§4. The Problems for Free Will:
I began in §1.1 by outlining three propositions derived from Davidson’s opening comments in ‘Mental Events’. These propositions sought to establish the connection between the anomalousness of the mental and freedom. The time has come to assess these claims in light of the arguments presented. I might usefully begin by reiterating the three propositions which sought to establish the connection:
i) Mental events resist capture in the nomological net of physical theory.
ii) Causal determinism entails capture in, and freedom requires escape from, the nomological net of physical theory.
iii) Freedom entails anomaly.
A further claim made in §1.1 by Davidson was ‘that both the causal dependence, and the anomalousness, of mental events are undeniable facts.’ However causal relevance of mental events was not assured by the ontological monism of anomalous monism alone so he needed to supplement anomalous monism with supervenience in §2.5. For supervenience to be plausible we have to limit the properties upon which a mental property supervenes to properties that are causally relevant. However, in order to say which physical properties are causally relevant to some mental event, we need some way of establishing which other physical or psychological properties the given mental state is connected with. This can only be done by supposing there are, contrary to the claims in §2.4, some sorts of psychophysical or psychological laws. In light of these arguments it seems Davidson cannot legitimately claim that both the causal dependence, and the anomalousness, of mental events are undeniable facts true at the same time. Consequently I closed in §3.1 by asserting that Davidson is confronted with two choices; he can insist on the causal relevance of the mental at the cost of psychophysical laws, or insist on the anomalousness of the mental at the cost of the causal irrelevance of the mental. We can recast these alternatives in terms of two horns of a dilemma - determinism or ‘random events’ – and then show how they conflict with the three propositions above.
4.1 Horn one - Determinism
If Davidson wants to say that the mental properties of events are causally efficacious of physical events then this, when added to the nomological character of causally relevant properties, would entail that there are psychophysical laws; laws that conflict with the anomalousness of the mental. This undermines claim i) of Davidson’s three propositions. The implications of this for free will are not good. By virtue of his entailment at iii) we cannot, by his lights, be free at all. This is because his concept of freedom, stated at ii), says that causal determinism entails capture in the nomological net of physical theory. And this is just what we have for supervenience seems to require we submit to the web of physical theory, replete with its deterministic laws.
4.2 Horn two - Random Events
If Davidson insists on the anomalousness of the mental then this, when taken with the nomological character of causally relevant properties, would entail that the mental is epiphenomenal. This does not undermine claim i), and so from iii) he can make the inference that we are free. However, the anomalousness of mental events without causal relevance leaves us with an illusory freedom. This simply will not do. Davidson wants mental events to be causally relevant and not merely ‘random’ events. Such events may be caused by other mental states, but they would not be the intentional states he wants them to be such that they were intervening distinguishable states of an internal behaviour causing system.
The conclusions of §4.1 and §4.2 seem not to bode well for any pretensions Davidson might have had for establishing free will. At the end of §1.1 I said that for Davidson’s motivation not to be ambiguous between what he wants to be the case, and what he has good reason to believe to be the case, he needed to provide good reasons for believing we are free in the way he understands it at ii) above. The early optimism of §2.4 seems to have faded and following the arguments in §3.1 he has not provided good reasons. But perhaps I can muster a last minute defence by way of some tentative proposals.
4.3 Tentative proposal - One
If there were laws or generalisations which related types of mental events, then the properties by virtue of which an event instantiated them would be mental, and, in some sense to be determined, causally relevant. Indeed a causal theory of action and anomalous monism would perhaps be better served by a theory in which mental properties were causally relevant, or nomologically connected to causally relevant properties. But could Davidson countenance such a move given claim ii) above? I think so.
