"Could Have Done Otherwise"

r3o ELBO\ü ROOM
iì
of intuition pumps. The apparent incoherence of the idea of a
deterministic deliberator dissolves on closer examination. It looks for all
the wofld as if there could be no real opportunities if determinism were
abuse
0
true, but this is also an illusion. And in spite of first appearances' some-
rffe haven't solved
thing can be "causally necessitated" but not inevitable.
all the problems or answered all the questions about the relation between our manifest image and our scientific image, but we have seen that
the traditional grounds for alarm are the products of hasty examination,
not deep insight.
"Could Have Done Otherwise"
t.
Do Yle Care \{hether Ve Could Haae Done Otberuise?
In the midst of all the discord and disagreement among philosophers
about free will, there are a lew calm islands of near unanimity. As van
Inwagen notes:
Almost all philosophers agree that a necessary condition for holding
an agent responsible for an act is believing that the agent could bøtte
refrained from performing that act. (van Inwagen r925, p.r8g)
i
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'ì
{
i
rl
Í
I
I
,ì
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ì
,
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But if this is so, then whatever else I may have done in the preceding
chapters, I have not yet touched the central issue of free will, for I have
not yet declared a position on the "could have done otherwise" principle:
the principle that holds that one has acted freely (and responsibly) only if
one could have done otherwise. It is time, at last, to turn to this central,
stable area in the logical geography of the free will problem. First I will
show that this widely accepted principle is simply false. Then I will turn
to some residual problems about the meaning sf "ç¿¡"-fiustin's ftog at
the bottorn of the beer mug (see chapter one, page 19).
The "could have done otherwise" principle has been debated for
generations, and the favorite süategy of compatibilists-who must show
that free will and determinism are compatible after all-is to maintain
that "could have done otherwise" does not mean what it seems at first to
mean; the sense of the phrase denied by determinism is irrelevant to the
sense required for freedom. It is so obvious that this is what the compatibilists ltøae to say that many skeptics view the proffered compatibilist
"analyses" of the meaning of "could have done otherwise" as little more
than self-deceived special pleading. James (rgzt, p.r4Ð called this
theme "a quagmire of evasion" and Kant (Ctitique of Prøcticøl Reason,
Abbot translation ßlz, p.g6) called it a "wretched subterfuge."
Instead of rising to the defense of any of the earlier analyses-many
of which are quite defensible so far as I can see-I will go on the
offensive. I will argue thatutltateaer "could have done otherwise" actually
r32
"Could Have Done Otherwise" t33
ELBO'Ùø ROOM
it
-refrained(couldn
-sel¡lün
îËi-*ãdî;;l;rtlto r r"
whether or not a person could have done otherwise. And when we do, it
is often because we wish to draw the opposite conclusion about responsibility from the one tradition endorses.
"Here I stand," Luther said. "I can do no other." Luther claimed that
he could do no other, that his conscience made it imþossible for him to
recant. He might, of course, have been wrong, or have been deliberately
- overstating the truth. But even if he was-perhaps especially if he washis declaration is testimony to the fact that we simply do not exempt
someone from blame or praise for an act because we think he could do
no other. Whatever Luther was doing, he was not trying to duck respon-
sibility
There
¿rre cases where the claim "I can do no other" is an avowal of
frailty;s-r¡pBose^u¿harl-ou'ght io-!o=E-set on the plane and fly to safety,
tI
¡t3¡¡{ .te.-aç4psJh€ g¡orrnd-ari[Qnfêõî*t-èää-dö-"ñò' öÈhêi:
of mútr,qLonel an{ deþilj"tetjns-fçàr-ôf flying. In such a ðäse I
can do no other, iã'iám, becaìi¡Ë-rffËñiänal conrrol.faculty is impaired.
cas es r -like lud¡er's;'wlæln- I s¿yI-can no t do
! lêäõõ- ðlðmlywhat-:hg situation is and because my
s--fl0Í-rmÞa,fed., lt ß too obvrous what to do;
n dictates it; I would have to be mad to do otherwise, and since I
happen not to b. mqLlcannegJo-o¡h"rwise. (Notice, by the way, that
we say it was "up to" Luthef whether or not to recant, and we do not feel
tempted to rescind that judgment when we learn that he claimed he
could do no other. Notice, too, that we often say things like this: "If it
were up to me, I know for certain what I would do.")
I hope it is true-and think it very likely is true-that it would be
impossible to induce me to torture an innocent person by offering me a
thousand dollars. "Ah"-comes the objection-"but what if some evil
space pirates were holding the whole wodd ransom, and promised not to
destroy the wodd if only you would torture an innocent person? rüØould
that be something you would find impossible to do?" Probably not, but
so what? That is a vastly different case. If what one is interested rn rs
whether under the spurf.ed circurnstønces lffiãG,.
t. I claimed it would
a tbousønd dollørs.
Those who hold dear the principle of "could have done otherwise" are
always insisting that we should look at whether one could have done
otherwise in exactþ the same circumstances. I claim something sffonger;
I claim that I could not do otherwise even in any roughly similar case. I
would neter agree to torture an innocent person for a thousand dollars. It
tiêcâuse
elsewhere.
But Frankfurt's strategy seems to me to be insuffrciently ambitious'
A,lthough he økes his counterexamples to show that the "could have
posdo.re oi-her*ise" principle-which he calls the principle of alternate
special
rather
are
sibilities-is irremediatly false, his counterexamples
and unlikely cases, and they invite the defender of the principle to try for
a patch: *åaify the principle slightly to take care of Frankfurt's troublãsome cases. Exotic circumstances do little or.ngihing to dispel the
overdetermiñation rs
illusion that in thffich
¡¡
'/r ''
lackjng-¡he regnant principle is indeed that if a person could not have !¡
is not what we are interested in when we cafe about whether
some act was freely and responsibly performed' There is, as van Inwagen
nores, something of a tradition of simply assuming that the intuitions
,'could have done otherwise" principle are secufe. But phifavoring the
losophers who do assgme this do so in spite of fairly obvious and familiar
grounds for doubt'
one of the few philosophers to challenge it is Frankfurt, who has
invented a highly productive intuition pump that generates counterexamples in many il"*ro*, cases of overderermination, where an agent deübårately and knowingly chose to do something, but where-thanks
typically to some hovering bogeyman-if he hadn't so chosen, the
bógey*"n would have sqen to it that he did the thing anyway (Frankfurt
tq6g, bo, see also van Inwagen rgzS and 1983, and Fischer r98z)' Here
is ttre basic, stripped-down intuition pump (minus the bells and whistles
on the variations, which will not concern us-but only because we will
not be relying on them):
hates smith and decides, in full possession of his faculties, to
Jones
-murder
him. Meanwhile Black, the nefarious neurosurgeon (remember him?), who also wants Smith dead, has implanted some.ninJ in ¡ones;'brain so rhar jast in case Jones.chønges his nind (and
chic"kenJout), Black, by pushing his special button, can put Jones
back on his murderous track. In the event Black doesn't have to
intervene; Jones does the deed all on his own'
In such a case, Frankfurt claims, the person would be responsible for his
deed, since he chose it with all due deliberation and wholeheartedness,
in spite of the lurking presence of the overdeterminer whose hidden
pr"*n." makes it the case that Jones couldn't have done otherwise.
I accept Frankfurt's analysis of these cases (that is, I think they can
be defendåd against the objections raised by van Inwagen, Fischer, and
others), and think these thought experiments are useful in spite of their
invocation of imaginary bogeymen, for they draw attention to the imporrance, for respãnsibility, ofthe actual causal chain ofdeliberation and
.hoi." running through the agent-whatever may be happening
means,
.
ß4
"Could Have Done Otherwise"
ELBO\ø ROOM
would make no difference, I claim, what tone of voice the briber used, or
whether or not I was dred and hungry, or whether the proposed victim
was well illuminated or partially concealed in shadow' I am, I hope,
immune to all such offers.
