Unavoidable actions

ABSTRACT

It’s often assumed, especially in discussions of free will and moral responsibility, that unavoidable actions are possible. In recent years, however, several philosophers have questioned that assumption. Their views are considered here, and the possibility of unavoidable actions is defended and then applied to issues in action theory and in the literature on moral responsibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Ability
• action
• agency
• Frankfurt cases
• two-way powers
• unavoidability

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Randy Clarke, Al Mele, and two anonymous referees for their helpful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See, e.g. Alvarez (2009; 2013), Pickard (2015), and Steward (2008; 2009; and 2012).

2 For an overview of the literature on agents’ abilities, see Clarke (2015).

3 Different philosophers use different terminology to mark this distinction, but the distinction itself, or one near enough to it, is common. See, e.g. Berofsky (2002, 196), Clarke (2015, 893–894), Fischer (2002, 304), Mele (2003, 447), van Inwagen (1983, 12–13), and Whittle (2010, 2–3).

4 An anonymous referee worries about whether in-the-moment abilities are genuine abilities or whether they are general abilities together with the conditions for the exercise of a general ability. I don’t share this worry, but suppose it’s correct. In that case, I could rephrase the paper’s central thesis as follows: it’s possible for an agent who performs an action A at t and who has a general ability at t to refrain from A-ing at t to be in a situation at t in which it’s impossible for the conditions for the exercise of that general ability to be realized at t. Rephrasing the claim in this way, though more cumbersome, wouldn’t alter the substantive points made in what follows.

5 It’s worth noting at this point that having an in-the-moment ability to A may not depend on having a general ability to A. Cyr and Swenson (2019) argue that one can have what I’m calling an in-the-moment ability to A (and what they call a specific ability to A) without having a general ability to A.

6 My argument for this claim develops some themes from Capes (2012) and is similar in certain respects to an argument of Peter van Inwagen’s (1989). An important difference between van Inwagen’s argument and mine is that van Inwagen’s argument relies on a controversial inference rule, Beta-prime, whereas my argument doesn’t.

7 The case is discussed by Alvarez (2013, 117) who attributes it to Steward (2012, 183). However, the example appears to have first been introduced by Wolf (1980, 152–153). I discuss Alvarez’s treatment of the case in section 2 below.

8 For similar points, see Fischer (1994, 52–54), Fischer and Ravizza (1992, 433–434), Wolf (1980, 152–153), and van Inwagen (1994, 99–106).

9 The explanation needn’t be contrastive. That is, it needn’t explain why, in the counterfactual scenario, the mother refrains from rushing into the burning house rather than rushing in. Depending on one’s view of contrastive explanation, it may be that there is no such explanation of the mother’s refraining in the counterfactual scenario. The explanation must, however, make intelligible why the mother refrained from rushing in in that case.

10 Thanks to an anonymous referee for pressing me to address this sort of objection.

11 See also Fischer (1994, 48–62). Fischer and Ravizza (1992) attribute this fallacy to van Inwagen (1989).

12 For discussion of such cases, see Capes (2012, 12–13) and Dennett (1984, 133).

13 Note that this mistake is the same one that Fischer and Ravizza (1992) attribute to van Inwagen (1989).

14 It’s worth noting that philosophers who, as Pickard (2015, 136) puts it, ‘turn to psychopathology’ when they want ‘an example of a person who lacks the ability to do otherwise’ often don’t claim that actual agents who suffer from various psychopathologies lack the ability to do otherwise. Their focus, rather, is on hypothetical cases, cases which they take to be conceptually or metaphysically possible. That is certainly what I am up to in Capes 2014.

15 Fara (2008) is an exception. Fara interprets PAP as a principle about the general ability to do otherwise and shows (conclusively, I think) that Frankfurt’s argument has no shot against that version of the principle.

16 Not everything we ‘do’ counts as a genuine action. Last night you might have woken your spouse with your loud snoring, but waking them, in this case, though something you did, wasn’t an action of yours.

17 Thanks to an anonymous referee for encouraging me to address this objection.

18 Thanks to an anonymous referee for helpful suggestions about how to formulate this case.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Justin A. Capes

Justin A. Capes is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Flagler College. He works in ethics and the philosophy of action. Most of his research is at the intersection of these two fields.