Freedom, Indeterminism and Imagination1

Michael M. Pitman Psychology School of Human & Community Development University of the Witwatersrand Private Bag x3 WITS 2050 michael.pitman@wits.ac.za Abstract A suspicion about libertarian free will is that freedom is undermined, rather than supported, by the positing of indeterminism within processes of volition. In response, this paper presents a way in which moments of indeterminism can enhance freedom, by showing how such moments can genuinely belong to the agent. The key idea is that of putting the imagination to work in the service of free agency. The suggestion is that indeterministic processes of imaginative generativity can both belong to an agent, and provide a ground for claims of freedom. In contrast to Robert Kanes libertarian proposal of locating critical self-forming actions in special moments of rational choice, freedom-friendly indeterministic moments of self-shaping are instead posited within processes of imaginative generativity in which our future possibilities are imagined. This incompatibilist alternative to traditional libertarianism is briefly compared to Meles modest libertarianism, and defended against a selection of likely criticisms. Introduction An optimistic incompatibilist is someone who thinks we have free will (at least some of the time), but who thinks our having such free will is incompatible with the truth of determinism. Their optimism about free will contrasts with the pessimism of sceptical incompatibilists (including hard determinists) whose scepticism extends to both compatibilist and incompatibilist attempts to defend claims about our having free will. Their incompatibilism contrasts with the convictions of compatibilists, with the latter being convinced that we can have varieties of free will worth wanting2 even if determinism turns out to be true. As a position, optimistic incompatibilism is dominated by various libertarian positions that, despite their differences, tend to share one feature: in
1 An earlier version of the ideas in this paper appeared in Pitman (2011). I am grateful to Mark Leon, David Martens, Eddy Nahmias and Saul Smilansky for comments on this earlier work. I am also grateful to those attending the presentation of this paper at the 2012 PSSA conference hosted by UCT, and especially for comments and questions from Simon Beck, Deepak Mistrey, John Ostrowic, David Spurrett, and an anonymous reviewer for this journal. Special thanks go to Lucy Allais for encouraging the original idea, and for comments, suggestions and support at every stage of developing the central proposal and arguments. To borrow Daniel Dennetts (1984) expression.

370

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

breaking with determinism, they posit some variety of indeterministic process within the will of the agent that is critical to their freedom3. Optimistic incompatibilists hold that indeterministic processes are needed to disrupt backwards stretching deterministic causal chains. However, introducing indeterminism into the psychology of the agent is notoriously problematic. Probably the most widely shared criticism of libertarian accounts what I would call the anti-libertarian suspicion is that inserting indeterminism into the will of the agent does not secure the agents claim of having free will, because it tends to undermine more basic claims of ownership and control that the agent might have made for their choices, decisions and actions. To defend optimistic compatibilism, a positive proposal is needed as to how indeterministic processes could both play the necessary role in breaking backwards stretching deterministic causal chains and, at the same time, be plausibly thought of as belonging to the agent. But if this is right, where does that leave optimistic incompatibilism? More specifically, if the anti-libertarian suspicion is correct, is there any prospect for positing a different role for indeterminism within the psychology of agents, such that freedom is enhanced (or, more ambitiously, secured) without agency first being undermined? 4 This paper will explore one such possible role a freedom-enhancing role for indeterminism within the imaginative capacities and activities of the agent. Section I will briefly outline the anti-libertarian suspicion and some of its implications. In Section II, a preliminary case will be made for thinking that imagination, and indeterministic processes involving imagination, should find an important place within an optimistic incompatibilist account of free will and agency. In Section III, this idea will be developed into a specific hypothesis about a role for indeterministic moments of imaginative generativity in freedom-grounding moments of self-shaping. Section IV briefly introduces Meles modest libertarianism, and highlights some salient points of convergence and difference with the proposal of Section III. Finally, in Section V, the proposal will be defended against a selection of likely compatibilist and sceptical incompatibilist criticisms. This paper does not argue against compatibilism or determinism, nor attempt to prove that indeterministic processes exist. Rather, the goal is to answer the anti-libertarian suspicion by providing a freedom-friendly positive account of the role of indeterministic processes within agents. I Probably the most well-discussed version of the anti-libertarian suspicion comes in the form of what Peter van Inwagen (1983, 2000) and others have called the Mind argument5 against libertarianism. This latter argument can be stated as follows: If indeterminism is to be relevant to the question whether a given agent has free will, it must be because the acts of that agent cannot be free unless they (or perhaps their immediate causal antecedents) are undetermined. But if an agents acts are undetermined, then how the agent acts on a given occasion is a matter of chance. And if how an agent acts is a matter of chance, then the agent can hardly be said to have free will...[If] an agent is faced with a choice between[,
3 4 5 This strategy is characteristic of what I refer to as traditional libertarianism. In other words, what are the prospects for optimistic incompatibilism outside of traditional libertarianism? Because of the regularity with which it was repeated in the pages of Mind.

