Free Will A Contemporary Introduction

Mesh, Reasons-Responsive, Leeway Theories 209

is free to act otherwise; specifically, that nothing would impede her acting other-
wise were she to will to act otherwise (24). Freedom pertaining to the will is
treated in a parallel way. In general, for an agent’s will to be free, nothing can
impede the relation between second- order volition and will (20–1). The first type
requires that nothing impede the actual relation between second- order volition
and will. The second requires in addition that the agent is free to make some
other first- order desire her will instead; specifically, were she to have a different
second- order volition, her will would follow suit.
Frankfurt thus distinguishes four types of freedom. Two implicate considera-
tions regarding leeway among alternatives, and two implicate only considera-
tions regarding the actual source of an agent’s action. And here are the four
technical terms Frankfurt assigns to each:^5

Concerning action Concerning the will

Source: acting freely (acting of one’s own) free will

Leeway: freedom of action freedom of the will

Many nonhuman animals are able to act freely and with freedom of action. But
because only persons are capable of having second- order volitions (19), only
they are able to act of their own free will and with freedom of the will.
One further qualification is needed. To explain the freedoms that concern the
will, it is not enough that the relation between second- order volition and will be
unimpeded. As Frankfurt observes, it is possible that one second- order desire
conflicts with another second- order desire, just as first- order desires conflict with
each other. One might ask whether it might then be indeterminate whether in
willing in accord with a second- order volition, an agent is really acting of her
own free will or with freedom of the will. Accordingly, what Frankfurt requires
in addition is that the agent decisively identifies herself with one of her first-
order desires by means of a second- order volition. The second- order volition that
yields this identification will come to constitute what at a higher order of reflec-
tion she wants her will to be. This will be so regardless of whether it does in fact
come to be her will.
Frankfurt takes no stand as to whether, in his terminology, freedom of the
will is compatible with determinism. Alluding to the debate over whether deter-
minism is compatible with the ability to do otherwise, he writes that it is a
“vexed question just how ‘he could have done otherwise’ is to be understood.”^6
Regardless, Frankfurt (1969) has famously argued that moral responsibility does
not require the ability to do or to will otherwise (see Chapter 5, which is devoted
to Frankfurt’s argument for this conclusion). Rather, what is required is only
that, in his terminology, an agent act freely and of her own free will. These two
freedoms, Frankfurt contends, are compatible with determinism.
To illustrate these freedoms, Frankfurt introduces the case of the willing
addict, whose first- order desire for a narcotic is irresistible, and so constitutes his
will (24). This addict also identifies with his addictive first- order desire by means
of a second- order volition. His second- order volition is that his first- order desire