The Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt

366 Pages·2002·2.31 MB·English

by  Sarah Buss

Contours of Agency
Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt
edited by Sarah Buss and Lee Overton
A Bradford Book
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London,England
(2002MassachusettsInstituteofTechnology
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformbyany
electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa-
tionstorageandretrieval)withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublisher.
This book was set in Sabon on 3B2 by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong and was
printedandboundintheUnitedStatesofAmerica.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Contoursofagency:essaysonthemesfromHarryFrankfurt/editedby
SarahBussandLeeOverton.
p. cm.
‘‘ABradfordbook.’’
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0-262-02513-2(hc:alk.paper)
1.Act(Philosophy)—Congresses. 2.Agent(Philosophy)—Congresses.
3.Frankfurt,HarryG.,1929– —Congresses. I.Buss,Sarah. II.Overton,Lee.
B105.A35C665 2001
191—dc21
2001044505
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Contributors ix
Introduction xi
1 Frankfurt-StyleCompatibilism 1
John Martin Fischer
Reply to John Martin Fischer 27
Harry Frankfurt
2 Controland CausalDeterminism 33
Eleonore Stump
Reply to Eleonore Stump 61
Harry Frankfurt
3 Hierarchy, Circularity, and Double Reduction 65
MichaelE. Bratman
Reply to MichaelE. Bratman 86
Harry Frankfurt
4 Identification and Identity 91
J.DavidVelleman
Reply to J.David Velleman 124
Harry Frankfurt
5 VolitionalNecessities 129
Gary Watson
Reply to Gary Watson 160
Harry Frankfurt
vi Contents
6 Reasons and Passions 165
T. M. Scanlon
Replyto T. M.Scanlon 184
HarryFrankfurt
7 Frankfurt on Identification: Ambiguities of Activityin Mental
Life 189
Richard Moran
Replyto Richard Moran 218
HarryFrankfurt
8 The True, the Good, andtheLovable: Frankfurt’s Avoidance of
Objectivity 227
Susan Wolf
Replyto Susan Wolf 245
HarryFrankfurt
9 Bootstrapping 253
BarbaraHerman
Replyto BarbaraHerman 275
HarryFrankfurt
10 Love’sAuthority 279
Jonathan Lear
Replyto Jonathan Lear 293
HarryFrankfurt
11 On Frankfurt’sExplanation of Respect for People 299
Joseph Raz
Replyto Joseph Raz 316
HarryFrankfurt
12 Deeper into Bullshit 321
G. A. Cohen
Replyto G. A.Cohen 340
HarryFrankfurt
Bibliography of Harry Frankfurt’sWork 345
References 349
Index 357
Introduction
In a recent paper Harry Frankfurt describes human beings as ‘‘generally
hard to pin down, difficult to sort out, and just about impossible to sum
up.’’Hemighthavebeendescribinghisownwork.Foroverthirtyyears,
in language at once elegant and direct, Frankfurt has been exploring the
contours of human agency. The power of his insights is due, in part, to
his refusal to sum up his complex, elusive subject. He calls attention to
thecomplexity,acknowledgesthatmucheludeshim,and,intheprocess,
prods us to continue the exploration ourselves. As he explains in the
preface to the second collection of his papers, his goal as a philosopher
hasalwaysbeentograpplewith‘‘linesofthought’’thatconfronthim‘‘as
a human being trying to cope in a modestly systematic manner with the
ordinary difficulties ofa thoughtful life.’’Thisiswhy wecannot readhis
essays without acknowledging to ourselves that what he says matters,
whether weagreewith him or not.
The difficulties of a thoughtful life—orat least many ofthem—can be
traced to one central fact abouthuman beings: we are capable of reflect-
ing on ourselves; indeed, there are few things that come more naturally
to us. This reflexivity generates problems because it divides us from our-
selves.Itsplitsusinto theonewhoreflects andtheone whoistheobject
of this reflection. And this split makes us vulnerable to real rifts in our
psyche—to inner strife and self-alienation—which must be overcome if
we areto becomewhole.
The chief ‘‘ordinary difficulty’’ of human life is that we are not whole.
AsFrankfurtputsit,mostofusfinditdifficulttoidentifywholeheartedly
with all of our emotions, desires, and inclinations. This self-alienation
takes two forms that especially interest Frankfurt. First, we are often
filled with uncertainty about whether we really ought to care as we do
xii Introduction
about what we care about; we are often ambivalent. Second, we often
discoverthatwehavedesires,orinclinations,thatwereallywouldprefer
not to have; and this can reduce us to being ‘‘passive bystanders’’ to our
own wills.