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

371

for example,] lying and telling the truth, and if it is a mere matter of chance which of these things the agent does, then it cannot be up to the agent which of them he does. (van Inwagen 2000: 10; italics in original) Of course, the Mind argument as stated above puts the matter rather strongly: inserting indeterminism into the process by which an agent comes to act is claimed to render the outcome of their choices and efforts a mere matter of chance, something that cannot be up to the agent. But even if this is too strong, the argument does capture very well the kind of concern that non-libertarians tend to share about inserting indeterminism into moments of volition. Of course defenders of free will want certain acts of the agent to count as free, but those acts must first sensibly qualify as acts of the agent (free or otherwise). If the process by which the agent comes to choose and act involves indeterminism, such that the act itself is undetermined, then claims of ownership and control that the agent might have made for the choice and the act seem to be undermined, or at least weakened. Even if, for a given choice situation, we dont go quite so far as saying that it cannot be up to the agent which of them she/he does, the anti-libertarian suspicion is that we have nevertheless moved in the wrong direction. At least for many of our more weighty and ethically significant choices and acts, we would surely want these to look more like decisive moments of an agent asserting their will and less like coin tosses if they are to count as products of a free will? There are many kinds of libertarian accounts, and so far we have approached them as if they were univocal, which (of course) they are not. We should make at least two distinctions amongst libertarian accounts: (a) between agent-causal and event-causal libertarian accounts; and (b) between regularist and occasionalist libertarian accounts. Agent-causal libertarian accounts (what Robert Kane calls extra-factor theories6) postulate a special kind of agent-causation, a mode of causation unlike those encountered elsewhere in science, in which an agents causing their free action cannot be fully accounted for in terms of causation by events, processes and states of affairs involving the agent. That is, the agent-causal theorist sees a free action as something left undetermined by preceding events, processes and states of affairs, including the agents projects, commitments, reasons, emotions, and other aspects of their character; and it is only through the special exercise of agent-causal powers that the free agent comes to resolve the indeterminacy and decide what their will shall be. By contrast, event-causal libertarians generally want to make do with the same processes, events, states of affairs and modes of causation that are to be found elsewhere in science, and find a place for the operation of an indeterministic free will within the events, processes and states of affairs that precede an agents actions. Regularist libertarian accounts see indeterminism as a regular feature of a free agents activities, and typically as a necessary feature of their free choices and actions; whereas occasionalists tend to see indeterminism as a more limited characteristic of the free agents activities there needs to be enough of it to ground the agents freedom, and it will generally be found in special character-shaping moments of choice; but indeterminism need not be a common feature of the agents choices and actions, and it is not a necessary feature of all actions that qualify as being free. On the whole, agent-causal libertarians tend to be regularists, while event-causal libertarians may be either regularists or occasionalists.
6 See, for example, Kane (1996, 2002a).