Now why would anyone's intuitions suggest that if I am right, then if
and when I ever have occasion to refuse such an offer, my refusal would
not counr as a responsible act? Perhaps this is what some people think:
they think that if I were right when I claimed I could not do otherwise in
such cases, I would be some sort of zombie, "programmed" always to
refuse thousand-dollar bribes. A genuinely free agent, they think, must
be more volatile somehow. If I am to be able to listen to reason' if I am to
be flexible in the right way, they think, I mustn't be too dogmatic. Even
in the most prepgsterous cases, then, I rnust be able to see that "there are
two sides ro every quesrion." I must be able ro pause, and weigh up the
pros and cons of this suggested bit of lucrative rorture. But the only way
i could be constituted so that I can always "see both sides"-no matter
how preposterous one side
is-is
by being constituted so that in
any
rsuaded, in the
-ilieÉöiÏiriì<i-'iecognize the one-in-a-zillion
ffilîilfräG'ìs
in which, thanks to
that thousand dollats, not otherwise obtainable, the world can be saved
(or whatever). But the general capacity to respond flexibly in such cases
does not at all requirã that one "could have done otherwise" in the
r:u"r:å"rï ìnaruffie. *-"-".vaqmp¡s-ïñ-Ìhe-circumsrances-the variations that matter-one would ãöifiê¡Wise:**--'-*Ïl*iet; bê ,rsefrl'io ¿óöt;. ri* èâsáí*ialseein'Quite different at
first, but belong on a continuum.
r. Supposã I know that if I ever see the full moon, I will probably
run amok-and murder the first person I see. So I make careful arraîgemenrs to have myself locked up in a windowless room on several nights
each month. I am thus rendered unøble to do the awful things I would do
otherwise. Mofeover, it is thanks ro my own responsible efforts that I
have become unable to do these things. ,a fanciful case, no doubt, but
consider the next case, which is sornewhat more realistic'
r r. suppose I know that if I ever see a voluptuous woman walking
unescorted-in a deserted place I will probably be overcome by lust and
rape her. So I educate myself about the horrors of rape from the womso
an-'s point of view, and enliven my sense of the brutality of the crime
I
straits,
in
such
woman
drarnatically rhat if I happen ro encounrer such a
(\ühat
may
atn anøble to do the awful thing I would have doire otherwise'
convince me that I would otherwise have done this thing is that when the
iøA;:t^
:
case
occasion arises
t3i
I experience a considerable inner tumult; I discover my-
self shaking the bars of the cage I have built for myself.) Thanks to my
eaflier responsible efforts, I have become quite immune to this rather
more common sort of possession; I have done what had to be done to
render certain courses of action untbinþable to me. Like Luther,I now
can do no other.
Suppose-to get back all the way to realism-that our parents and
teachers know that if we grow up without a moral education, we will
become selfish, untrustworthy and possibly dangerous people. So they
arrange to educate us; and thanks to their responsible efforts, our minds
'recoil
from thoughts of larceny, treachery and violence. We find such
afternatives unthinkable under most normal circumstances, and moreover have been taught to think ahead for ourselves and to contribute to
our own moral development. Qoesn't a considerable part of being a
responsiblqÞe$qo consist in
ma
one
r¡qi
noted, uneasily, that the diffrcult m-orailiöTlèm cases, the decisions that
"might go either way," ate not the only, br even the most frequent' sorts
of decisions for which we hold people responsible. They have seldom
taken the hint to heart, however, and asked whether the "could have
done otherwise" principle was simply wrong.
I grant that we do indeed often ask ourselves whether an agent
could have done otherwise-and in particular whether or nor we ourselves could have done otherwise-in the wake of some regrettable act.
But we ne.ter sÉow any interest in trying to answer the question we have
presumably
umably ¡ust
iust asked! Defenders of the principle suppose that there is a
accordine to which.
ióä'äõîdlr-l-J----Ëï]e*--ffi
rnE@*effvise"
E-.,it determtntsm
tËî
rs true. no one ever I
i'i*ç-.uq-ö"ffiG"cglrd-häy-e-de-;^e-qit'È.fr"Ëiba"{LË;ìLt¡.S"üCjt:ô-ie
wheifwè-üfd
we
intend
it
the
sense
ther;iüi"Jtìäi,öiê. It
fãñt'|;üît"tá
"ñias "couldÏè
iät.öàn inquiry iät.ö
to inaugurate
ínãueurate an
ötliérwise?" iô
Hãüe dónê örliérwiiei;
liã
IÏe liãüe
iË"'ffi;Ëìt."ËiTe
púisuiriþ
pursuing
In
is
not.
no¡
'ä ägent;q
It
I¡,
for.g¡r-ççt.hç.çommitted?
g¡r-.ççt.h9=.-c-om¡4!tted?
rçspõ--qsiläütv
L;iEfiîy Íirr
âeçet-r"içspe:diEfiî
lüðîi íäõ¡ries we manifestly ignore rhe sorr of investigations that would
have ro be pursued if we really were interested in the answer to that
ouestion. the metaphvsicians' question about whether or not the agent
*#Ëd;;-üt
*", ."^øeÍál?;äñãùby,h" r,"," o f th e u n ive rs e aiTãllñs tãn=I-to
perform fhat actron.--r
If our responsibilly really did hinge, as this major philosophical
tradition insists, on rhe question of whether we ever could do otherwise
than we in fact do in exøctþ tbose circunstønces, we would be faced with a
most peculiar problem of ignorance: ir would be unlikely in the extreme,
given what now seems to be the case in physics, that anyone would ever
tnow whether anyone has ever been responsible. For today's orthodoxy
is that indeterminism reigns ar rhe subaromic level of quantum mechan-
ß6
"Could Have Done Otherwise" t37
ELBO\ü ROOM
and accepted argument for universal'
ics, so in the absence of any general
actions
ical question, they were deluded into it by philosophy.) The question
people are really interested in asking is a better question for two reasons:
it is usually empirically answerable, and its answer matters. For not only
is the traditional metaphysical question unanswerable; its answer, even if
you knew it, would be useless.
What good would it do to know, about a particular agent, that on
be self-
some occasion (or on every occasion) he could have done otherwise than
i, po,,ibi" fot Af we know thæ our decisions and
of quantumJevel indeter;;-;r"ry ;# *"gnin"+-L".roscopic effects
possible' for-all we know'
also
is
it
But
minacies occurring i. ;;;;
brains at the subatomic
our
in
that even though i"¿"ãt-i"itm reigns
and acts arc all
decisions
*..iã"i.ur level, our macroscopic
;;;;
determinisrn, it
determinJ;';; o*t*rn "ff"tï could iust as well
counters in the neu;;1t"" ".. amp[fiá iut ir uv organic Geiger
of the brain
complexity
the
rons). And it is extreireù unUklty' liven
themselves
for which the word "astronomat even the rnolecular let'ei (a complexity
good evidence
underrr","À"*), *aiwe could ever develop
ical" is a vast
thatanyparticular*,*"tt"t't'alarge-scaleeffectofacriticalsubatomic
hinge on
i.ã"i"ï*-r.*y. so if soÁeor,"', responsibitity for an act.did
decision was (already) deterwhether, at the mom""i"iã".irion, that
a triumphant-rerurn of
barring
mined by a prior ,.u,.-ãi trttwo'td' ihen
rule out all respon(which
would
universal determinism in microphysics
will nevet have any
we
that
heavy
;tbiiü;" this view), t-he odds ut" u"ty that it was of was
not responsible.
