So, I've been writing my first paper of my graduate school career. It's a paper for a free will seminar, and here it is below. Feel free to read and critique this first draft, I'll probably be working on it over the next few days, and any comments, even if you read only a paragraph or two, is welcome.

On Ayer's Conception of Freedom and Constraint

I. Introduction

In this paper, I will very briefly lay out Ayer’s compatibilist position[1]. I will then proceed to examine Ayer’s characterization of constraint, and work a little to make the concept coherent and useful.

II. Ayer on the Difficulties of Free Will

The core of the position Ayer argues for is that freedom is to be contrasted not with causality, but with constraint. Towards this end, he begins by setting forth the apparent conflict between free will and determinism, and attacks some of the ways other philosophers[2] have attempted to defend the freedom of the will. Ayer’s version of one of the arguments against free will is as follows:

1) If human actions were entirely subject to natural laws, then we could not have done other than what we in fact do, and thus are not free.

2) Human actions are entirely subject to natural laws.

3) Therefore, we could not have done other than what we in fact do, and thus are not free.

Ayer does not explicitly argue for premise 1. He states it as an accepted truth, in fact as the very first line in his paper:

When I am said to have done something of my own free will it is implied that I could have acted otherwise; and it is only when it is believed that I could have acted otherwise that I am held to be morally responsible for what I have done.

There is a rich literature with regards to this, which has come to be known as the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, and the constraints of this paper does not allow me to do justice to it, just as the constraints of Ayer’s paper did not allow him the luxury of further analysis in this direction. In part III of this paper, I will argue that Ayer’s compatibilism comes from him implicitly denying premise 1.

In defense of premise 2, Ayer points out that the search for explanations in both the external, physical world and human behavior has made significant progress, and there has been success in coming up with laws that predict both physical events and human actions. It seems like we have some reason to think that human actions will eventually be revealed to be explainable in the same mechanistic way that the external universe is explainable.

If this argument is successful, then we are not free moral agents, and therefore not morally responsible for our behavior. Free will collapses.

III. Ayer’s Compatibilism

Ayer accepts the truth of determinism, understanding determinism to mean that every event, even human actions, has a cause. If freedom requires that human actions be uncaused, somehow free from the chains of causality, then the existence of free will must be incompatible with the truth of determinism. As Ayer argues:

Now we began with the assumption that freedom, in this sense, is contrasted with causality: so that a man cannot be said to be acting freely if his action is causally determined. But this assumption has led us into difficulties and I now wish to suggest that it is mistaken. For it is not, I think, causality that freedom is to be contrasted with, but constraint.

If Ayer is right and freedom requires not the absence of causation but rather, the absence of constraint, then we can be free even in a deterministic universe. Our actions can be unconstrained even if they are part of an unalterable chain of causal events, and thus free despite determinism. Ayer is denying premise 1 of the argument against free will, rejecting the idea that being subject to natural law denies us our freedom.

It seems to me that Ayer’s entire argument turns on the axle of a coherent characterization of ‘constraint,’ and this is what I will examine next.

IV. On Constraint

For the idea of constraint to work in Ayer’s argument, it has to fulfill several criteria. It has to be shown that constraint is contrasted to freedom, that constraint has causal powers, and that it is a proper subset of cause.

IV.1 Constraint Contrasted to Freedom

Ayer’s argument would fall apart if there was no sense in which freedom could be understood as the absence of constraint. For the argument to work, there must be some way in which constraint could be opposed to freedom.

Ayer argues that there are at least two kinds of constraint that would be relevant here. If there was a constraint that deprived one of the ability to deliberate, then we do not count the agent as acting freely. For instance, a kleptomaniac is not a free agent with respect to his stealing. His kleptomania acts as a constraint upon his actions, and it is precisely because he is thus constrained that we do not consider him free. In this case, constraint counts against freedom in the exact way that suggests they are diametrically opposed.

Constraint, however, does not have to deprive one of choice. If I was forced at gunpoint to perform some act, then it is true that I was constrained, even though I could have chosen to disobey the gunman. In this situation, Ayer argues, I cannot be held morally responsible for my actions.

