were born. Perhaps you could if you had a time machine but, alas, you don’t.
To see why CQ4 is true, imagine that I’ve got you by the wrists, and I’m hitting you with your own fists and taunting you:
“Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!” Why is that so upsetting? Because I have overpowered you, and you can’t stop hitting yourself. You can’t do otherwise. And why is that? Because you have no control over that which is determining what you’re doing (namely, me). Generalizing: if you never have control over the things that determine what you do, then you could never have done otherwise than what you in fact did.
9.2 Freedom without Options
The case for DT2 seems airtight: clearly, you can never do otherwise if everything you do is a consequence of things that lie outside your control. That means that compatibilists will have to
deny DT3. But how could anyone deny DT3? How could an action be free if you had no choice but to perform that action?
To see how this is possible, the compatibilist might invoke a hypnosis case of her own.
HYPNOTIC BACKUP
Tia the master hypnotist is on the run from the law and hires Clay to tackle any cop who turns up. Concerned that Clay might betray her, Tia gives Clay an irresistible post-hypnotic suggestion to tackle any cop he sees, but which will kick in only if she triggers it by shouting Abracadabra! When Kabir the cop arrives on the scene, Tia keeps a watchful eye on Clay to see if he’s going to back out. But Clay comes through: he decides to tackle Kabir all on his own, without Tia having to trigger the post-hypnotic suggestion that would have forced him to tackle Kabir.
Here is how this case is supposed to help the compatibilist. Notice that Clay could not have done otherwise. He’s either going to decide on his own to tackle Kabir, or he’s going to decide not to in which case Tia will trigger the irresistible post-hypnotic suggestion forcing him to tackle Kabir. Either way he tackles Kabir. But the mere fact that he couldn’t have done otherwise doesn’t stop us from holding him responsible for what he did.
That fact by itself doesn’t convince us that tackling Kabir is something he didn’t do freely. After all, as it happens neither his decision nor his action was the result of hypnosis (although the tackling would have been the result of hypnosis had he shown signs of backing out). What this suggests is that the mere inability to do otherwise isn’t by itself reason to think that an action is unfree. Accordingly, the compatibilist might say, we have no good reason to accept DT3.
Even I have to admit that this is a clever objection. But ultimately the argument can be revised so as to sidestep this case.
To see how, let me first try to diagnose our reaction to HYPNOTIC
BACKUP.When we think about the tackling, we are inclined to hold Clay responsible and think that being prevented from doing otherwise didn’t prevent him from acting freely. Why are we so inclined? Because we think it was at least up to him whether to
decide to tackle Kabir. Since he could have decided not to tackle Kabir, and since he did decide to tackle Kabir, we are open to thinking of the tackling as something he did freely.
But if determinism is true, then not only your actions but also your (and Clay’s) decisions are determined. With this in mind, we can revise the Argument from Determinism as follows:
The Argument from Determined Decision (DT1) Determinism is true
(DT2*) If determinism is true, then you are never able to decide to do otherwise
(DT3*) If you are never able to decide to do otherwise, then none of your actions are free
(DT4) So, none of your actions are free
DT2* is just as plausible as DT2: if determinism is true then everything about you, including what goes on in your brain, is determined by factors outside your control. And DT3* is no longer threatened by HYPNOTIC BACKUP. As I said, HYPNOTIC BACKUP
gives us reason to reject DT3 only insofar as we were thinking that Clay could have decided not to tackle Kabir. In order to challenge DT3*, we’d need to change the case so that Clay couldn’t even have decided not to tackle Kabir. But when we revise the case in that way, our sense that he may still have been acting freely vanishes altogether.