u.i
reason to believe .f ö;;;Ju,
every macrofrom
inscrutable
ite-critical difference'would be utterly
most sophisthe
from
insc.rutable
practically
scopic YaîÍagepoi,,t,
"n¿
Ài.tãpnvti. al v antase point imaginable'
in this conclusion' but I
Some philoropr'""-*igrti tak" coÁfo't
the
oiii'piirãr"pn"1coutd take comfort in it. To sav
;iJ;ã
_oorã-*"rî
inu,
idea that something that could
,"-;k;;;;;;lv the
very least
our ken. (or look at
matter so much .ootã u" ,o mugnificently beyond
to know that they have perthe point another *uy' tt'o" who claim
otherwise in exactly those
formed acts such ,rr"l',nãv ..uld have done
this presumably.empirical
procraim
they
circumstances musr
",
"ã-ii'rt
and without the
evidence,
of
r"d
fact without benefit .iìil Gt t"r, ,t
it is hard
such evidence')r
hope of ever obtaininl
"nt
any meaningful investiGiven the sf,eer i*p.ttúi,V tf conducting
agenÌ could have done
art
not
or
gation into the qoestio" of whether
when they ask that
doing
are
they
otherwise, *nu. .un-p"ople think
themselves to be asking
question in particulai cases? They must take
asking a. much better
are
thtv
iight;
some other qo"r.ioî' il;
";
the unanswerable metaphvsquestion. (If a few;;;pi" i,;b"tã "tking
¡;.;;
question,about 'the-absence of
r. Ra¿b (1955) claims that the metaphysical.
peculiaritv of taking such an unanswer.;"tfr;tJ;íríá,ått"urtj;-ãnJ "ottt the
queitions unanswerable
Li¿"
able question ,.rio,rrri]hä¡ì'îã*åt
'1"^iåsuch
has anv privileged access to
aeeãt
ct¡m-tiu;:ä ä;il:tú.*.t:tttir rfiã*t
is that-such questions ought
All
is that no investigation
point
".,'i..;;;;sed.
My
not to be addressed ;;i";i"tly to. the agent'
resrs on trre
wherher or not his
.ã"fJ tn"¿ any reliable light on this'
he did? Or that he could not have done otherwise than he did? Let us
take the latter case flrst. Suppose you knew (because God told you,
presumably) that whenJones pulled ¡1¡s ¡¡igger and murdered his wife at
time /, he could nothave done otherwise. That is, givenJones'microstate
at t a¡d the complete microstate of Jones'environment (including the
gravitational effects of distant stars, and so on) at t, Íro other Jonestrajectory was possible than the trajectory he took. If Jones were ever
put back into exactly that state again, in exactly that circumstance, he
would pull the trigger again. And if he were put in that state a million
times, he would pull the trigger a million times.
Now if you learned this, would you have learned anything about
Jones? \Øould you have learned anything about his character, for instance, or his likely behavior on merely similar occasions? No. Although
people are physical objects which, Iike atoms or ball bearings or bridges,
obey the laws of physics, they are not only more complicated than anything else we know in the universe, they are also designed to be so
sensitive to the passing show that they never can be in the same microstate twice. One doesn't even have to descend to the atomic level to
establish this. People learn, and remember, and get bored, and shift their
attention, and change their interests so incessantly, that it is as good as
infinitely unlikely that any persón is ever in the same (gross) þsycbological
or cognitiue state on two occasions. And this would be true even if we
engineered the surrounding environment to be "utterly the same" on
different occasions-ì{ only because the second time around the agent
would no doubt think óomething that went unthought the first time, like
"Oh my, this all seems so utterly familiar; now what did i do last time?"
(see chapter two, page 33)
There is some point in determining how a bridge is caused to react
to some very accurately specified circumstances, since those may be
circumstances it will actually encounter in its present rtate o^ a future
occasion. But there would be no payoff in understanding to be gained by
determining the micro-causation of the behavior of a human being in
some particular circumstance, since he will certainly never confront that
micro-circumstance again, and even if he did, he would certainly be in a
significantly different reactive state at the dme.
Learning (from God, again) that a particular agent was not thus
"Could Have Done Otherwise" r39
r38 EIBO\ü ROOM
equally idle, from the
determined to act would be learning something
we
páit, view of character """""'""t or planning for the future'.As no
flexible'
io* in"f.n"p,er five, the undetermined agent will be no rnore
than
reformable'
rnore
no
nuances'
to
more versatile, no more sensitive
his
--- deterministic cousin.
or nor one
is interested at all in the question of whether
ì;if
(and
inter""yone
circumstances
same
the
exactþ
could have done otherwise in
curiositypure
metaphysical
partitulady
a
,rJ ,.u,.¡, this will have to be
in any ulterior
iiu. i, ,o ,"y, a curiosity ,o poi" as to be utterly lacking any
noticeable
make
conceivably
not
cåuld
rnotive, since the unr*",
went'2
wodd
difference to the way the
vast'differ\ühy, though, does it still seem as if there ought to be a
point,
between
vantage
human
ordinary
errce, someho*lriribl" from the
we
which
in
world
a
and
otherwise
do
not
a world in which we could
we are
;.Jdt Vhy should determinism still seem so appalling? Perhaps.
which we
øeternitatis"'in
"suù
specie
image,
*irf"¿ by tire God's-eye-view
out fro.m birth to
rpy ;;; own life-traiáctories in space and,time-.laid
"space-time
á."tt in a single, fixed, rigid, unbrånching' four-dimensional(Causation'
in
move'
to
unable
and
fubtit
*ãrÀ," pinnãd to the'.Ãrl
(Mackie r974)'
Hu*é', nna metaphor, is "the cernent of the universe"
like a fossil
trapped
cuncfete,
in
cdst
as
lives
so perhaps we see oor e,,tire
in ihe unchanging slab of space-time')
us that we can
\Øhat *" *o.tt¿ like, it seems, is for someone to show
confusion; if we feel this yearning
moae øboøtin that mediuÁ. But this is a
we
we have forgotten that time is one of the dimensions
it is because
is scanning
h"* ,putiulized in oo, iÃage' Scanning from left to right
a single
captures
image
our
of
slice
iertical
a
üo* pur, to future, and
be able to
moment in time. To have elbow room in that medium-to
for
;iggl" and squirm irr-bet*etn the frxed points of birth and death
in an undetermined
instance-would not be to have the power to choose
dt one time'
*"V, Urr, to have the power to choose two or more courses
To have
too?
it
eat
and
cake
our
have
Is that what we *rn,-to
both to pull the trigger
chosen both to marry and to remain unmarried,
and to drop the gun? If that is the variety of free will we want, then
whether or not it might be worth wanting, we can be quite confrdent that
it must elude us-unless, perhaps, we adopt Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which case it just might follow that
we do lead a zillion lives (though our many alter egos, alas, could never
get together and compare notes)!
If we let go of that fantasy and ask what we really, soberly want, we
find a more modest hope: while there are indeed times when we would
give anything to be able to go back and undo something in the past, we
recognìze that the past is closed for us, and we would gladly settle for an
"open future." But what would an open future be? A future in which our
deliberation is effeciive: a future in which if I decide to do ,4 then I will
do Á, and if I decide to do B then I will do B; a future in which-since
only one future is possible-the only possible thing that can happen is
the thing I decide in the end to do.
z. V{/høt'V(e Care About
If it is unlikely then that it
matters whether or not a person could have
done otherwise (when we look microscopically closely at the causation
involved) what is the other question that.we are really interested in when
we ask "but could he have done otherwise?"
Of¡ce more I am going to use the tactic of first answering a simpler
question about simpler entities. Consider a similar question that might
arise about our deterministic robot, the Mark r Deterministic Deliberator. By hypothesis, it lives its entire life as a deterministic machine
on a deterministic planet, so that whatever it does, it could not have done
otherwise, if we mean that in the suict and metaphysical sense of those
words that philo\ophers have concentrated on. Suppose then that one
fine Martian daylit makes a regrettable mistake; it concocts and executes
a scheme that destroys something valuable-another robot, perhaps. I
am not supposing, for the moment, that it can regret anything,s but just
that its designers, back on Earth, regret what it has done, and frnd themselves wondering a wonder that might naturally be expressed: could
it
haae d.one othenuise?
z.Nozick(r98r,p.3r3)claimsthatweall.want..originativevalue,''buttheonly
(on*his-attalysis) conditions that
*hictíiäîould have this are
ãå^å"¿ ,r,ä å.."ptvrilJ reading of "could
conditions ,rrrd"r
have done otherwise":
öä;ü
..\üüewantittobetruethat.inthatverysamesituationwecouldtravedone
will have originative value." Once
<"g.inäriiyl ãtn.r*iJi ," .f,"i our actións
mt'ch about (if Nozick is
care
we
something
again, is it plausible
'o case? Put another wav' if
"räiirt"t
the
be
tt
kntã
ä;iä';;;;
;
rieht) is something
care about having originative
originative *r"lo" ,"q.,i-,"îìi'it,-*rtv *o"ld anyone
value?