372

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

These distinctions map important features and differences amongst libertarian accounts, but they make little difference (in the eyes of non-libertarians) to the threat posed by the anti-libertarian suspicion. Perhaps the agent-causal theorist might be accused of making it even more mysterious as to how an action belongs to the agent when the sum of their character and events, processes, and states of affairs involving the agent left the action undetermined. And perhaps the regularist has more instances of indeterminism to accommodate, suggesting (to the non-libertarian) a more pervasive disconnection between the agent and their (supposedly free) actions. Yet the feature shared by what I am calling traditional libertarian accounts is that, in each case, an indeterministic free will is proposed in which the relevant indeterminism is posited within moments of volition. For the traditional libertarian, certain choices and actions are undetermined because they, in some way or other, involve a freedom-grounding degree of indeterminism. Someone who shares the anti-libertarian suspicion thinks this undermines the degree of ownership and control that the agent could claim over these choices and actions, because it looks like a matter of chance that things turned out the way they did. Indeterministic processes of volition undermine agency rather than securing free agency. If we assume that, despite the best efforts of libertarians, this suspicion is correct, where does this leave optimistic incompatibilists? More specifically, if the optimistic incompatibilist has to say something about how indeterminism figures in their account of freedom, and inserting indeterminism into processes of volition is ruled out, what plausible options remain open to them? It seems to me that there are at least two options that remain. First, it should be recalled that the optimistic incompatibilist holds that (i) we have free will, and (ii) free will is incompatible with determinism. To hold (i) and (ii) need not also imply a commitment to the further claim (iii) that to account for free will, we must locate some indeterminism within the volitional processes of the agent. Someone might propose, for example, that we have free will, that it is incompatible with determinism, and that free will needs to be understood against a background of general indeterminism (where, by tradition, indeterministic accounts of free will tend to be sketched against a background where determinism is the norm, and free will the indeterministic exception). This is not an idea I will pursue here 7. A second option would be to posit some form of indeterminism within the psychology of the agent, but not in moments or processes of volition per se. Perhaps there is an indeterministic process within agents that is not itself the process of decision and action, but which has relevance to the agents character and status as a free agent, and where the open-endedness of the indeterministic process is more plausibly valuable and virtuous than seems to be the case when it hovers around the brink of decisions and actions. It is this second option that I wish to explore. Specifically, I want to explore the idea of positing indeterminism within the exercise of the imagination as a possible basis for claims of free agency within an incompatibilist framework.

See, for example, Dupr (1993). This approach to defending free will on incompatibilist terms would represent a third optimistic incompatibilist strategy, alongside what I am calling traditional and non-traditional libertarian positions.

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

373

II Discussions of imagination and its contributions to agency appear notably absent from the free will literature8,9. There are some exceptions10, but even these tend to involve little more than suggestive remarks that require (indeed, deserve) far greater exploration and development. I cannot attempt a comprehensive discussion of all such ideas. My goal in this paper is far more modest: I wish to focus on a combination of three ideas linking imagination and free agency: (i) we are able to imagine alternatives for action, for our future, for the kind of person we think we ought to be, and for the context in which we find ourselves11; (ii) we can respond to imagined scenarios and contexts12; and (iii) the exercise of imagination is itself a free act in which we spontaneously create all manner of marvellous mental products (McGinn 2004: 195)13. The primary motivation for looking at imagination in the context of a non-traditional libertarian incompatibilist framework comes from thinking about claims like (iii). The apparent spontaneity of imagination makes it look like a plausible candidate for a mental process that could be indeterministic, and where some degree of indeterminism might be valued as a welcome and necessary part of the imaginative efforts of the agent, rather than a threat to their claims to ownership and control of those efforts. Consider the activity of engaging with a work of fiction reading a novel, for instance. This process involves an extended exercise of imaginative effort, as a world of characters, places, histories and unfolding events is brought to life in the mind of the reader. It strikes me as plausible that the unfolding of this exercise of imagination is indeterministic. Exactly what shape these imagined worlds will take in the mind of the engaged reader is not something fully determined by the work and the character and
8 This is not an original claim, nor one unique to the free will debate. The Harvard University Press publication blurb for Colin McGinns (2004) book on imagination, Mindsight, claims that the topic of imagination has a rich history of exploration in philosophy until the rise of contemporary analytic philosophy of mind. The claim is ultimately an empirical one, and it receives some degree of confirmation by way of a reasonably wide-reaching and representative online keyword search of The Philosophers Index (early in 2011, via the EBSCO portal) combining free will and imagination as search terms. The search yielded just three hits: two with a historical and interpretive focus (one on Spinoza, one on Schiller), and the third being a work on symbolism in fiction. Further suggestive evidence can be found through cursory surveys of some significant texts published in the last decade. Robert Kane has edited two important volumes on free will OUPs Oxford Handbook of Free Will (Kane 2002c), and Blackwells Free Will (Kane 2002b). Neither of these texts has an entry for imagination in their index. An electronic search of the Blackwell volume (via Amazon UK) revealed not a single reference to the term imagination in its 310 pages; while a similar electronic search of the 638 page OUP volume revealed just two uses of the term: one in a footnote to Russell (2002), in which imagination is listed as one of the natural abilities discussed by Hume, and the other in Ted Honderichs (2002) contribution to this volume, where abstract concepts of the imagination (Honderich 2002: 463) is one of a long list of speculative ideas discussed by physicists with regard to the nature of quantum events. So, in 948 pages of collected historical and contemporary discussions of free will, not one contributor saw fit to discuss imagination (certainly not by name) as an important capacity or faculty within human psychology that might have relevance to how we understand, account for and defend free will. See Dennett (2003: 179, 267), McCrone (1999: 257) and McGinn (2004: 153, 195). See, for example, Dennett (2003: 267) and McGinn (2004: 195). See, for example, McCrone (1999: 257). David Martens has also highlighted to me the Kantian tradition linking the exercise and experience of imagination with the exercise and experience of freedom. See, for example, Guyer (1993; 2006: 311) and Kneller (2007). Further development of the current proposal will require more extensive engagement with this tradition.

