Free Will A Contemporary Introduction

Three Source Incompatibilist Arguments 153

about the answer to this question. Ultimately our desires and our whole

character are derived from our inherited equipment and the environmental

influences to which we are subject at the beginning of our lives. It is clear

that we had no hand in shaping these.” (Edwards, 1958, in Hook, 1958: 121

[our brackets])

From this insight Edwards proceeds to argue that, under the assumption that
determinism is true, no one is free and morally responsible. In more recent times,
Saul Smilansky has advanced a similar line of argument. According to Smilan-
sky, if determinism is true, then all of our conduct is just part of the “unfolding of
the given” (2000: 284). Assuming determinism, anything a person does is but an
outgrowth of factors that are ultimately beyond her control, since the origin of her
conduct is found in sufficient causal springs obtaining before she was even born
(45). Hence, no one is the ultimate source of her actions if determinism is true.
To facilitate discussion, it will be useful to have before us a formulation of
the Edwards–Smilansky- type argument set out in premise and conclusion form.
So consider this version of the Ultimacy Argument (as set out by McKenna,
2008d: 192):

1. A person acts freely in the sense required for true moral responsibility only
   if she is the ultimate source of her action.


2. If determinism is true, no one is the ultimate source of her actions.


3. Therefore, if determinism is true, no one acts freely in the sense required for
   true moral responsibility.

Notice that this version of the Ultimacy Argument is an incompatibilist version,
and it is not as demanding as Strawson’s impossibilist version. It leaves open
that if determinism is false, it might be possible to satisfy the requirement of
ultimacy, and so for agents to act freely.^10
This version of the Ultimacy Argument is problematic for reasons having to
do with how we understand the notion of ultimacy. Suppose we interpret this
argument so that we understood the occurrence of the word “ultimate” along the
lines specified in U2. If so, the problem with the argument is that it is question-
begging. It is obvious that U2 cannot be satisfied if determinism is true, and a
demand for it as a condition of freedom and responsibility, as is expressed in
premise 1 above, just is an expression of the truth of incompatibilism. Incompat-
ibilism is thus assumed as a premise in the argument. And it is obvious how a
compatibilist would respond. She would grant premise 2 as obviously true and
deny premise 1.
One might instead consider interpreting the notion of ultimacy along the lines
of the folk notion noted above. An incompatibilist could then treat it as a sub-
stantive matter to be established by philosophical argument that, so understood,
determinism is incompatible with being an ultimate source of one’s actions. But
so interpreted, the argument would be vulnerable from two different lines of
attack. First, a compatibilist might resist the first premise of the argument and