They know it is a deterministic system, of course, so they know
better than to ask the metaphysical question. Their question concerns
the design of the robot; for in the wake of this regrettable event they may
3. Just because, for tbis pulpose, I can coasider a relatively simple robot. A
robot that was self-made in the manner of the self-made selves of chapter four
would be capable (I would claim) of regret.
"Could Have Done Otherwise" Í4r
r4o ELBOW ROOM
sort
of event less likely in the
wish to redesign it slightly, to make this
know, of course' is what-information the
future.a \(/hat they ;;;';
planning it did' and whether it
robot was relying o,,;îiut '"u'oníng or
or planning' Of cou¡se in one
did "enough" of the right sort of reaõning
,,enough,, ,n;'V'Lrã* ,tre robot ãid tto, do enough of the right
sense of
done the right thing' But it mav be
sort of thing; if i, h"d, it;;i¿t'uut
not really be improved' For it
that the robot's a"rign-i" this case could
of optimally designed heuristic
may be that it *", -"Lin, åp'i*A use
the heuristic chances it took didn't
procedures-but this ti*"i "åf"tftily'
in the future'"t1:111n:
pay
off. Put the ,oVo:-iÃ-^'¡*¡tor situation
'?-t:
-*ára
nurnber generator rs ln a
,t un the fact that its pseudotrandom
in fact it will usuallv do the
different srate, ir *i[ ;;:;#,hing different;
the right thing on this
done
right thing. t, i, t".rrpJig i" "¿à' íí could'have
that time'
designed'.at
enough
well
òccasion-meaning Uv-t"nJ'tt"t it was
Its failure
impugned)'
not
is
to have done the tignl tititg tits
';h""character"
(and
undesigned'
something
that,
fact
depended on nothing;;
a way that made
unanticipatabt") n^pp"-o"d
à int"*"nt
in the process in
an unfortunate difference'
yield the "righr" or.soughtA heuristic prograrn1, nor guaranteedto
than others; when one
better
are
after result' So*" n"ot¡tic prJgrams
as assignable to some
failure
fails, it may be p"ttiUf. to ãi"tnot" the
best are not foolproof'
the
But even
characteristi. *"ukne" in its design'
must' there may be no-reason at all
and when they fail, as they sometimes
was just one of -those things'
for the failure: Coi"-Þátter would say' it
",
Suchfailure,u,"no.theonlycasesoffailuresthatwill..count''for
*1"'" the system "could have done othetwise'"to Ifa
the designer,
"r.u,"-' robot's failure' on this occasion' was due
they discover that the
''i"t
tã*"it"w drifted into a place where it could
"freak" bit of dust
this was such an unlikely event
disrupt the systern, tft"v *"y decide that
to guard against its recursystem
that there is no call to '"då'ig" the
case, their robot could
rence.r They will note that, in Jre micro_-particulai
(by rernotesr possibility) it ever
not have done orheãiã'rrror"ouer, if
agaín, ii would fail agait'
found itself in exøctþ the same .ir.rr*rtun."
in the performance of a communication4. "'Ve are scarcely ever interested
t". i,r.,ction adequately it must give a
engineering machine ?å;"ï;i;'-piì
of inputs' and this means a statistically
satisfactory p.rto.*"*î fä'"" iño-Ë"t"ts
ít ictt it is statistically expected to
inpors
of
satisfactory p"rror*"nlã iã, it . ]"*
receive." 6{rienet r948, P' 55)
îo
event of this genetal t!þe; there Ls
i. Strictly speaking, the recurrence of-a¡
evãnt (something logicallv
p"t,i."f.t
of_the
need to guard against'il.;.;;r;;.e
''ñ"
;"*;;;;t" of an ãvent.of exa'ctb the sarne type (someimoossible), o,
"g¡n"impossible)'
thing ttomologically
But the designers will realize that they have no rational interest in doing
anything ,o i*pro.r"- the design of the robot' It faited on the occasion'
but its ãesign is nevèrtheless above reproach. There is a difference be-
tween beinloptimally designed and being,infallible. (See chapter seven.)
Consiãer yet another sort of case. The robot has a ray gun that it
fires with 99.9 percent accuracy. That is to say' sometimes' over long
distances, ir faiú to hit the target it was aiming at. \ühenever it misses'
the engineers want to know something about the miss: was it.due to
will keep
some lystenzøtic error in the controls, some foible or flaw that
"acts
of God"
those
of
things-one
those
of
comirri up, or was it iust one
designed
optimally
of
an
execution
in whiãh,-in spite of an irreproachable
aiming routirie, the thing iust narrowly missed? There will always be such
to keep them to a minimum-consistent with costeffeetiveneis of course. Beyond a certain point, it isn't worth caring
cases;-the goal is
about errors. Quine
(r
96o, pp' r 8z and 259) notes that engineers have 'a
.Àn."p, of mðre than pasiing philosophical interest: the concept of
.,don'tlcares"-¡þs cases that one is rational to ignore. \Øhen they are
say:
satisfied that a particular miss was a don't-care, they may shrug and
hit"'
a
"rVell, it could have been
\Øhat cqncerns the engineers when they encounter misperformance
in their roboùis whether oi no, the misperformance is a telling one: does
reveal soráething about a parrern of systematic weakness, likely to
recur, or an inappropriate and inauspicious linking between sorts of
roitr of reactions? Is this sort of thing apt to happen
circurhstance,
"nJ
again, or was it due ro rhe coincidental convergence of fundamentally
iãdependent factors, highly unlikely to recur? To get evidence about this
they ignore the micro-details, which will never be the same again in any
.urå, Ãd just average over them, analyzingthe robot into a finite array of
are
møcroscopically deñned states' organized in such a way that there
quesThe
system.
the
of
freedom
of
degrees
various
the
links berween
tion they then ask is this: are the links the right links for the task?6
it
of
has pointed out to me that in queuing theory,, a branch
numbers
random
common
the
called
method
a
is
th'ere
research,
;;;;;",
in running simulations of queuing systems to see
iå.frniq"", used on occasion
conditions. In the
i;;;Ëllih;y respond ro ,,random" variation in their operaring
on.the æry sarne
parruneters
design
the
of
;;.;;ñ;.-;;" iãirt ãiff...nt settings
investigation
an-experimental
in
effect,
;;;;;;;r-;f ;;;;ii_ü"ào* "o*bers.TÉisis,
it exøctly rhe
systems
different
slightly
drives
test
*t
i];nãrriÉf!-*..1¿r,"'comf"res
"r.o"etheir performances. For some purposes this is a
."r"ï*.rl¿s, "nd
and weaknesses than the more
¡îåî"¡iv Àìie ierrsiti*,Ë tesr of relaùve strengths
are
í.¿lr,i.'ri-"lation, in which the different models are test driven onofwhat
;;;;.õt.Jy;ãin"r"nr, È"t "practically" indisdnguishable.batches random
numberi. In t-heoredcal work in queuing theory, the assump-
6. Shaler Stidham
oipr""ã"lr"odóm
"Could Have Done Otherwise" t4i
r42
ELBO\í ROOM
it may "in
(wherever
This rationale for ignoring micro-determinism
ñne distinctions
such
blur
to
enough
principle" exist) and toTi"îtl;"st
b",::t-Itd ^
.can
into probabilisticallv ;;;ä"t;"t"s and-region¡ that
particularly
science'
in
onp'oblematic
homogeneou, i, .1."', Jåli*, u"J
(See \üiener ry48 and
in engineering and bi;lú' as we hu* '""n' that this is also iust the
'rüØimsatt r98o.) Th"t ã;;;;ot *t""' of course'
*i1a*ing if they have acted
we
right way to think of people, when
.1ttor tt'
,Ãpotttibty. But there is a lot to be satd
Vhy do we ask'¿;;ld
he have done otherwise?" \üe ask
wish to interpret'
something f,", nupp"n"ã that we
performed, and we
because
act has been
;äì;;;"t:'0, 1:::l"iï'tr:
*11'J:1',';
we want to
;eaning we should.attach to it' That is'
:;ä;i,;;i;1"t
know what
'{n
it
Does it tell us
corrclosionï;-ãr; from it about the future'
fu: tlt-t::::1,3fr3+;35#
the uge"ft
.character'
"rr,fritg "Uout
Ëffi
n",
äiikåni*",trË,*å#;WËfi
on¡insilar
*ir,i,
¡-o--up-ha'"-ç-similar'lv
È"
or is not
i,
hange d
but
.i:':öi Ë;þä'f.-t-.g
"t "s;;î;l;lä
"ot¡"¿
ht'' n*ãit" lo stant'
i; ; ; iid
alrnost
he
would
c
n
maior-ways'
the circumstances rn'-minor-or even
thlng? lüías what we have iust
of
always do the ,"*"'f"*""i"bt" 'o't
nd-a trend
.;;;;l;;anifestatio.n oÍ a "robus r" tre variety of
interestingly wide
that persists, or is constant' over an
conditions?7
this rational"'it .Vho*ot"
\ühen the agent in question is oneself'
'":':n cøres
something dreadful'
ptainly visible. S"p;;;; ifind t have done
I found mvself' I
observed a,, fl uke,,,
and state of mind
whether, in exactlv;;;;;;ces
do something else, and it's too
didn't
r
could have ¿or," ,oåãi'i-ng lir"¡
do I
I go to interpret what I did' what
late to undo what t ãia't B-ut v¡hen
is known
:öüt;.