In §2.4 I considered and rejected arguments offered by Fodor for the existence of psychological ceteris paribus laws. Perhaps my dismissal was too hasty. Davidson was prepared to allow that dispositional statements were psychological laws, only different in kind from physical laws in that they inevitably could never be made precise, or formulated without ceteris paribus clauses. He admits that explanation by reference to dispositions ‘is not high science, but it isn’t empty either’. Now if he is prepared to cede that there are laws, though different in kind from those of physics, and prepared to cede that laws conflict with the anomalism of the mental only in the strict sense, then he might mitigate some of the criticisms I have been urging. Ceding these two points does not however undermine his project. This is because the psychological generalisations involved in reason explanation are insulated from counter-examples by virtue of their vague formulation so there is no real conflict with the anomalism of the mental. After all Davidson only wants to deny that the mental is subject to laws in the precise and potentially deterministic way in which physical laws are. Allowing for psychological ceteris paribus laws allows for this possibility and as such might be a way of saving Davidson’s thesis of the anomalousness of the mental in a causally relevant way. It might be objected that such laws still allow a toe-hold for physical theory. Psychological generalisations are not unconnected to the laws of physics so, it might be claimed, there will always be precise physical laws that mental events instantiate under their physical descriptions. But if laws are linguistic, only holding between events described in certain ways, should we be concerned?
Much of the arguments raised against the incompatibility between supervenience and the anomalousness of the mental hangs on our expectation of laws. But are we justified in putting so much store in laws? As Dennett points out ‘[t]here are impressive arguments from physics that lead to the conclusion that determinism is false’. If so could we not take a more relaxed view over laws rather than supposing they entail complete predictability, indeed to suppose they do supposes more than seems justified. However, in taking a more relaxed view over laws we could allow that supervenience and the anomalousness of the mental are, after all, compatible.
4.4 Tentative proposal - Two
In §1.2 Davidson maintained he could resolve the appearance of a contradiction between the three principles that lent credence to anomalous monism viz, i) causal interaction, ii) nomological character of causality, and iii) the anomalousness of the mental. While he provides arguments for principles i) and iii) he provides no argument for ii). Given the foregoing arguments in §3.1it is just this principle which runs Davidson into difficulties given the arguments in §4.1 and §4.2; we either have no freedom at all, or an illusory freedom. But do we have to insist there must be laws connecting true singular causal statements. For sure this principle does fit with Davidson’s concept of freedom in that the nomological character of causality allows that events related as cause and effect fall under strict deterministic laws, and escape from the web of physical theory allows the possibility of freedom. However, in taking a more radical line than that proposed in §4.3 by dropping this second principle about the nature of causation this would relieve the pressure brought to bear in §3.1. Revising his views on the nature of causation would of course require a different concept of freedom, but this would not entirely rule out the possibility of freedom within a physicalist framework.
4.4 Conclusion
Notwithstanding the tentative proposals above it remains the case that Davidson’s conception of freedom as entailing anomaly seems to run him into the kinds of problems outlined in §4.1 and §4.2. In light of the criticisms offered we might wonder therefore if indeed, pace Davidson, he has the right conception of freedom. On the one hand he is right to draw our attention to the problems of determinism. Strict deterministic laws do seem to undermine our common sense view of freedom. If, despite my scepticism in §4.3, determinism is true, then whatever does happen is the only thing that can happen. On the other hand, escape in Davidson’s terms does not automatically mean we have freedom. Indeed we could plausible end up with nothing worthy of the name ‘freedom’. As a consequence I think Davidson was wrong to suppose that our thoughts and actions must be inexplicable, qua thoughts and actions, by any deterministic natural science in order to be performed freely, i.e. that freedom entails anomaly.
It seems to me that any account of freedom must strike a balance between the actual and the possible. Only such a conception of freedom allows for the possibility of ‘elbow room’, as Dennett would put it, within a physicalist framework. How we characterise ‘elbow room’ is beyond the scope of this paper, suffice it to say; without it we have only the actual, determinism. But while Davidson recognises the issues involved in the free will determinism debate he sees not a tension but rather a contradiction. His efforts to resolve this contradiction leave us with either determinism or epiphenomenalism, neither of which serves his cause to establish free will.
End: Thanks for reading guys!