It seems to me that there is a problem here. It is not at all clear that this case (of choice at gunpoint) involves a lack of freedom. In fact, Ayer dances around talking about freedom at all. He sets out the situation thus:

…if the man points a pistol at my head I may still choose to disobey him: but this does not prevent its being true that if I do fall in with his wishes he can legitimately be said to have compelled me. And if the circumstances are such that no reasonable person would be expected to choose the other alternative, then the action that I am made to do is not one for which I am held to be morally responsible.

At best, all Ayer has shown here, I believe, is that this type of constraint absolves one of moral responsibility. He has not shown that I am not free. After all, it is clearly true that I retain fully the power to choose (to obey the gunman, or to disobey), and it would be a mistake to think that I somehow lack free will.[3] If we think of the will as a rational appetite, as such notaries as Aquinas and Ockham did, then the will’s choosing the better over the worse is its nature, and not a constraint upon it.

There are two ways I think we can go here. We could discard the example of the gunman and restrict the range of situations to those that deprive the agent of choice (or where the agent’s choice does not play any role in his actions), but I suspect that solution owes its attraction to a philosopher’s desire for cleanliness. The alternative is to reformulate Ayer’s concept of freedom as specific to the moral arena. That is, we are interested in freedom only where it is relevant to moral responsibility. Insofar as Ayer has shown that a certain form of constraint exonerates one of moral responsibility, that form of constraint denies freedom in the relevant sense.

IV. 2 Constraint has Causal Powers

For Ayer, constraints are a kind of cause. A causal relationship seems to be the only kind powerful enough to determine the freedom of an action, as Ayer argues constraints as capable of doing. As he puts it:

For it is not when my action has any cause at all, but only when it has a special sort of cause, that it is reckoned not to be free.

Take for instance the case of a kleptomaniac. He feels the compulsion to steal, and he will steal, regardless of his deliberations on that matter. It is because his kleptomania is a constraint upon his decisions and actions that his moral blameworthiness is lessened – in some sense, he is not a free agent. If his kleptomania was not at all causally connected with his actions, then it is hard to see why it would figure into his moral responsibility, as it does.

IV. 3 Constraint as a Proper Subset of Cause

If all causes were constraints, Ayer’s attempt to reconcile freedom and determinism would fail. Recall that Ayer’s argument was based on freedom being understood as being unconstrained rather than uncaused. If all causes were constraints, then the truth of determinism would mean that everything is constrained, which once again denies human freedom.

Showing that there are causes that are not constraints is not a difficult task. Consider ‘choosing to do a happy dance.’ In most circumstances, barring mad scientists and evil aliens, ‘choosing to do a happy dance’ would be the cause of me doing a happy dance. It would be absurd to say that my dancing was not free, because it was caused (by my decision to do so). Clearly, here, we have an instance of a cause that is not a constraint upon my freedom.

Of course, there are causes that are constraints. If my doing a happy dance was the result of hypnosis, then I am not freely dancing, and not morally responsible for any consequences of my happy dance. The cause, in this case hypnosis, is a constraint.

One further consideration stems from our understanding of virtues or vices. We want to think of virtues, such as a habit of generosity, or vices, such as greed, as being at least partial causes in our actions. If, as causes, they were also constraints, then any action taken as a result of a virtue or vice becomes, by definitely, amoral. Praise or blame would suddenly become inappropriate for the habitually virtuous or vicious. The counterintuitive nature of this conclusion should provide good evidence for there being causes that are not constraints.

V. Conclusion

The picture we end up with is something like this: determinism means that all actions and choices are caused, by the motion of molecules and bio-chemicals or our genes or our characters. This is irrelevant to the kind of free will we are interested in, which is intimately connected with moral responsibility. What is relevant is only the small class of causes that count as constraints, which as partial causes of our actions at times deprive us of our freedom.

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[1] At least as laid out in Ayer, “Freedom and Necessity.” The position here might not be Ayer’s full, mature position as revealed in the entirety of his works, but it is rich enough to be philosophically interesting and worth analyzing.

[2] He never explicitly names any of these other philosophers (aside from Dr. Johnson), but he probably had in mind such luminaries as Hume and Hobbes.

[3] This is further sharpened if we consider not ‘free will,’ but ‘free choice.’ It is a contradiction to say that I can choose to obey or disobey, and yet not have the power of ‘free choice.’ It might be interesting to note the terminological shift from liberum arbitrium to libertas voluntatis in the thirteenth century.