i';;-",,ln,to¿ot'orv
*h"
^tto*ption
account' see Fishman re73'
of
stochastic
:.Weareinterestedintrendsandflukesinbothdirections(praiseworthyand
**-lott kidding-himself' that his
resretted).
If
we had
Jideri;ìh"t
Luther
of his
so stalwart"'we might
to*it-ope'áiãittcid"nã"' oot
aooarentlv staunch *",,o î"'^"ioitif
moral strerrgth would btää;äitit1tåa;
i"i, Tirä .-å-irJ welt have done otherwise'"
"rrtinot
g. I sometimes wonder if part of rhe subliminal
sense
or
appear of."radical freedom"
the past (dammit)' but
"contra-causal" ft""¿o*iftäot¿ï-thtt;ï;un't-ãfunet
l*0" .,l^s'-it'or'r'à feel better
nlt
I'd feel better about n,,:iiti't"t'ii;;i;î;to'ä"
cosmic slip for which I was
of
sort
ì;; a
are
about myself if t t"""'åîìil
indeterm¡nlsm
and
claimed that responsibility
tvÞrresponsible'" lt-fras otteîbäen
i2l+ and Aver rq:¿)' The argument
.**pË]iïtu*t
it be
incompatible tto,
might
But
r
5'
n""
cally offered is fattacioulä it-#;ìt-#;
'g1u''íl^Þ'er
learn about myself,i Ought I to practice the sort of maneuver I botched,
in hopes of-making it more reliable, less vulnerable to perturbation, or
would that be wasted effort? \)Øould it be a good thing, so far as I can tell,
for me to ffy to adjust my habits of thought in such sorts of cases in the
futr .re?
Knowing that I will always be somewhat at the mercy of the considerations that merely happen to occur to me as time rushes on, knowing
that I cannot entirely control this process of deliberation, I may take
steps to bias the likelihood of certain sorts of considerations routinely
"coming to mind" in certain critical situations. For instance, I might try to
cultivate the habit of counting to ten in my mind before saying anything
at all about Ronald Reagan, having learned that the deliberation time
thus gained pays off handsomely in cutting down regrettable outbreaks
of.intemperate commentary. Or I might décide that no rnatter how engrossed in conversation I am, I must learn to ask mys'elf how many
glasses of wine I have had every time I see someone hovering hospitably
near my glass with a bottle. This time I made a fool of myself; if the
situation had been quite different, I certainly would have done otherwise; if .the situation had been virtually the same, I might have done
otherwis{ and I might not. The main thing is to see to it that I will j,olly
well do Jtherwise in similar 5i1üãäõns in;h;Tuture.toiäEeìõ*ard the regrettable
parts of one's recent past. It is the self-dpplied version of the engineers'
attirude toward the persisting weaknesses in the design of the robot. Of
course if I would rather find excuses than improve myself, I may dwell on
the fact that I don't bøue to "take" responsibility for my action, since I can
always imagine a more fine-grained standpoint from which my predicament looms larger than I do. (If you make yourself really small, you can
externalize virtually everything.)
In chapter seven I will say more about the rationale for being generous with one's self-ascriptions of responsibility. But for now I will just
draw attention to a fanilar sort of case in which we hover in the vicinity
of asking whether we really could have done otherwise, and then (wisely)
back off. One often says, after doing something awful, "I'm terribly
sorry; I simply never thought of the consequences; it simply didn't occur
to me what harm I was doing!" This looks almost like the beginning of an
s¡¡çsss-"Çan I help it what occurs to me and what doesn't?"-but
healthy self-controllers shun this path. They tøke responsibility for what
might be, very likely is, just an "accident," just one of those things. That
that this presumed incompatibility of responsibility and "contra-causal freedom"
is, secretly, just what attracts some people to contra-causal freedom?
"Could Have Done Otherwise" t45
r44 ELBO\ü ROOM
way, rhey make rhemselves less likely to be 'laccident" victims in the
future.
'Vorms
3. The Can of
The chance of the
quantum-theoretician is not the
ethical freedom of the
Augustinian, and Tyche is as
relentless a mistress as
Ananke.-Norbert Wiener (t948,
P 4e)
These edifying reflections invire one 6nal skeptical thrust: "You paint a
rose picture of self-controllers doing the besçbe+raqto improve.their.
char-acters, but qrhat s-e¡lE-canie¡nade"ofuth{¿¡¿tlsig",gPlT?êterminism is
.crríãf¿içmt*;;ãã happen is the onlv thing that cøn happen!' As
van Inwagen (tg7 5,Pp. 49-50) says, "To deny that men have free will is
ro assefr that what a man does do and what he cøn do coincide." In a
deterministic world what sense could we make of the exhortation to do
the best we can? It does seem to us rhat sometimes people do less well
than they are able to do. How can we make sense of this? If determinism
is true, and ¿/this means that the only thing one can do is what one does
in fact do, then without even trying, everyone will always be doing his
very best-and also his very worsr. unless there is some room between
the actual and the possible, some elbow room in which to maneuver, we
judgment
can make no sense of exhortation. Not only that: retrospective
will it
only
and assessment are also apparently rendered pointless. Not
be as
will
be rrue that everyone always does his best, but every thing
will
be
good as it can be. And as bad. Dr. Pan-gloss, the famous optimist,
PangJoss
rignt: it is the best of all possible worlds. But his nemesis, Dr.
th-e pessimist, will sigh and agree: it ¿i the best of all possible woddsand it couldn't be worse!9 As the philosophers' saying goes, "ought"
..ç¿¡"-sys¡ in domains having nothing whatever to do with free
implies
will and moral resPonsibilitY.
Even if we afe right to abandon allegiance to the "could have done
otherwise" principle as a pferequisite of responsible action, there is the
residual prãblem laccording to the incompatibilists) that under deter-
minism, we can never do anything but what we in fact do' As Slote
,,this irself seems a sufûcient challenge to deeply entrenched
observes,
and cherished beliefs to make it worthwhile to see whether the recent
g. The wandering
,g" in "Pangloss"
was pointed out to me by Hofstadter (who
áko noted ttrat'Ëlbãw room" is alno¡t "more wobble" backward)'
arguments can be attacked at some point before the conclusion that all
actions are necessriry." (Slote r982, p. g). But the challenge is even more
unpalatable than Slote claims.
