Abstract

This essay attempts to develop an account of the abilities which free action involves. I argue that the notion of ability which is especially relevant for the purpose of understanding free action is correctly given a compatibilist interpretation. More importantly, it turns out that persons who act freely have the ability to do otherwise than they do. Acting with the ability to do otherwise is not a distinctive mark of free action, however, since anyone who merely acts intentionally possesses that ability. The central idea of this essay emerges as a result of this conclusion: I suggest that we will better understand free action if we abandon the traditional emphasis on free agents' ability to do otherwise and look instead to their ability to criticize courses of action in light of applicable normative standards. ;This suggestion yields two conditions of freedom. The first is that persons act freely only if they competently criticize the courses of action they perform or have control over their failure to do so. The second condition states that persons act freely only if they have control over whether or not they act as they do. They have this control just in case their conduct is counterfactually controllable through certain practical judgments they might arrive at were they to reflect critically on their actions. ;The first condition of freedom is particularly interesting because it shows freedom of action to be a normative notion. The second condition and the accompanying account of control are of especial interest in virture of the challenges which the possibilities of overdetermined action and weak-willed action pose for them. I use the notion of linked counterfactual dependence to address the challenge of overdetermination. The necessarily exceptional character of weak-willed action allows my account to distinguish weakness of will from psychological compulsion. ;I further propose that the two conditions of freedom afford a fruitful characterization of responsibility as liability to one sort of criticism