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Free Agency
Author(s): Gary Watson
Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 72, No. 8 (Apr. 24, 1975), pp. 205-220
Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2024703
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IN
FREE AGENCY *
a personis freeto
According
to one familiarconception
offreedom,
theextentthathe is able to do or get whathe wants.To circumscribea person'sfreedomis to contractthe rangeof thingshe is
able to do. I thinkthat,suitablyqualified,thisaccountis correct,
and thatthechiefand mostinteresting
usesoftheword'free'can be
explicatedin its terms.But thisgeneralline has been resistedon
a numberof different
objecgrounds.One of the mostimportant
in
I
this
paper-is
tions-and theone uponwhich shallconcentrate
thatthisfamiliarviewis too impoverished
to handletalkof free
actionsandfreewill.
Frequently
enough,we say,or areinclinedto say,thata personis
notin controlofhisownactions,thathe is nota "freeagent"with
Possible
respectto them,even thoughhis behavioris intentional.
examplesof thissortof actionincludethosewhichare explained
byaddictions,
manias,and phobiasofvarioussorts.But theconcept
of freeactionwouldseemto be pleonasticon theanalysisof freedomin termsof theabilityto getwhatone wants.For if a person
doessomething
intentionally,
thensurelyhe wasable at thattimeto
do it. Hence,on thisanalysis,he was freeto do it. The familiar
accountwould not seem to allow for any furtherquestions,as
thisacfaras freedom
is concerned,
abouttheaction.Accordingly,
countwouldseemto embodya conflation
offreeactionand intentionalaction.
* I have profited
fromdiscussions
students,
colleagues,
withnumerousfriends,
and otheraudiences,on the materialof thisessay;I would like to thankthem
collectively.
However,specialthanksare due to JoelFeinberg,HarryFrankfurt,
and Thomas Nagel.
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209
to givethenameof'interest'."
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FREE AGEN-CY
2I3
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2I5
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2I6
must have some (considerable) grip upon one's motivationalsystem.The problemis that thereare motivationalfactorsother than
valuational ones. The free agent has the capacity to translatehis
values into action; his actionsflowfromhis evaluational system.
One's evaluational systemmay be said to constituteone's standpoint, the point of view from which one judges the world. The
importantfeatureof one's evaluational systemis that one cannot
coherentlydissociate oneself from it in its entirety.For to dissociate oneself from the ends and principlesthat constituteone's
evaluational system is to disclaim or repudiate them, and any
ends and principles so disclaimed (self-deceptionaside) cease to
be constitutiveof one's valuational system.One can dissociateoneselffromone set of ends and principlesonly fromthe standpointof
another such set that one does not disclaim. In short,one cannot
dissociateoneselffromall normativejudgmentswithoutforfeiting
all standpointsand therewithone's identityas an agent.
Of course,it does not followfromthe fact that one must assume
some standpointthatone musthave only one, nor thatone's standpoint is completelydeterminate.There may be ultimate conflicts,
irresolvabletensions,and thingsabout which one simplydoes not
know what to do or say. Some of these possibilities point to
problems about the unity of the person. Here the extreme case
is pathological. I am inclined to think that when the split is
severeenough,to have more thanone standpointis to have none.
This distinction between wanting and valuing requires far
fullerexplicationthan it has receivedso far.Perhaps the foregoing
remarks have at least shown that the distinctionexists and is
important,and have hinted at its nature. This distinctionis importantto the adherentof the familiarview-that talk about free
action and free agency can be understoodin termsof the idea of
being able to get what one wants-because it gives sense to the
claim that in unfreeactions the agentsdo not get what theyreally
or most want. This distinctiongives sense to the contrastbetween
freeaction and intentionalaction. Admittedly,furtherargumentis
required to show that such unfreeagents are unable to get what
theywant; but the initial step towardthis end has been taken.
At this point, it will be profitableto considerbrieflya doctrine
that is in many respectslike that which I have been developing.
The contrastwill, I think,clarifythe claims that have been advanced in theprecedingpages.
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217
FREE AGENCY
III
In an imnportant
and provocative article," Harry Frankfurthas
offereda descriptionof what he takes to be the essentialfeatureof
"the concept of a person," a feature which, he alleges, is also
basic to an understandingof "freedomof the will." This featureis
volitionsas well as first-order
desires.
the possessionof higher-order
Frankfurtconstruesthe notion of a person'swill as "the notion of
an effectivedesire-one that moves (or will or would move) a
person all the way to action" (8). Someone has a second-ordervolition, then,when he wants "a certaindesire to be his will." (Frankfurtalso considersthe case of a second-orderdesire that is not a
second-ordervolition,whereone's desireis simplyto have a certain
desire and not to act upon it. For example, a man may be curious
to know what it is like to be addicted to drugs; he thus desires
to desire heroin,but he may not desire his desire for heroin to be
effective,
to be his will. In fact,Frankfurt'sactual example is somewhat more special, for here the man's desire is not simplyto have
a desireforheroin: he wants to have a desireforheroin which has
a certainsource,i.e., is addictive.He wants to know what it is like
to crave heroin.) Someone is a wanton if he has no second-order
volitions.Finally, "it is only because a person has volitionsof the
second order that he is capable both of enjoying and of lacking
freedomof the will" (14).
Frankfurt'sthesisresemblesthe platonic view we have been unfolding insofar as it focuses upon "the structureof a person's
will" (6). I want to make a simple point about Frankfurt'spaper:
namelythat the "structural"featureto which Frankfurtappeals is
not thefundamentalfeatureforeitherfreeagencyor personhood;it
to the taskhe wantsit to perform.
is simplyinsufficient
One job thatFrankfurtwishesto do with the distinctionbetween
lower and higherordersof desire is to give an account of the sense
in which some wants may be said to be more truly the agent's
own than others(though in an obvious sense all are wants of the
agent) the sense in which the agent "identifies"with one desire
ratherthan anotherand the sense in whichan agent may be unfree
with respect to his own "will." This enterpriseis similar to our
volition" is
own. But we can see that the notion of "higher-order
not reallythe fundamentalnotion forthesepurposes,by raisingthe
question: Can't one be a wanton,so to speak, withrespectto one's
desiresand volitions?
second-order
9 "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person," this JOURNAL,
(Jan.14,1971):5-20.
LXVIII,
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FREE AGENCY
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Universityof Pennsylvania
12 God could not act akratically.In this respect,Socrates thought people were
distinguishable from such a being only by ignorance and limited power.
13 This possibilityis a definitivefeature of appetitive and passionate wants.
14 Beyond Good and Evil, section 141.
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