Do "Deep Self Views" provide an adequate conception of free will and moral responsibility?
Incompatibilists claim that causal determinism and human free will are mutually exclusive. If determinism obtains, then every event is inevitable. Incompatibilists conclude that all human actions are unavoidable and therefore there is no free will or moral responsibility. Compatibilists deny that there is a conflict between determinism and free will. Intuitively, is seems sound to suppose that alternate possibilities are necessary for free will and moral responsibility. If a person "could not have done otherwise" then surely he cannot be free or morally responsible. Compatibilists argue against this incompatibilist intuition. It is litigious as to whether they succeed, though this is not the focus of this paper. Compatibilists must also provide the debate with an adequate alternate account of free will and moral responsibility that is not threatened by determinism.
Traditional compatibilist arguments of philosophers like Hobbes fail to present a sufficient testimony of free will. The majority of the newly developed compatibilist accounts of free will and moral responsibility are either based upon theories of "hierarchical motivation", as pioneered by Harry Frankfurt, or written in opposition to them. According to hierarchical theorists like Frankfurt, classical compatibilism is deficient because it gives us only a theory of freedom of action (being able to do what we will), but not a theory of freedom of will (being able to will what we will, so to speak).' Wolf refers to the account of Frankfurt and similar compatibilist arguments as "Deep Self Views" because they assert that a person has free will when he is acting from his deep or true self. The distinction between the various brands of Deep Self Views is how each philosopher chooses to define a person's true self. This paper will demonstrate the failure of Deep Self Views to provide an adequate... [continues]
Incompatibilists claim that causal determinism and human free will are mutually exclusive. If determinism obtains, then every event is inevitable. Incompatibilists conclude that all human actions are unavoidable and therefore there is no free will or moral responsibility. Compatibilists deny that there is a conflict between determinism and free will. Intuitively, is seems sound to suppose that alternate possibilities are necessary for free will and moral responsibility. If a person "could not have done otherwise" then surely he cannot be free or morally responsible. Compatibilists argue against this incompatibilist intuition. It is litigious as to whether they succeed, though this is not the focus of this paper. Compatibilists must also provide the debate with an adequate alternate account of free will and moral responsibility that is not threatened by determinism.
Traditional compatibilist arguments of philosophers like Hobbes fail to present a sufficient testimony of free will. The majority of the newly developed compatibilist accounts of free will and moral responsibility are either based upon theories of "hierarchical motivation", as pioneered by Harry Frankfurt, or written in opposition to them. According to hierarchical theorists like Frankfurt, classical compatibilism is deficient because it gives us only a theory of freedom of action (being able to do what we will), but not a theory of freedom of will (being able to will what we will, so to speak).' Wolf refers to the account of Frankfurt and similar compatibilist arguments as "Deep Self Views" because they assert that a person has free will when he is acting from his deep or true self. The distinction between the various brands of Deep Self Views is how each philosopher chooses to define a person's true self. This paper will demonstrate the failure of Deep Self Views to provide an adequate... [continues]
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