Mesh, Reasons-Responsive, Leeway Theories 215though Watson does not develop the point, it appears that on his view the harmony
is not necessary. As he sees it, unfree agents are not those who merely do not act in
accord with their valuational edicts, but rather are unable to do so (1975, as
reprinted in Watson, 2003: 347–8). Finally, as Velleman has pointed out (1992:
472), Watson’s appeal to a valuational system is susceptible to the same sort of
objection that he (Watson) put to Frankfurt. Why take an agent’s judgment issuing
from her valuational system to be the source of who she is, what she identifies
with, and hence, the spring of her free action? Watson himself anticipates this
objection, though he does not offer any suggestions as to how to overcome it
(1987, as reprinted in Watson, 2004: 167–9).
9.5. Bratman’s Planning Theory
In a series of papers, Michael Bratman has embraced the problem framed by the
controversy between Frankfurt and Watson (e.g., see Bratman, 1997, 2003,
2004, 2005, 2007).^10 Bratman offers a distinctive answer to Velleman’s (1992)
challenge that identification be explained in a way that satisfactorily accounts for
an agent’s role in action (Bratman, 2003). He draws upon his planning theory of
intentions, a theory that accounts for intentions as embedded in larger plans. An
agent’s actions are intentional in virtue of plans into which her intentions fit. My
intention to head to the local pub, for instance, is understood as an intention in
relation to my plan of meeting my friends there for an evening of good cheer.
Here we have a kind of meshing of one element, an intention, within wider
aspects of agency, a plan. While this is not itself a matter of hierarchy, it is sug-
gestive that at a more primitive level of agency, mere planning agency, a kind of
mesh is required for agents to get about in the world, to make today’s activities
gel with tomorrow’s travel plans, and to make tomorrow’s travel plans conform
with the unexpected contingencies that tomorrow might turn up. We can then
account for morally responsible agency by building upon these resources
(Bratman, 1997).
Turning directly to the question of what psychic elements have agential
authority to speak for an agent, for her identifications, Bratman looks, not as
Frankfurt does to higher-order desires, nor as Watson does to evaluative judg-
ments, but instead to higher- order intentions construed as self- governing policies
of practical reasoning (Bratman, 2004, as reprinted in 2007: 239). These policies
involve an agent’s diachronic commitments to managing her life in ways that
allow her to be effective in carrying out other plans and intentions. A commit-
ment to work hard after dinner, for example, will constrain other potential plans.
It will be given a ranking priority that will help the agent organize and control
her life over considerable stretches of time. Such a self- governing policy will be
hierarchical, though in a way that differs from Frankfurt’s. It will be hierarchical
insofar as it will govern (by constraining or fostering) other plans that are liable
to arise in the course of a life (240–3). But, why will such a self- governing
policy, as opposed to other candidate features of agency such as higher- order
desires or valuations, have the authority to speak for the agent? Bratman’s