10 11 12 13

374

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

context of the reader there is a genuine degree open-endedness to the process. At least, it strikes me as plausible that there is such open-endedness; and far more plausible than the alternative hypothesis that the process is entirely deterministic. Further, it strikes me as plausible that the impact on the reader of this imaginative engagement with a novel also has an element of indeterminism. It seems plausible to think that the lasting impact of these imagined worlds and virtual experiences on the reader is not something fully determined by the work or the agent and their context. Once again, it is not that I can prove this (empirical) claim about indeterminism, but it seems far more plausible than the deterministic alternative14. Of what possible relevance is this kind of example to the general case of free agency? The exercise of imagination involved in reading a novel is generative it involves the generation of mental products and spontaneous. The exercise as a whole is something under the control of the agent for example, taking up the book, how long to read for in a session, whether to pause to consider and imagine something in greater detail while its spontaneity also implies a level at which control is neither exerted nor desired the reader allows themselves to be open to wherever the interaction of the work and their imagination takes them. Yet the open-endedness of such an exercise, any ceding of control that might be involved, its spontaneity none of these represent a plausible threat to the ownership that the agent might claim over the exercise, its products and its impact. The reader intentionally engages in the activity, directs its overall course and duration, and values both the experience and its products. I contend that all of this would remain the case if it were to turn out that such imagination exercises involve ineliminable indeterminism, the value of which lies largely in the open-endedness of the process that is thereby assured. If we generalise this idea, the above example suggests that in the exercise of imagination, a free agents activities could be marked by an appropriate indeterminism a valuable indeterminism that does not at the same time undermine their integrity as an agent, or the ownership and control they might claim over any such indeterministic processes. More specifically, if an agent employs their imagination to open-endedly (because indeterministically) imagine future possibilities for themselves, for their actions, and their interactions with others, perhaps the incompatibilist can find here the right kind of indeterminism to help ground freedom without threatening the integrity of the agent. The core of this proposal thus develops the idea that in the case of the imagination, and unlike processes such as reasoning, deliberation and choice more generally, we might welcome the open-ended generativity and possibilities for novelty that could result from a degree of indeterminism without thinking that this probabilistic element within the process somehow undermined claims of origination, ownership and control on the part of the agent. The open-ended generativity of imagination when conceived of as a partly indeterministic process could be seen as a virtue and an aid to free agency, not as some kind of shortcoming. Conversely, we might think the freedom of
14 Ardent determinists, sceptics and agnostics might not yet be persuaded. Complexity, chaotic dynamics, and our ignorance of so much human psychology can all too easily leave us with an appearance of indeterminism whose source is really only epistemic. I have no decisive argument to offer. I could suggest that a deterministic hypothesis would outstrip the available evidence to a greater extent than an indeterministic one; and I would further propose some open-minded self-reflection on the readers own experience of fiction, poetry, music and art in general. I dont expect easy converts, and the question is ultimately an empirical one that cannot be settled without the relevant evidence from psychology, neuroscience and elsewhere being in.