If the incompatibilists were right about us, it would be because they
we. e right about everything: under determinism notbing can do anything
other than what it in fact does. The conclusion must be that in a deterministic wodd, since an atom of oxygen that never links up with any
hydrogen atoms is determined .never to link up with any hydrogen
atoms, it is physically iruþossible for it to link up with any hydrogen atoms.
In what sense, then, could it be rue that it, like any oxygen atom, can
link up with two hydrogen atoms?
Ayers callq this-:hreatened implication of determinism "actualism"-qrtlíiñ-é actual is possjþ-ieìAyers r968, p. 6) Something is surely
is so wronjthat it is highly unlikely
wiong *msm
that its falsehood can be padayed into aredactio øà absørdam of determinism. The argument would be disconcertingly short: this oxygen atom has
valence 2; therefore it can unite with two hydrogen atoms to fo¡m a
molecule of water (it cøn right now, whether or not it does); therefore
determiqism is false. There are impressive arguments from physics that
lead to the conclusion that determinism is false-but this isn't one of
the^. /
Hume speaks of "a certain looseness" we want to exist in our wodd.
(Treøtise,II, III, z, Selby-Bþe ed., p. +o8) This is the looseness that
prevents the.possible from shrinking tightly around the actual, the
looseness presupposed by our use of the word "can." !(/e need this
looseness for many things, so we need to know what "can" means, not
just for our account of human freedom, and for the social sciences, but
for our account of biology, engineering (see chapter three), and in fact
any field that relies signifrcantly on statistics and probability theory.
rü(/hat could the biologist mean, for instance, when speaking of some
feature of some species as better than some other "possible" feature? If
the generally adaptive trend of natural selection is to be coherently
described-let alone explained-we must often distinguish a design selected as better (or as no better) than other "possible" designs that selection has spurned.l0 Biologisrs assure us that unicorns are not only not
actual; they are impossible-as impossible as mermaids. (It has some-
ro. See, for instance, Sober's interesting article, "The Evolution of Rationality"
(Sober r98r, p. r ro), where he speaks of "a selection Process in which many
possible endowments were simply not represented." Note that the denial of
adaptationism, just as much as its assertion, presupposes the coherence of assumptions about possibility. (On the risks and benefits of adaptationism, see
Dennett rg8¡b.)
"Could Have Done Otherwise" r47
146 ELBO\ü ROOM
for a single, centhing to do with the violation of bilaterality required
that there are
us
assure
also
biologists
,.r.ã frotn, I gather') But the
never.willprobably
and
yeiexisted'
ã"nv portiûle ipecies that haven't
giraffes'
blotchless
or
say'
eating'
shortJegged, fat horses good only-for
appear'
ever
variations
possible
Only'ila sÃall portion of the
possible
prob"Liliry .n.ãry, it t"k" it that a coin toss has two
outcomes: heads or tails'
envisage as
when witnessing the toss of a coin, x will normally up and that
heads
land
will
coin
the
ttrt
ptïriurv t.,r. ,nåyþt
may also envisage.other possibilities-e.g.,
it wi[ únd t¡n oí.'ge "ri,
granted even the
its landing o" irr''"ãgã. HáÇ"o.r, if helakes for
as impossible
out
rule
will
crudest folklore .i-åã¿.i" physícs, he
of Alpha
direction
the
in
,p"."
the coin,s *o*rirrg ,rf*"rã ," oo,.,
(Levi
rgSo' P. ¡)
Centauri.
claims about what things
Everywhere one looks, one frnds reliance on
possible' and what is impossible
can be in what states' what outcomes are
but not togicøtly impossible (self-contradictory)'
Ifthiselusivesenseof..can''hasnothingparticulartod-owithz'genry,
itneverthelessrnakesitappearancevividlyinthatarea'In..IfsandCans,''
of criticisms of the attempt to defrne
.Austin (1961) off.r, u fuåäus series
.,could have done o,i.r*ir." as ,,would have done otherwise if . . ." for
objections to this strategy
t;;i""t different ñllings of the blank' Austin's
(see especially
philosophers
.rä.ired by several
have been
and criti"utv
obiections
those
Cfrirtotrn, ry6qa). Bormore important than
is
philosophers,
frôm
of ¿ttention
cisms, which h"ue rec"i*r" d
^greãtdeal
(in
footone
dismissal
too influential
.Austin's abrupt, on^rg,r"d,
"U promising approach to the residual'
"ãd
most
aside)?túe
one
note and
frog4y problem.
plausibility' for ex.ausdn nores in passing that "There is some
succeed in doing
'I
shall
ample, i¡r the suggestiå,' thul'I can do X'means
succeeded in
have
X, if I try,' and 'I could have done X' means 'I should
the
dismisses
footnote
ãätg i,'ir I had tried'"'But a famous long
suggestionl
where I miss a very
Plausibility, but no more' Consider the case
I. could have holed it' It is not
;ú;;õñ;'d il[ '"vq"¡r¡"gus,e
n"¿ uied: I did try, and.missed. It is
that I should #;;t¿ãîili
had been different: that
if
nor thar Lr,o"lii"u-"- r,.iåJii conditions
conditions as they
about
i
am_talking
might of .oorrä il';;ñ;
it' There is the
precisely *"r",-u,iJ^'iåtting that I coulJhave holed
hole it this
shall
I
thar
rub. Nor does r-.ã, nór" iíthis dme'mean
yet not be
and
miss'
and
try
mav
I
for
time if I ,rv o, iiuöirtiãg tlt"'
experiments
further
convinced,r,", i.oiiã nãt n"u" done it; indeed,
may confirm my belief that'I could have done it that time, although
I
did not.
But if I tried my hardest, say, and missed, surely there nzust have
been sonetbing that caused me to fail, that made me unable to succeed? So that I could not have holed it. \üell, a modern belief in
science, in there being an explanation of everything, may make us
assent to this argument. But such a belief is not in line with the
traditional beliefs enshrined in the word can: accordítg to ihem, a
human ability or power or capacity is inherently liable not to produce success, on occasion, and that for no reason (or are bad luck
and bad forrn sometimes reasons?). (p. 166)
But then what should give way, according to Austin-"a modern
belief in science" or the "traditional beliefs enshrined in the word can"?
,{ustin does not say, and leaves the impasse unresolved. The impasse is
an illusion; modern science needs the sarne "can" that traditional beliefs
about human ageîcy need. And what must give is Austin's insistence that
he was J'talking about conditions as they precisely were." As we have
seen, thele is never any purchase to be gained by talking about microprecise cónditions; when we talk about what someone-or somethingcan do we are always interested in something general.
This point is made well by Honoré (tg6+), in a seldom-cited critical
commentary on Austin's paper. Honoré proposes that we distinguish
between two senses of "can": "can" (particular) and "can" (general)-and
notes that the particular sense is almost degenerate: it "is almost equivalent to 'will' and has predictive force." (p. +6+) In the past tense, particular "carÌ'is only appropriate for describing success: "Thus 'I could see
you in the undergiowth'is properly said only when I have succeeded in
seeing you."
Success or failure, on the assumption that an effort has been or will
be made, is the factor which governs the use of the notion: if the
agent tried and failed, he could not do the action: if he tried and
succeeded, he was able to do it. (Honoré tg64, p. +6+)
The more useful notion is "caû" (general), which in the case of an
agent imputes skill or ability, and in the case of an inanimate thing,
imputes the sort of potentiality discussed in chapter five (for example,
the different states that something can be in). But as we saw then, that
sense of "can" is a manifestly eþistemic notion; that is, it is generated by
any self-controlling planner's need to partition the world into those
things and their "states" that are all possible-þr'all-it-hnows,
Philosophical tradition distinguishes several varieties of possibility.
Âmong them:
(a) losicøl or "alethic" possibility: the complement of logical impos-
r48 ELBO\r RooM
"Could Have Done Otherwise" t4g
describable; it
sibility; something is logically possible if it is consistently
irlrú"rrv possible ,nuJtn".é i-s a unicorn in the garden, but (if the bioloiigrtO i, is not biologicallv or phvsicallv possible'
;stí;.
