Mesh, Reasons-Responsive, Leeway Theories 211converted overnight by a team of neuroscientists into a psychological duplicate
of Ann. Suppose that Ann then acts freely and is morally responsible for what
she does in virtue of her satisfying the sufficient conditions Frankfurt proposes.
Frankfurt is forced to say that when Beth acts just as Ann does, Beth acts freely
and is morally responsible for her conduct immediately following the manipula-
tion. But, Mele argues, this is the wrong result, and to the extent that we are
inclined to say that Ann is morally responsible while Beth is not, we have evid-
ence that our concept of moral responsibility has an historical dimension lacking
in Frankfurt’s OFW (Mele 1995: 146, 2006b: 170–2).
In response to such historical worries, Frankfurt remains defiant (1975), affirm-
ing nonhistoricism together with its prima facie counterintuitive implications:
What we need most essentially to look at is, rather, certain aspects of the
psychic structure that is coincident with the person’s behavior.... It is irrel-
evant whether [the causes to which we are subject] are operating by virtue
of the natural forces that shape our environment or whether they operate
through the deliberate manipulative designs of other human agents. We are
the sorts of persons we are; and it is what we are, rather than the history of
our development, that counts. (Frankfurt 2002: 27–8 [our brackets])A number of philosophers find the price Frankfurt is willing to pay too high, and
thus conclude that either there must be a compatibilist- friendly way to distin-
guish between freedom- destroying histories and freedom- allowing ones, or com-
patibilism must be shelved. Whether that is the correct conclusion, what is clear
is that Frankfurt’s exclusive reliance on the resources of his mesh theory fore-
closes his ability to append a compatibilist- friendly historical requirement
to OFW.
9.3.2. Accounting for Freedom with an Unharmonious Mesh
A second type of objection to Frankfurt’s theory focuses on the necessary con-
dition specified in OFW (e.g., Haji, 2002; Pereboom, 2001: 106, n. 34). Consider
another case of Frankfurt’s, the case of the unwilling addict (17–18). The unwill-
ing addict’s will is not the will she wants because she has a second- order voli-
tion to will to refrain from taking the narcotic, and this is a second- order volition
that constitutes identification. When she takes the narcotic anyway, she therefore
does not act of her own free will, as OFW tells us. But how can Frankfurt distin-
guish this case from that of the weak- willed non- addict, who judges it best, all
things considered, that she not take the narcotic, and in light of her judgment
about what is best, forms a second- order volition for her will to be constituted by
her first- order desire not to take the narcotic. Nevertheless, she has a first- order
desire to take the narcotic, which, while not irresistible, is quite strong. In this
case it seems that she can take the drug of her own free will and be morally
responsible for her action. But given OFW, since she is acting contrary to the
will she identifies with by way of a second- order volition, she ipso facto does