Does Free Will Require Flickers of Freedom?

Say that title ten times fast.

Sometimes it feels like Free Will philosophy is one big arms race. Except, instead of building ICBMs, philosophers construct increasingly elaborate thought experiments that leave us as confused as Joe Biden gets if you flick the lights on and off real fast.

---

“Okay is Jones the guy with the gun, or the evil scientist? Who installed the microchip? The president? Why am I sweating so much?”

---

Ever since Frankfurt cases broke onto the scene, a lot of the debate has centered around whether or not they actually work as a counter example to PAP. Now, there was a lot of jargon in that last sentence, so if you’re unsure what terms like Determinism, Frankfurt cases, or Compatibilism mean, you can read the start of this beginner friendly article to get up to speed (you’ll also be treated to a picture of Fabio). From now on I’ll be assuming you know the basics.

The Flickers of Freedom response says that Frankfurt cases fail to provide a counter example to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. This is because when Jones shoots the president, he does have an alternate possibility available to him. He shot the president on his own, but he could have not shot the president on his own (i.e., been forced to shoot the president by Black). Had he been forced, we wouldn’t have held Jones responsible. In this sense, Frankfurt’s case merely illustrates a scenario where someone is morally responsible because they had an alternative readily available to them - but that’s just PAP again! Nice try, Harry, go kick rocks.

Generally, I’m pretty happy with that response. When I first read about Frankfurt cases, I couldn’t shake the feeling there was some smoke and mirrors going on. Frankfurt cases do achieve what they set out to do. Jones couldn’t have done otherwise, and yet he still seems responsible. However, Jones could have chosen otherwise (and then been forced to do the killing regardless), which I think is the important part. That’s what gets Incompatibilists tied up in knots when they first read about Determinism, and have an existential crisis at 16.

Still, it’s not like we can just stop there. This is philosophy, and so the arms race continues. What Compatibilists need to do now is come up with a new scenario. It needs to be one without the flicker of freedom, that still retains moral responsibility. Bradford Stockdale thinks he’s done just that.

Gary the Guru

It’s Gary’s 25th wedding anniversary today. He knows that when he starts work, he can become so consumed by it that he forgets other non-work related things. As a result, he’s worried if he starts the work day as usual, he’ll forget to take his wife to dinner this evening. Fortunately for Gary, he’s also a guru with incredible levels of self control. At 9am, he uses his own Gary guru technique (patent pending) to initiate a series of processes in his brain that’ll ensure he’ll make the decision to take his wife out to dinner, unless he remembers of his own accord. His guru technique acts as a guard rail, and will only intervene if he forgets.

Importantly, once he undergoes this technique, he forgets he’s done so, and so the fact that he’s meditated (or however it is he does it. He always makes me leave the room when he does) plays no role in his later deliberation. As it happens, it gets to 5pm, he remembers to take his wife out to dinner, and the guru guardrail never comes into play.

So, what’s happening here? Well, it seems like Gary is responsible for remembering to take his wife out, and deserves some credit. However, in this scenario, it also seems he was only able decide on his own. Had he forgotten, the guardrail would’ve kicked in, and he would’ve remembered as a result of his own choices. This case is essentially the same as an ordinary Frankfurt case, except instead of an external party playing the counterfactual intervener, Gary is his own counterfactual intervener.

---

---

You might be thinking that because Gary is being forced to remember the anniversary, this might not count as Gary acting on his own. Stockdale tries to calm this concern by using an example from his own life. When he was a student, he had a running joke with his friends. He’d say he should give them money, and in the event he missed a deadline, his friends would donate this money to a cause that he opposed (the example he gives on the Free Will Show is the local Nickelback fan club). The idea is that we can all create scenarios in the present that ensure we’ll make some decision in the future. For example, you might show a moment of strength in the supermarket by not buying any treats, which ensures you stay on your diet later on. Despite the fact that you’re essentially forcing yourself later on, it still seems accurate to say you’re acting on your own.

So, Stockdale argues that Gary the Guru is an example where someone’s flicker of freedom is removed, and yet they are still responsible for what they do. In other words, moral responsibility doesn’t even need the ability to decide otherwise on our own, and so Determinism is still compatible with free will. Nice try, Flicker Theorists, go kick rocks.

Thoughts

I’ll start by saying I don’t think remembering his anniversary is an excellent choice for this thought experiment. This is because I’m not confident we can be held responsible for forgetting things, because we never decide to forget things. When we forget things, it’s not clear we’re responsible in the same way we are when we actively decide to do something good or bad. It just kind of happens. It’s not like we sit down and say “Memory of my sister’s birthday, begone!”.

However, this is more of a nitpick, and the point still stands even if Gary wasn’t tasked with remembering his anniversary, and instead undertook something more active. If, for example, he used his technique to ensure he would decide to shoot the president, and later decided to shoot the president without the guardrail, it would still seem he was responsible. Deciding to shoot presidents definitely is the sort of thing we would be responsible for, unlike the grey area of remembering/forgetting things.

Besides nitpicking, I feel like this scenario acts as a good answer to flickers of freedom style arguments, and PAP is on shaky ground. To salvage it, Incompatibilists will need to come up with an even more specific version of PAP, while still trying to hold onto the initial intuitive pull that makes it so compelling in the first place. A tall order, I reckon.

Alternatively, they can abandon PAP and rely on other arguments like the luck pincer, or come up with a new principle all together. I’ve written previously on the Principle of Avoiding Blame, which may be a viable alternative, as I’m yet to see a Frankfurt style case undermine it (although, that’s probably due to it’s obscurity more than anything else).

Have your own thoughts? Write them below! Have too much cortisol in your brain from thinking about free will too much? Watch this video of a piglet taking a bath.

---

---