Free Will A Contemporary Introduction

Three Source Incompatibilist Arguments 163

We may suppose further, accordingly, that while my behavior is entirely

in accordance with my own volitions, and thus “free” in terms of the con-

ception of freedom we are examining, my volitions themselves are caused.

To make this graphic, we can suppose that an ingenious physiologist can

induce in me any volition he pleases by pushing various buttons on

an instrument to which, let us suppose, I am attached by numerous wires.

All of the volitions I have in that situation are, accordingly, precisely the

ones he gives me. By pushing one button, he evokes in me the volition to

raise my hand; and my hand, being unimpeded, rises in response to that

volition. By pushing another, he induces the volition in me to kick, and my

foot, being unimpeded, kicks in response to that volition. We can even

suppose that the physiologist puts a rifle in my hands, aims it at a passerby,

and then, by pushing the proper button, evokes in me the volition to squeeze

my finger against the trigger, whereupon the passerby falls dead of a bullet

wound.

This is the description of a man who is acting in accord with his inner

volitions, a man whose body is unimpeded and unconstrained in its motions,

these motions being the effects of his inner states. It is hardly the description

of a free and responsible agent. It is the perfect description of a puppet.

(Taylor, 1974: 45)

Note that the particular compatibilist account of CAS that Taylor was aiming to
discredit falls far short of the more robust theories currently on offer (theories
we shall canvass in later chapters), but his strategy is suggestive of how more
recent proposals could be contested. Taylor is not alone in invoking manipula-
tion to discredit a compatibilist proposal. Kane (1996: 65), for instance, argues
similarly by invoking the unsettling utopian societies of Aldous Huxley’s Brave
New World and B.F. Skinner’s Walden Two to suggest that the citizens in these
societies would satisfy Frankfurt’s (1971) conditions for compatibilist free will.
Yet, Kane argued, they would lack the deeper sort of freedom constitutive of
genuine free will.
Thus far we have written in terms of manipulation arguments—plural. This is
to make perspicuous that there are different instances of a general form. Let’s
refer to the argument form as the manipulation argument. So, treating “X” as a
placeholder for different ways of manipulating an agent, consider The Manipula-
tion Argument (TMA):

1. If an agent, S, is manipulated in manner X to perform act A from CAS, then
   S does not A freely and is therefore not morally responsible for A- ing.


2. Any agent manipulated in manner X to A is no different in any relevant
   respect from any normally functioning agent causally determined to do A
   from CAS.


3. Therefore, any normally functioning agent causally determined to do A
   from CAS does not A freely and therefore is not morally responsible for
   A- ing.