The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Enthusiastic Review
- Posted by Andrew Bailey on Sunday, August 22, 2004 at 8:22 PM
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John Martin Fischer has filled a career with writings on free will, libertarian agency, and compatibilism. Much of that work has been summed up in his The Metaphysics of Free Will, which I've been working through this past week.
Unlike much dry analytic prose, Fischer is a treat to consume. He is a smooth, lucid writer; it's never difficult to discern where he came from or where he's going. More importantly, his content is rock-solid. Fischer approaches the question of agency from an interesting and original angle: we suppose ourselves to be persons and to be morally responsible. On its face, however, the existence of either an omniscient God or a determined future pose a challenge to this intuition of moral responsibility, control, and hence, personhood. This is the context of Fischer's defense of compatibilism. If either God exists or the future is determined, personhood might be in trouble. Answering this two-pronged skeptical challenge is his central project. In doing so, he touches on many important issues of modality, epistemology, and metaphysics proper.
There are several lasting contributions this book gives to the free-will debate:
1. A clear statement of the "Transfer Principle(s)," an underlying rule of inference behind many incompatibilist arguments. Fischer evaluates its plausibility and role; he defends it, in fact, against many compatibilist attacks.
2. Articulation of Dialectic Stalemates - Fischer is not just a good writer - he's a fair one too. While the free-will debate is often heated, beligerent and impassioned from all sides (eg: van Inwagen, Dennett), Fischer is not given to this sort of puffery. Fischer is willing to admit it when he doesn't have a knock-down, drag-out argument for compatibilism; he is restrained in his critique of incompatibilist arguments. Nonetheless, the book makes one thing clear: It's not an easy task to argue for incompatibilism. At best, such arguments are inconclusive, at worst, they merely beg the question. By clarifying where these Dialectic Stalemates reside, Fischer has laid out an agenda of sorts for philosophers of the future - some territory simply isn't productive to write about.
3. Personally, I found Fischer's treatment of Frankfurt-type examples incredibly helpful. He lays out potential Frankfurt-type examples, and various libertarian responses. His analysis of the Flicker of Freedom response strategy was especially penetrating. Fischer gives a really nice argument why this response, though sound in some ways, is not ultimately persuasive.
4. A brief account of "guidance control," that sort of control Fischer distinguishes from "regulative control"; The account is brief, though. I suspect Fischer elaborates on how guidance control might be a sufficient condition of responsibility in later writings.
One would be hard pressed to find a better book-length defense of incompatibilism than van Inwagen's An Essay on Free Will. Fischer's book, along with Dennett's Elbow Room may very well become the compatibilist counterpart - a classic text that anyone interested in the issue simply must read.
