218 Mesh, Reasons-Responsive, Leeway Theories
How so? The freedom an agent exercises in a Frankfurt example is solely a
matter of guidance control, and this control is a matter of the actual sequence of
events leading to action. It is irrelevant what alternative courses of action are
open to such an agent. To give what Fischer and Ravizza call an actual- sequence
analysis of guidance control (53), we need to focus on the psychological proc-
esses of the agent that are actually causally implicated in her bringing about her
action—Fischer and Ravizza call these the mechanism of her action (39). They
propose that we attend first of all to the actual- sequence mechanism and the
properties it has. Some of these properties will be dispositional or modal proper-
ties (53). It will be true to say of the agent’s mechanism, that, if sufficient
reasons to do otherwise had been presented, and if the mechanism had operated
unimpeded, then it would have responded differently.
But notice, to test the truth of these counterfactuals we have to examine pos-
sible worlds in which the pertinent mechanism operates unimpeded. The worlds
we examine won’t feature Frankfurt’s intervening device. The result is that in a
Frankfurt example, an agent per se is not responsive to reasons: Due to the pres-
ence of the intervener’s device she cannot do otherwise in the presence of good
reasons to do otherwise. But the idea is that we can still say that the agent acts
with guidance control, insofar as she acts from a mechanism that is responsive to
the relevant reasons. Thus, on this view, the agent is reasons- responsive only by
virtue of such a reasons- responsive mechanism.
Crucial to Fischer and Razizza’s theory is that responsiveness to reasons
comes in degrees. A mechanism is strongly reasons- responsive if it would
always respond in accord with sufficient reasons, so given sufficient reasons to
do otherwise, it would invariably respond with an alternative action (41). This,
however, is too strong as a requirement for the freedom relevant to moral
responsibility. When agents act badly, they often do not act on sufficient reasons.
And in one kind of case of weakness of will, an agent fails to act on reasons that
she recognizes as sufficient. Thus the strong notion would rule out responsibility
for much immoral action and for weak- willed action.
By contrast, a mechanism is weakly reasons- responsive if it would respond
differently to at least one reason to do otherwise. Thus, it would at least some-
times respond in accord with sufficient reasons, so given sufficient reasons to do
otherwise, it would at least sometimes respond with an alternative action (44).
Fischer endorsed this criterion for moral responsibility early on (e.g., 1987,
1994) but he came to recognize that it is too weak. Insane agents who by no
means act from mechanisms that are appropriately responsive to reasons might
well act from mechanisms that are sensitive to some minimal range of sufficient
reasons to do otherwise. An agent might even act from a mechanism responsive
to quite a range of sufficient reasons, but the range might reveal no sane or stable
pattern (65–8). What is required, Fischer and Ravizza argue, is action from a
moderately reasons- responsive mechanism (69–76).
The account of moderate reasons- responsiveness Fischer and Ravizza set out
has two key elements, a receptivity component and a reactivity component.
Receptivity is the capacity to recognize and evaluate a spectrum of reasons for