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

375

an agent has been restricted, curtailed or otherwise undermined when there has been a foreclosing on the generativity of various imaginative processes at play in not only contexts of decision and action, but also in processes of agent shaping or formation more generally. In the realm of imagination, then, perhaps we may find a process (or processes) in free agents where the insertion of indeterminacy brings (i) the added values of generativity, novelty, an expansion of perspectives and of imagined possibilities, while (ii) the associated ceding of some degree of control over such imaginative processes seems not only tolerable, but indeed desirable, to the extent that (iii) attempts at reasserting too much control, thereby foreclosing on the unfolding imaginative activity, would tend to constrain or threaten freedom of agency. III To develop these ideas, I contrast them with the libertarian account developed by Robert Kane15. Kanes libertarian account is occasionalist and event-causal. The central idea I want to draw on derives from his occasionalism. Kane proposes to help ground claims of what he calls Ultimate Responsibility16 by positing occasional, special moments of self-shaping Self-Forming Actions or SFAs in which undetermined events within the agent might come to shape their future reasons and decisions, determined or not: [I]ndeterminism does not have to be involved in all acts done of our own free wills for which we are ultimately responsible Not all such acts have to be undetermined, but only those by which we made ourselves into the kinds of persons we are, namely self-forming actions or SFAs[T]hese undetermined self-forming actions or SFAs occur at those difficult times of life when we are torn between competing visions of what we should do or become. (Kane 2002a: 227-8) It could thus be sufficient that, in free agents, we can in part trace their choices back to these special, undetermined moments of self-shaping that break any relevant backward-extending regresses of deterministic causation. Suppose, then, that there is a subset of important moments of self-shaping that occur in agents, both in early development and across the lifespan. Contra Kane, this subset of occasions of self-shaping is not comprised of Self-forming Actions (SFAs) involving choice between competing alternatives under conditions of plural voluntary control17. Instead, on the model of the impact of a poem or a work of fiction on an individual consciousness, or the creative maelstrom that gives birth to a work of art or an invention, these special moments of self-shaping activity are moments of imaginative generativity in which options and possibilities for the future are conjured and constructed as scenarios in the imagination. By hypothesis, these moments of imaginative
15 See especially Kane (1996, 2002a). 16 The basic idea [behind the condition of ultimate responsibility or UR] is this: to be ultimately responsible for an action, an agent must be responsible for anything that is a sufficient reason (condition, cause or motive) for the actions occurring. If, for example, a choice issues from, and can be sufficiently explained by, an agents character and motives (together with background conditions), then to be ultimately responsible for the choice, the agent must be at least in part responsible by virtue of choices or actions voluntarily performed in the past for having the character and motives he or she now has. (Kane 2002a: 224). 17 See, for example, Kane (2002a: 227-232).

376

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

generativity are indeterministic in some significant sense. The possibilities and scenarios imagined emerge as a complex probabilistic function of the psychology, psychosocial history and context, and brain dynamics of the individual agent. The hypothesised indeterminism involved in these moments of imaginative self-shaping is internal to, and indeed a function of the history and internal dynamics of the agent. These works of the imagination represent the creative, novelty-producing confluence of all the influences in the individual agents life their experiences, ideas, emotions, values, hopes and fears; their history of decisions, projects, actions, successes and failures; their second and third hand experiences imagined on the experience and testimony of others; their experience and know-how and knowledge gained in the make-believe worlds of pretend play, fantasy, fiction, poetry and art; and their parental and societal context (to name just some of the potential variables). The probabilistic and chaotic dynamics that I suggest are at play in these moments of creatively imagining options for the future will be as uniquely individual as the pattern of neural connections in the brains of even genetically identical individuals18. For this reason alone, the internality and ownership of these indeterministic dynamics matters a great deal as an expression of who that individual is, and it matters also to the possible creative outputs of the process. There are further important differences to note between this proposed idea of imaginative self-formation and the account of SFAs offered by Kane. Unlike SFAs, occasions of imaginative self-formation are not choice situations. What emerges from these indeterministic moments in an agents life are imagined options and possibilities for the future. These, in turn, are likely to influence subsequent imaginings, reflections and deliberations, including reflections and deliberations leading to choices. By shifting the focus away from choices, the proposal attempts to avoid the traditional libertarian move (and resulting anti-libertarian critique) of inserting indeterminism into moments of volition. The proposal involves no particular account, at this stage, of how choices might be made between imagined possible futures. Furthermore, because this is not an account of self-forming choices, it is also not a proposal that would look to make or ground claims of Ultimate Responsibility (in the specific sense of this term defined by Kane) in these undetermined moments of imaginative generativity19. From an incompatibilist perspective, it is enough that such moments can make a meaningful contribution to the possibilities for choice and action in an agent while at the same time breaking any backwards-extending chain/s of deterministic causation20 that might be claimed to run through an agents lifeline21. Finally, because the proposed moments of undetermined self-shaping are not choices, it is most important that the agent can claim ownership of the process and its products. Unqualified questions about control22 are not as critical to either the overall significance of these moments of self-shaping, or to the claims of ownership that can be made, as might be the case with Kanes SFAs. When a work of art flows from the imagination of an artist, or an agent engages with a work of literature, we do not query the ownership of the products of such activities on the basis of quibbles about the ex18 See, for example, Edelman (2004). 19 The proposal does relate to questions of ultimacy, but these are more fruitfully understood in terms of Meles notion of ultimate control see Section IV below. 20 See below, as well as the discussion of Meles modest libertarianism in Section IV. 21 To borrow Roses (1997) evocative term for the life cycle of an individual organism. 22 Again, see below and Section IV for finer distinctions about control based on Meles work.