"-- - (U) piysialor "nomic" õossibility: something is physically possible
(nonos :
if it àoes ntt violate the lawi of physics or the laws of nature
i"*, in Greek). tt is physically impossible to travel faster than the speed
contradicting
or tLn,, even though on" ."n describe such a feat without
oneself.
(c)
ep is
possible /o r J ones
temic possibility: something is epistemically
So epistemic
if it ìs .ãnsirtenl with everything Jones akeady þnows' unlike
logical
porriUili.v is generally vie*ei us iob¡etti*'e and relative'
;;d ;;tí"1 i'ossibiliiv, which are deemed. entirelv obiective'11
It is customary in piilorophical discussions of free will ro distinguish
it as of no further
epistemic possibility from its kin, and then dismiss
the briefest. After
inrerest in that contexr.12 Austin's dismissal is one of
a third sense,
considering rwo other senses of "could have," he mentions
.
inwhichsense.Icouldhavedonesomething-different'means.I
beforehand' have done
*ign,, for all arryone could know for certain
,could have' might, I think,
;;å;,hi;g diffeief This tr,ird kind of
,could' being used incorrectly for.'might':
be held to be a uoljrrir*,
(Austin r 96 r ,
but in any case we íhdt ,,o, be concernád with it here.
p'2c7)
it is
It is a shame that philosophers have not beerì concerned with it' for
of
notion
useful
The
"can."
.ir" t to the resãlutio' of the riddle about
.,can,,,"vthe notion that is relied upon not only in personal planning and
possibility-and with it,
deliúeration, but also in science, is a concept of
are,
ãi lã,r^", interdefrned conceprs of impossibility and necessity-that
"epistemic'"
contrary to first appearances, fundamentally
AsSlotepointsoutinhispioneeringarticle,..SelectiveNecessity
andFree\üill''(Slotery}z),thesortsofconceptsofnecessityandpossiprinciples from
bility relied upon in thÁe contexts obey different modal
is
particular, such necessity
rhe corr."pt ol"classical" alethic necessity. In
;,uggtå*erarive," by which Slote means closed with respect to connoi
rr.
rz.
and qualifications'
See Hacking r975 for important complications
(van Inwage.n 1983' pp'
See, for example, van Inwagen's brief paragraph
ro), and ,{yers,much
rhe bank is not an accident, since he always goes there on SØednesday
morning as paft of his job; and Jim's being there is also no accident, since
he has been sent by his superior. ThatJules is at L at úme I is no accideirt;
that Jim is at L at time / is no accident. But that Jules is at L at úme t and
Jim is at L at time t-tbat is an accident. (Slote r982, esp' pP. r5-r7)
This is apparently accidentality or coincidentality from-a-límitedpoint-of-view. \üe imagine that if we knew much, much more than Jules
andJim together know, we would have been able to predict their convergence at the bank; to as, their meeting would have been "no accident'"
But this is nevertheless just the concept of accidentality we need to
describe the "independence" of a thing's powers or abilities from the
initial con{itions or background conditions in which those powers are
exercised. tor instance, it is no accident that this particular insect has just
the evasivê flight pattern it does have (for it was designed by evolution to
have that pattern). And it is no accident that the predatory bird that
catches that insect has the genes it does (for it too was designed to have
those genes). But it is an accident-happy for the bird and its progeny,
unhappy for the insect-that a bird with iust those genes caught just that
evasive insect. And out of thousands of such happy accidents better
birds-and better i¡¡5sç¡5-çsrne to be designed' Out of a conspiracy of
accidents, by the millions, comes the space of "possibility" within which
selection can occur.
The eminent biologist, Jacques Monod, describes the importance
for evolution of chance, or what he calls "absolute coincidence" (Monod
r972, Þ. ttzff.), and illustrates absolute coincidence with an example
strikingly like Slote's:
Suppose that Dr. Brown sets out on an emergency call to a new
patiènt. In the meantime Jones the contractor's man has started
making emergency repairs on the roof of a nearby building. A's Dr.
Brown walks past the building, Jones inadvertently lets go of his
hammer, whose (deterministic) trajectory happens to intercept that
of the physician, who dies of a fractured skull. lVe say he was a
victim of chance. (p. r r+)
9-
uppio".ñ, *ttiètt-begins.: "Discussions of
are
especiallv as thèi occur in the freewill controversy'
;;;; .ñi;;r
;ã;à-;;ientialitv,
the related notions of
fairly haunted uv .t. ,ioìiånãl.pirt"*i. po-ssibility, and
This is not mere
unpredictability.
and
;;;;ä;,y ;;t",í..rr¡riv,-prediciabit_ity
.ãnfosión . . ." (Avers rp68, pp' reff')
junction introduction.13 Slote illustrates the concept with an example of
an 'accidental" meeting: Jules happens to meet his friend Jim at the
bank; he thinks it is a happy accident, as indeed it is. But Jules' being at
13. slote overlooks the possibility that the form of "selective necessity"
he
dãscribes is in fact disguisedly epistemic. But he offers a variety of observations
which lead in that direction. Schotch and Jennings (r98o) offer several philosophical reasons for doubting rhe universal appeal of full aggfegatior. o¡.agglomeråtion principles in modal logic, but miss the most compelling cases, which Slote
Presents.
"Could Have Done Otherwise" t5t
r5o
ELBOW ROOM
But when Monod comes
to defrt'e the conditions under which
feasible ølgorithn, even though in þrinciple (as a philosopher would note)
such
it
always yields the correcr answer.
But all is not lost. Rabin and others have developed so-called random algorithms, which rely in extremely counterintuitive ways on ran-
the actualist trap. Accicoincidences can occur, he apparently falls into
acciá""it *"t, happen if evolutioì is to take place' Monod says' andworld,
ã;;;; ."" hapþn_,.Unless of course we go back to Laplace's
Dr' Brown has
irom which .frun." is excluded by definition and where
of time'"
beginning
the
since
ever
U""n fu,"¿ ,o die underJones'hammer
(p. r-ifiít"place's
''- r:)
world" means just a deterministic world, then Monod is
It does
wrong. Natural selection does not need "absolute" coincidence. ptace; k needs
,rot ,rãed "essential" randomness or perfect independenc
andJules
andJones,
Brown
by
exhibited
sort
the
ticøl índependence-of
intersect'
to
happening"
'just
but
traiectory
own
Ji*, .".h on his
j¡rg-happen"nJ
iir.ãir'.cardsbeinede¡e¡miñLethshcffl-ç3J9-e-d9ç¡<-99{
õol"tio" oiã"iî" a déterministic world,
iä,.
;ti;if;ij;;;*"¿å
i;;: i;t
il'ã'ø;;d
*n"re
what evolution
murarion was caused by a nonrandom process?
requires is an unpatterned generator. of raw
efmaterial, not an on."or"d gå"'u'o' of raw material' QuantumJevel
a
such
but
¡;;;; ;y indeed play arol" in the generation of mutations'
role is ,råt ,"qnirãd bY theorY'14
the
It is not clear that "genuine" or "obiective" randomness of either
incomqourr,o*--"chanical ,oi, ot of the mathematical' informationally
process, or detectable þV a process'
iressible sorr is ever required by a
proof that there is no decision proiCt ¡.ir, (r916) presents a Gödelian
random')
cedure for determining whether a ìeries is mathematically
can
randomness
Even in mathematics, *h"," the concept of obiective
be
might
what
of
ãnd critical application within proofs, th"'" utt cases
called practical indistinguishability'
theory, the Fermat-Lagrange Theorem states that every
In number
natural number is the sum of four perfect squares:
n:N2+y'+22+w2
finding the values for
The theorem is easy enough to prove' I gather' but
is a straightfor*, i, ,, a¡d w for a gfiren"n is a tediouslusiness' There
by simple
values
i.bru,"
for.e,'ägorithm that will always frnd the
láã,
requiring'
of
property
but it has the alarming
trial and
"ñor,
"*À"or,iu"
Thus' for a natural 1u1b9r as small
terminate'
tr.ptlá
on the avetage,z"
,n" algårithm could not be expected to find the answer
,"y,
"oll,
the iargon calls a
"r,
úËforå',n" n."t d""ih of the universe. It is not what
and
14. Monod's very interesting discussion^(see,esp' ÞÞ'77-8o
rrr-rr7)
is
this
."l,ni.ää.-?r'irìãi'r. see_alsoitrã-valuable discussionandofchaAlmost-Periodic,
question in vimsatt ,;ã",';r;:;å.,i.n 3,..periodic,
in Simpíe trioãätr of nopúiution Growth and Regulation."
