1. Compatibilism: Problems and Developments Knowledge and Reality Lecture 7

2. Compatibilism…review the usual idea… Freedom is freedom from constraint. One does as one desires… But…what about addiction? Hypnosis. These seem like internal constraints.

3. Yes, there is an absence of external constraints… But what about ?…. phobias, obsessions, neuroses, compulsive behaviour (e.g. hand-washing), kleptomania. These surely inhibit one’s freedom. So acting on one’s desires is not sufficient for freedom. The compatibilist tries to deal with these cases.

4. It seems that more is necessary for free action than usual compatibilist accounts. Drug addicts. Why are they not free? Answer?: lack of control. The idea is that those with self-control are free. But what does this mean?

5. Frankfurt and Second- order desires Frankfurt… has the idea that it consists in having second-order attitudes. Examaple: the drug addict (the ‘wanton’)… He desires not to desire drugs. But acts on his first-order desires. So he is not in control. (Says Frankfurt.)

6. Problems with Frankfurt’s account A) But if there is second-order endorsement of his addiction? Would that make him free? (The ‘Jo Jo’ example.) B) What’s so special about 2 nd -order desires? Why not third-order ones? Etc? Perhaps one’s highest order desires must be effective. It starts to look arbitrary. C) Suppose my higher-order desires are there due to hypnosis? Then they are not mine, in some sense?

7. Gary Watson’s Alternative Freedom means acting on desires … that are in accordance with one’s value beliefs. There is something intuitive about this. When we act we act on reasons. Something seems to be good about the action. Of course, we can ask: and why do you take that to be a reason? Still… in the end there is something one values. Does this work?

8. Watson’s view fits with idea of us an valuing animals. Acting against one’s better judgement is weak will. Acting on one’s better judgement … is free will. Is this right? But? Weak will is not lack of free will. And what should we say about someone with stupid value beliefs?

9. Another idea: the kleptomaniac/drug addict etc… are free. If so there is no problem for the compatibilist? Is that plausible?

10. Education or brainwashing?! Is education indoctrination? ! How can we distinguish them? A related questions: can freedom be a matter of degree?

11. Recall the compatibilist account… external constraints…rule out freedom. But it seems that internal constraints do too. Skinner’s Walden 2… world of brainwashed people, conditioned since childhood. Some Marxists and feminists say that this is our world. Political sense of freedom, idea of true freedom, not merely the lack of external constraint.

12. Idea of merely ‘negative’ freedom from external constraints, which is critiqued by Marxists/feminists. The idea of ‘inner freedom’. Are there ideas inserted by social conditioning. The Jojo example… the son of dictator, who self-endorses his own brutish desires. Susan Wolf says he is not free. Conformist societies… less free?

13. Susan Wolf (the Jojo example)

14. Education vs Indoctrination? Education is supposed to open possibilities. Unlike indoctrination, which closes them down. But can this distinction be made?

15. Am I and your other teachers indoctrinating you? Or opening possibilities? Setting you free? Or making you freer? Think about that over the next week.