Dr Peter Millican, Hertford College, Ox
Frankfurt Cases
Harry Frankfurt has argued that freedom doesn't really require the possibility of doing otherwise (in either sense). What makes an action inebitable doesn't always bring it about.
The Contrastive Argument
seems quite persuasive, because it aims to link fre will with moral responsibility.
Three Concepts of Freedom
1. Contra-causal, libertarian free will (opposed to determinism).
2. Intentional agency; that in virtue of which a person is an agent in respect of he or she does.
3. The absence of unwelcome restrictions affecting choice of action (e.g. coercion, compulsion, or an influence that is resented by the agent).
Hume then goes on to argue (E 8.28‑30) that viewing human behaviour as causally determined, so far from being contrary to morality, is actually essential to it, since blame and punishment are useful and appropriate only where actions are caused by the agent's durable character and disposition.
– The challenge to the libertarian is to make sense of free will in a way that is neither determined nor merely random.
Hume: treating freedom as simply a matter of "power to act as we will"
Harry Frankfurt distinguishes between 'firstorder' desires (e.g. to smoke a cigarette) and "second-orde" desires (e.g. to qui smoking, and to cease to desire them). If one's second-order desires are unable to overcome first-order cravings, then one is not fully autonomous and thus less "free".
Robert Kane: an element of randomness is compatible with responsibility.