The latter form of self-alienation preoccupies Frankfurt in his earlier
work. It is, he argues, the key to understanding moral responsibility.
AccordingtoFrankfurt,weareresponsibleforwhatwedoifandonlyif
ourmotivesfordoingitaretrulyourown.Contrarytowhatmanyhave
thought, whether our motives are truly our own does not depend on
their causal history; nor does it depend on whether we have the power
to replace them. When moral responsibility is at issue, what matters is
whether the motivating force of our desires is in harmony with our atti-
tudes toward beingmoved in this way.
Insofar asourattitudes conflict, weareambivalent.And insofaraswe
are ambivalent, we lack confidence in our own ‘‘take’’ on things. In his
more recent work, Frankfurt has become especially interested in those
attitudes which are immune to doubt because we identify with them
‘‘wholeheartedly.’’Ineffect,hehasshifted hisfocusfrom theself-control
sufficientformoralresponsibilitytotheself-integrationthat,heclaims,is
animplicitgoalofeveryhumanagent.Withthisshift,hehasbecomeless
concerned about how our power as agents is manifested in the power of
ourdesires,andmoreinterestedinhowourwholeheartedpsychicinvest-
ments in people, institutions, and projects impose authoritative limits on
the power of our own wills.
According to Frankfurt, the most fundamental ideal of human agency
iswholeheartedness.Unlessonecareswholeheartedlyaboutsomething—
unless, that is, one is fully satisfied with the fact that one cares about
it—one’s life lacks balance, continuity, and structure. Caring about
something ‘‘guides [a person] in supervising the design and the order-
ing of his own purposes and priorities.’’ And to care wholeheartedly
about something is to trust the guide without reservation. Someone who
wholeheartedly endorses his motives is as actively involved in producing
hisown actions asan agentcan possibly be.
Frankfurttellsusthatthedefiningcharacteristicofpersonsisthatthey
care about things. And, following Hume, he insists that whatever we
havereasontodo(orrefrainfromdoing)dependsonwhat,inparticular,
we care about. Love, he says, is a special kind of care. When one loves
Introduction xiii
something, or someone, one cannot help caring about this thing, or per-
son.Moreimportant,onecannotdoubttheauthorityofthereasonsthat
are grounded in this care. In short, the authority that turns certain facts
into reasons for action is the authority of love; the ‘‘ought’’ of practical
reason is grounded in love’s nonrational ‘‘must.’’
To discover that one cannot help caring about something (and that
onecannothelpbeingsatisfiedwiththefactthatonecannothelpcaring)
is to come up against a ‘‘volitional necessity.’’ A person who is subject
to volitional necessity ‘‘accedes to [a constraint on his will] because he
is unwilling to oppose it and because, furthermore, his unwillingness is
itself something which he is unwilling to alter.’’ On Frankfurt’s account,
such necessities are the key to self-integration, and to the self-confidence
that is tied to wholeheartedness as both cause and effect. In giving us
reasons, volitional necessities are also the source of values. And because
they areconstitutiveofwho weare, theydetermine theconditionsunder
which wesucceed ingoverning ourselves.
When we truly govern ourselves—when we are truly autonomous—
thisisnot,Frankfurtinsists,becausethereismorethanonepossibleway
we can act. Rather, it is because certain possibilities are closed off by
what we truly care about. Being truly autonomous is one and the same
thing as being truly wholehearted. An autonomous agent ‘‘identifies
himself fully and uninhibitedly with the volitional configurations that
define his final ends.... There is no part of him—no part with which he
identifies—that is opposed to or that resists his loving what he loves.’’
Just as being at war with oneself is incompatible with self-government,
so, according to Frankfurt, self-love is a defining characteristic of the
autonomous agent.
Thethemesthatarecentraltocopingwiththedifficultiesofathoughtful
human life are among the themes of greatest philosophical importance.
This is evident in the essays collected here. Written to honor a distin-
guished colleague, these essays cover a wide range of topics in meta-
physics, metaethics, normative ethics, and action theory. They are the
work of eminent philosophers who defend their own original philosoph-
ical positions at thesame time that they respond to Frankfurt’s.