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

377

tent of control an agent might have during the imaginative process. Based on this logic, any ceding of control that might be thought to come with the influence of indeterministic dynamics does not present the kind of problem for agency that it arguably does in the case of Kanes SFAs (or, for that matter, in an agent-causal account of the moment of choice)23. Self-shaping moments of indeterministic imaginative generativity are thus posited as times in a free agents life when more than one future is genuinely open to them because the outcomes of these exercises of imagination are undetermined. The products of these self-shaping moments, and their impact on the psychology and actions of the agent, would provide a critical ground for claims of free agency within an incompatibilist framework. We might, however, anticipate an immediate objection to the current proposal, based on the above contrast with Kanes theory.24 Perhaps the proposed account of imaginative self-shaping can avoid certain difficulties associated with Kanes SFAs qua choices. However, in the context of discussing and defending free agency, questions about decision-making and choice cannot be avoided, and the concern might be raised that the current proposal does not (yet) adequately answer these. In particular, it might be objected that if the account is not one of choice, it leaves the agent potentially determined in their choices and actions, stuck in the same causal straightjacket that incompatibilists worry threatens free will. A comprehensive response to this objection no doubt requires further incorporation and development of the current proposal within a theory of free agency. Nevertheless, the immediate concern about causal straightjacketing can be addressed. For a start, note that compatibilists, occasionalist libertarians, and non-traditional libertarian proposals such as Meles25 all accept that, in and of itself, causal determination of a given choice and action is not problematic. The minimum that an optimistic incompatibilist wants from a successful account is to at least have disrupted any backward stretching deterministic causal chains in ways that are freedom friendly that is, to secure some degree of ultimate control26 that would, for example, block determination of choice and action by conditions pre-dating the agents birth. I have argued that indeterministic moments of imaginative generativity would break such chains successfully the outcomes are not determined by all the conditions that precede the process, such that while the process unfolds, the agent has more than just one possible future course open for their lifeline. Thereafter, imaginative outputs will provide novel and undetermined inputs to future reflection and contemplation, as well as deliberation, choice and action. Having imagined a range of possible futures that they were not causally determined to imagine, the character of the agent is changed: they are now someone who has recognised certain possible futures and not others, and who can consider, re-evaluate and adjust their projects, commitments and values in the light of what has been imagined. Such adjustments will then also figure in their future deliberations, choices and actions, while inheriting some degree of the causal regress-stopping indeterminacy of the generative imaginative act. Finally, the process is iterative. The products of imagination feed not
23 See Section II above. 24 The priority of addressing this objection (over the others considered in Section V below) was suggested by an anonymous reviewer. 25 See Section IV below. 26 To use Meles framework of distinctions between proximal and ultimate control, discussed in IV below.

