208 Mesh, Reasons-Responsive, Leeway Theories
an agent’s psychology. When the relevant subsystems or processes misfire, break
down, or are out of sync with each other, the desires and intentions they cause
are alien to the agent, just as external impediments are. By analogy, a car can be
impeded by a roadblock, but it can also be impeded when its own internal
systems come into a state of disharmony rendering it inoperable. A theory of
action should be able to identify various psychological processes of agents that
uniquely figure into the intentional actions of which normally functioning
persons are capable. When the ingredients mesh in a harmonious way, then the
agent acts unimpeded; her actions and the desires or intentions causing them are
a free outcome of her own agency. Call any such theory a mesh theory.
Various philosophers have opted for some version of a mesh theory.^2 We
shall focus primarily on Harry Frankfurt’s. His is the first and most influential,
and others have formulated their versions by reference to the relative strengths
and weaknesses of his. We’ll then consider Gary Watson’s and Michael Brat-
man’s alternative proposals.
9.2. Frankfurt’s Hierarchical Mesh Theory
Frankfurt begins with the fundamental notion of desire. First- order desires are
desires that have actions as their objects (1971). Frankfurt then identifies an
agent’s will with her effective first- order desires, those that move her “all the way
to action.”^3 Many creatures have first- order desires. But, Frankfurt points out,
persons also have reflexive capacities to adopt attitudes about their own atti-
tudes. A second- order desire is a desire that one have a first- order desire. For
example, an agent might desire to want to help the poor when she actually
doesn’t want to help them. More generally, higher- order desires have as their
objects not actions, but instead desires of a lower order. But for Frankfurt, what
is characteristic of persons is a particular kind of higher- order desire. A second-
order volition is a second- order desire for a first- order desire to be one’s will, for
a first- order desire to move her all the way to action. That is, one has a second-
order volition when one wants to will some action and not merely to want to
have a desire without willing it. Persons, Frankfurt contends, are distinctive in
their ability to have higher- order volitions.
Frankfurt develops a hierarchical mesh theory of freedom on the basis of
these distinctions. Treating the symbol “→” as representing the relation “bring
about,”^4 consider the following template for understanding the agency of persons
in non- deviant cases:
second- order volition → will → actionFrankfurt distinguishes two types of freedom that concern action and two types
of freedom that concern the will. In general, for an action to be free, nothing can
impede the relation between willing the action and the action (1971: 19–20). The
first type of action- related freedom requires that nothing impede the actual rela-
tion between will and action. The second type requires in addition that the agent