Freedom and Control

1. Two principles of libertarianism A libertarian about free will typically holds at least one of the following two principles (see e.g. Kane 1996, though these are our formulations). The Principle of Alternate Possibilities (AP): I could have acted otherwise. Generally: for any free agent x, and action A performed by x in circumstances C at time t, then there was another action A', where A  A', such that x could have performed A' at t and not A. The Principle of Ultimate Authorship (UA): I am the ultimate author of my own actions and decisions. Generally: for any agent x, free action A is performed by x in virtue of x being the author of A and free decision D is made by x in virtue of x being the author of D (where authorship is defined in terms of causal responsibility, for instance). In broad terms, we feel that we need AP to have the possibility of freedom and we need UA in order to have control. Perhaps free will requires both. Both principles seem to be threatened by determinism, however. There are many variants of determinism, but a common worry concerns the type of determinism that is tightly linked to causation and laws of nature. One such is what Popper (1982: xx) refers to as Laplacian determinism, inspired by Laplace's famous suggestion that all events are in principle predictable for an omniscient being with complete knowledge about the total state of the universe and its laws (Laplace 1819: 4). Given a set of initial conditions and the laws of nature, only one future is possible on this view. Other definitions are more explicit on causation and necessity. For example, we might take determinism to entail that every state or event is causally necessitated by preceding states or events (Watson 1982: 2) or that any event is determined just in case there are conditions whose joint occurrence is sufficient for the occurrence of that event (Kane 1996: 8). This, though not only this, is what makes the existence of free will a problem.