Free Will A Contemporary Introduction

96 The Debate over the Consequence Argument

Why not? As Garrett Pendergraft (2011) states it, the relevant proposition at
issue, the one that the LMC cannot help herself to in explaining the simple infer-
ence that S cannot raise her arm, and the one that would seemingly be underwrit-
ten by (Y) is:

p: If S’s neural system is in state U at t, then it is not the case that she

voluntarily exerts force with her arm at t + 5.

Ginet’s point, as it bears on p, is that S’s voluntary exertion does not falsify this
proposition p, since S’s voluntarily exerting force with her arm at t + 5 does not
entail that she was in state U at t. So her voluntarily exerting force with her arm
at t + 5, in itself, does not entail the falsity of p, since it is consistent with p’s
antecedent being false. So we cannot infer using (Y) alone that it was not open
to S to voluntarily exert force with her arm at t + 5.
Ginet offers the compatibilist the following reply, which is of a piece with
Slote’s response we discussed earlier (see Section 3.3). Let

bt = at t, S’s neural system is in state U.

at = beginning at t + 5 seconds, S voluntarily exerted force with her arm for

ten seconds.

Lp = p is entailed by the laws of nature.

Ostp = def It was open to S at t to make it the case that p.

When we perform the inference from:

L(bt only if not- at) to

not- Ost not-(bt only if not- at)

(and then to not- Ost at via the principle of the fixity of the given past),

we assume that the nomic necessitation from bt to not- at does not go through S’s
motivational history in the right way. In particular, the relevant causal path
resulting in S’s not raising her arm is brought about in a way that takes her moti-
vational or action (and omission) generating agential resources out of play. So in
performing such inferences, we’re adding extra information (conforming to a
further principle).
To this imagined LMC response, Ginet replies that it seems less plausible when
one thinks about what it would be like really to know the laws of nature governing
the causing of particular actions by their agent’s motives and to use this knowledge
to manipulate agents. Imagine, for instance, rather than S being rendered uncon-
scious at t + 5 due to a drug- induced state, she is instead manipulated by someone