In his contribution to this volume, John Martin Fischer addresses
Frankfurt’s claim that causal determinism poses no threat to moral
xiv Introduction
responsibility.Frankfurthastworeasonsfortakingthisposition:hedoes
not believe that the history of an agent’s motives is relevant to whether
they are truly her own; and he does not believe that moral responsibility
requires alternate possibilities. Fischer rejects the antihistorical aspect of
Frankfurt’s conception of moral responsibility. But he joins Frankfurt in
attacking the assumption that an agent is responsible for her action only
ifshecouldhavedoneotherwise.FischerconcedesthatevenifFrankfurt
isrightonthisscore,thereareotherreasonsonemighthaveforthinking
that an agent cannot be responsible for an action that was causally de-
termined by the state of the world in the far distant past, together with
the laws of nature. He examines these additional considerations, argues
that they are not compelling, and thus concludes that whether an act is
causally determined is irrelevant to whether the agent is morally respon-
sible for performingit.
Eleonore Stump shares Fischer’s sense that Frankfurt’s account of
moral responsibility attributes too little importance to the history of an
agent’s motives. But she raises concerns about Fischer’s attempt to rec-
onciletherelevanceofhistorywiththeirrelevanceofcausaldeterminism.
She argues that the most compelling argument for the incompatibility of
causal determinism and moral responsibility relies on a principle that
Fischer has not succeeded in undermining. And she strengthens her case
againstapproacheslikeFischer’sbyshowinghowtheydonobetterthan
Frankfurt’s ahistorical approach in distinguishing causally determined
action from action caused by direct brain manipulation.
Even incompatibilists concede that being free from determination by
eventsinthepastdoesnotsufficeforbeingmorallyresponsibleforone’s
actions. In developing his own compatibilist account, Frankfurt intro-
duces a notion that many others have found suggestive. An agent is
morally responsible for his act, he says, if and only if he identifies with
the desire that moves him to perform it. Otherwise, the desire is just a
motivational force he suffers passively, like a reflex bodily movement
that occurs in spite of himself. In his essay Michael Bratman focuses on
this elusive notion of identification. What is it exactly? On Bratman’s
readingofFrankfurt,toidentifywithagivendesireDistohave‘‘higher-
order attitudes in support of D.’’ Bratman believes that the sort of iden-
tification that is especially important to agency involves a proattitude
towardD’sprovidingajustifyingreasonforaction;andhedevotesmost
Introduction xv
of his essay to analyzing this attitude and its propositional content.
Frankfurt, he notes, suggests that ‘‘treating D as reason-providing’’ can
be reduced to ‘‘D’s functioning as an effective motive because of the
higher-order attitude in favor of that functioning.’’ Like many other
contributors to this volume, however, Bratman is skeptical of any such
reduction. After all, he points out, ‘‘A desire for E may motivate action
without any thought that E is a justifying consideration.’’ He thus rec-
ommends an alternative analysis: to identify with some desire D is to
have a higher-order attitude toward D’s ‘‘functioning as end-setting for
practical reason.’’ The relevant attitude, he claims, is a ‘‘higher-order
self-governing policy.’’ Such policies have authority to represent the
agent’s standpoint because of the essential role they play in the unity of
agency. In offering this analysis of identification, Bratman aims to call
attention to the significant role that higher-order attitudes and policies
playinouragency.Hebringshisessaytoaclosebyreviewingadditional
ways inwhich such attitudesand policiescansupport our motives.
Bratman’s interest in identification is an interest in the attitudes an
agent has qua practical reasoner. This reflects the fact that our inten-
tional actions are actions we perform for a reason. David Velleman also
believes that the ‘‘self whose participation in causing behavior is neces-
sary and sufficient’’ for intentional agency is the self conceived as the
point of view from which reasons for action are assessed. Velleman
argues that this participating, identifying self need not persist over time
in order for a person to remain in existence. In other words, one can be-
tray even one’s deepest evaluative commitments without ceasing to be
the person one was. Persons, Velleman argues against Frankfurt, do not
have volitional essences. If we are tempted to think that they do, this
may wellbe because it is comfortingto dissociate ourselves from aspects
of ourselves we find threatening, or otherwise painful. With reference to
Freud,Vellemanremindsusofthepsychicdamagethatsuchdissociation
can cause.
ThethemeofGaryWatson’sessayisthevolitionalnecessitiesthatare,
allegedly, grounded in our volitional essences. To gain an understand-
ing of this special sort of limit on one’s will, Watson compares it with
manyother‘‘constraintsonone’sabilitytodosomething.’’Tobesubject
to volitional necessity is not to be constrained by psychic impediments,
suchasphobias.Norisitthesamethingas‘‘normativenecessity,’’orthe