ä;;;;;î;rd
otic Behavior
domization. One such aþrithm has been discovered by Rabin for
finding values for the Fermat-Lagrange theorem. It is not logically
guaranteed to find the rþht answer any faster rhan rhe brute force algorithm, but its exþected termination time (with the right answer) is only
(Iog n)3 steps, a manageably small number even for large values of n. The
probabi{ity of a much longer or much shorter termination time drops off
so steeçlly as to be entirely negligible. The formal proof that this is its
expectéd termination time makes essenrial menrion of the invocarion of
random sequences in the algorithm.
Question: in the actual world of hardware compurers, does it make
any difference whether the computer uses a genuinely random sequence
or a pseudo-random sequence? That is, if one wrote Rabin's program ro
run on a compurer that didn't have a radium randomizer but relied
instead on a pseudo-random number generating algorithm, would rhis
cheap shortcut work? Or would artemprs to find the values for a particular n run longer than the expected number of steps in virtue of the
hidden, humanly undetectable nonrandomness of the sequence? lü(iould
the number system, in its hauteur, punish the mathematician for trying to
plumb its secrets with mere pseudo-random exploration? As ir turns out,
experience to dare has been that one can indeed get a.way with pseudorandom sequences. In the acrual runs that have been attempted, it has
made no difference.lt
But surely mere practical indistinguishabiliry, even in the limit, is
not the Real Thing-real, objective possibility. That is the inruirion we
must now examine. It is at the heart of the brusque rejection, by philosophers, of epistemic possibility as a building stone in the foundation of
free will. So-called "classical" or Newtonian physics is deterministic, but
as several physicists have recently noted, many of rhe most mundane
macroscopic phenomena in a Newtonian world would be, by Newtoniøn
þrinciþles, unpredictable by any being that fell short of being an inf.nite
Laplacean demon, for they would require infinite precision of initial
observation. That is, errors in observation, however minuscule, would
propagate and grow exponentially (Berry r983 and Ford rg8¡).
In Newtonian physics, there are stable systems (precious few of
them) and unstable or chaotic systems. "For nonchaotic systems, error
r
5. Rabin, personal communicarion, New York
April r983.
See also Rabin
pp. ¿o8-+op).
.A.cademy of Sciences meeting,
r98o andJauch r973 (discussed in Hofstadter t979,
r52 ELBO\ü ROOM
past sufflces to
propagates less rapidly and ' ' ' eu:1 a coarse-grainedinstance' may
for
Eclipses'
ã.tårãin" preciseiy a coatse'gruned future'"
,,a
is
chaotic orbit random and
uã pr"ãi.,à ..nrori"r ln adíunce. Bur
infrnite and incompressible'"
incalculable; its information content is both
(the example is Berrv's) after
i-F;i;;ã0,'p. z) The ,t"¡Lttotv of a pinball
is unpredictable in the
bumping, say, trr¡enty påsts (in afeq/ seconds)
observal¡*ií, fã' o"istripping the limits of accuracy of any imaginable
ìvhat
could it
tion devices. Now this result is surery "just epistemic."
have to do with free will?
of ¡þS-j'nractiIust this, I think: s-tlç,tlcbao¡iesv-rreml..a¡9.!h9,so,u-!ç9cal,, fbut one misht * t"ñni;lr pr-*ri.arj i.JàËä"-åèä.é -"1-ihinettr'",
"ifü"åËit;nåt"*oir".i
r"L"' ii " ptace of coàiin.'a oppöliüäìff;lp
"'ã
oli oip",,nities,-b.uç arso thöðãõf
forces on occasion
,
üåtäiñ¿*r"-und of oxygen'atoms which can joinabout
our epistemic
" ;ïh';;ä;JËï
It is not any parochial fact
systems
",o*r.
predictable
limitations ihat distinguishes the world into stable'
itself-because
world
the
and unstable, chaotic íy,t"*', it is a fact about
predicting system at all'
any
by
piedictability
*ãti¿;r
the
about
it is a fact
s.jwe-c'ount the
however powerful. Tú dtt htgLt
ns of
pe r sp e c tive o f an infr n ite b e i ng) fr q* -y hçh-¡hsjþcglde$als-et!¡sio
,äiäilft;äiååä ;..liñi
predictable trajectorieJ are !he19ry'!y'9gg9d$aÞ!9
locallv
'<-.
all too sketchy remarks ab-out
.,can" are at-L^^-^-^i
best a pointing
surface of this part of my sculpted
e"r,ir"-i"*ura ,n" nt"i, htitrttd another
area where rnuch more work
i.rr*a
the free
is
I
l
ìØhy Do We Want Free NØill?
)
It was in this'óphere then, the
sphere of legal obligations, that the
moral conceptual wodd of "guilt,"
"consciencer" "dutyr" "sacredness
of duty" had its origin; its
beginni'ngs were, like the
beginnings of everything great on
earth, soaked in blodd thoroughly
and for a long time.
On The Geneølogy of
-Nietzsche,
Morals
ald¡ggçg:no
a$Idgrlg*etle:. 11.
r -r- ^L^^-,i^ *r-^+ grounds
It is this contrast between the stable and the chaotic that of the
salie¡t features
our division of tfr" *oit¿ into the enduring and
probabilistithose features that we nzttst treat statistically or
*.rf¿,
into a blur'
them
"i¿
turning
uu"tuging over them and
cally (in effect,
of alterna"i,fr",
ensemble
or treating rhem as Lq"i-polriUle members of sorne
it is, for
division;
our
;"rt. Aä this di.,isiorr'of the world is not iust
instance,MotherNæo,e''divisionaswell'sinceforallMotherNature
paths
k;.; (or could kr;;i it is possible that these insects will cross
(sometime,so*e*h.r")withtheseinsectivorousbirds'theyhadbetter
bedesigned*ittrrom"'"t'oidancemachinery'Thisendowsthemwitha
,,can do," as slang has it) that will serve well (in
."rãrî"*er (a bit of
general).
-----fi-ùr"
1
"Ëãã,-it'it
"r
of the work' certainly' is quite beyond me'
needs to be done,
"rríto*"
right in this first' rough pass over the
But if I am even
"ppro*i-"t"ly
the investigation off of
region, the work still to be donewill at least move
,,à-1", ou"r*orked surfaces into new spaces')
r. Nihilisn
Neglected
The varieties of free will we deem worth wanting are those-if there are
any-that will secure for us our dignity and responsibility. If inspired by
some philosophical analysis, we develop a yeatning for "contra-causal
freedom" or the capacity to exhibit "agent causation,r' for instance, it is
because we have been convinced by that analysis rightly or wrongly that
just such a metaphysical blessing is a necessary condition for the sort of
free will that any responsible, dignified, moral agent must have. If it turns
out that there is no such sort of free will, the very idea of responsibility
will lose its foundation.
It is interesting that when people hit upon this suggestion, they do
not as a rule view it as the prospect of a welcome holiday, a char¡ce to do
whatever they like without running the risk of feeling-or beingguilty. One might think that the supposition that responsibility was a
baseless concept would be liberating, exhilarating, a breath of fresh air
blowing away the gloomy old dogmas of guilt and sin. But strangely
it seems that we want to be held responsible. \Øhy?
Perhaps because our dignity is threatened by the prospect that we
ourselves might not be responsible agents. But could we be wrong to feel
this way? rù(/hat is this dignity that is so special? And why should we care
enough,