152 Three Source Incompatibilist Arguments
many involved in the free will debate would want to resist, as Randolph Clarke
has pointed out (2005: 13–14).^9 What Strawson assumes in endorsing the second
premise of this impossibilist version of the Ultimacy Argument is this:
P: You act freely in the sense required for you to be truly morally respons-
ible for what you do only if you act freely in the sense required for you to be
truly morally responsible for the way you are mentally (as it bears on what
you do).But P can be challenged. Suppose, as in the case of Ann above, she steals the
bread due to BD. BD captures how she was mentally at the time at which she
acted. In order for it to be that Ann freely steals the loaf of bread, must it be, as P
requires, that she acts freely with respect to the way she is mentally in that she
possesses BD? If it must be, an argument needs to be given, one that goes beyond
the Ultimacy Argument. One might contend that even if it is not up to Ann how
she is mentally—that is, whether she freely possesses BD—it is up to her whether
she acts on BD. This criticism is especially forceful for incompatibilists with lib-
ertarian leanings who hold that in the absence of determinism persons might be
free and responsible. According to them, it could very well be that at a certain
time, a person has no direct control over how she is mentally, over what beliefs
and desires she has, but it can be causally open to her that she act on some belief–
desire pair and also causally open that she refrain from acting on that belief–
desire pair, and she might exercise direct control in acting or in refraining.
A similar criticism of the argument is also available to the compatibilist (e.g.,
McKenna, 2008d: 191; Mele, 1995: 225). On a compatibilist view, Ann might
very well be directly free with respect to acting on her belief–desire pair even if
she is not directly free with respect to her possession of that belief–desire pair.
Think of it this way, the compatibilist might say: Among the many causally
related events that will unfold in the history of the world, a person’s develop-
ment will result from prior causes. She will come to have various states of mind
that will be the product of factors that are beyond her control, including genetic
traits, parental influence, and the vagaries of luck. At some point, in the inter-
stices of various causally related events, this agent will act in such a manner that
she will exercise control over her conduct. From conditions that lack control,
control will arise.
Is there a less ambitious version of an Ultimacy Argument that might advance
a source incompatibilist thesis? The ingredients of such an argument can be
found in the writings of a number of incompatibilists. Recall this quotation from
Paul Edwards (from Chapter 3):
“You are right,” he [the hard determinist] would say [to the compatibilist],
“in maintaining that some of our actions are caused by our desires and
choices. But you do not pursue the subject far enough. You arbitrarily stop
at the desires and volitions. We must not stop there. We must go on to ask
where they come from; and if determinism is true there can be no doubt