378

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

only into future deliberations and choices, but also into future exercises of imagination, along with the products of self-examination, deliberation and choice that have already been coloured by these earlier imaginings. So one expects a kind of bootstrapping effect over time whereby the agent increasingly takes shape as what we might call their own person. And contra many varieties of compatibilism, this kind of freedom-friendly self-shaping does not depend on especially strong assumptions about the agents capacity for reflective self-awareness or rational deliberation27. IV In the preceding sections, I have suggested that the proposed incompatibilist account is different from what I have called traditional libertarianism in so far as freedom-friendly indeterminism is held to find a place in the agents psychology other than in (either regular or occasional) moments of decision and choice per se. Given this difference, it is worth noting one other non-traditional libertarian account that pursues a relevantly similar strategy, but with some important differences. The account I have in mind is Alfred Meles modest libertarianism (Mele 1995, 2006)28. Meles work is partly notable because he is officially agnostic about the truth of compatibilism (Mele 2006: 4). He thus develops what he regards as a plausible compatibilist account of freedom-grounding autonomy that he thinks can be supplemented by an additional incompatibilist requirement to yield a plausible, modest (and non-traditional) libertarian account of autonomy/free agency29. On his modest libertarian account, as with the current proposal, Mele thinks a plausible libertarianism should insert indeterminism somewhere other than at moments of decisive judgement and intention formation30. His proposal is that freedom-friendly indeterminism might be at work in influencing what things (especially beliefs) come to mind during deliberation. Meles modest libertarianism is thus also an optimistic incompatibilist position that embraces the anti-libertarian suspicion. To understand Meles take on the matter, it is helpful to consider his distinction between proximal and ultimate control: When x is an action of Ss a particular, dated occurrence Ss having ultimate control over x, I will say, requires that there not be any point in time at
27 Simon Beck posed the question as to why a compatibilist could not just take on board the proposal regarding imagination without thereby abandoning compatibilism. My first response is that the project in this paper is not to mount a case against compatibilism, but rather to propose and explore a promising option for an indeterministic incompatibilism. I have thus far left it open that much of what compatibilists might have to say about proximal control could be on the right track; and someone who endorses the anti-libertarian suspicion tends to think that local level determination of choice and action is not necessarily a bad thing for free agency. But my second response is that the compatibilist would find difficulty in granting the value of the ultimate control (in Meles sense) that flows from an agent-internal indeterminism. If the compatibilist cannot recognize the value of ultimacy, then while they could recognize the contribution of imagination to agency, it is not clear how they could recognize or frame its contribution to free agency. 28 Eddy Nahmias suggested the value of a comparison between my account and Meles libertarian proposal. My preference would be to refer to my own and Meles proposals as non-libertarian incompatibilist positions, reserving libertarian as a label for what I have been calling traditional libertarianism. But since Mele has favoured modest libertarianism, I would class his and my proposals as varieties of non-traditional libertarianism. 29 See Mele (1995, 2006). For the purposes of this paper, I will ignore his more daring libertarian proposal developed in Chapter 5 of Mele (2006). 30 Mele thus also thinks that a plausible indeterministic account need not be an account of choice see my response to the objection considered in Section III.

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

379

which minimally causally sufficient conditions satisfying the following condition are present for Ss x-ing at t: the condition is that the minimally causally sufficient conditions include no event or state internal to S. An agents having proximal control over an action of his, however, is compatible with the truth of determinismas is an agents having proximal control over what he intends at t, what he judges best at t, and so on. (Mele 1995: 211) Proximal control is thus, for the most part, local-level compatibilist control over judgement, intention and action, and Mele thinks that compatibilists are right to want more rather than less proximal control over these processes. Ultimate control, however, is a notion of control that would block the kind of regress incompatibilists worry about in the Consequence Argument31: if an agent can claim some degree of ultimate control, then there will be no causally sufficient conditions for their choices and actions that, for example, pre-date their birth. Mele proposes that a modest libertarianism posit some form of agent-internal indeterminism that will help secure ultimate control while not compromising proximal control in any way that would not also affect the compatibilist: In principle, an agent-internal indeterminism may provide for indeterministic agency while blocking or limiting our proximal control over what happens only at junctures at which we have no greater proximal control on the hypothesis that our universe is deterministic. (Mele 2006: p11) Meles focuses on the deliberations that precede decisive judgement and intention formation. He thinks that the course of deliberation is clearly influenced by at least some of the considerations that come to mindthat is, become salient in consciousnessduring deliberation and by our assessments of considerations (Mele 2006: 11); while it is also clearly false that we can claim control over the coming to mind of every consideration that influences deliberation, even if determinism were true. But if there is a subset of considerations whose coming to mind during deliberation is subject to an internal indeterminism, then there is a period of time during which alternative possible outcomes of deliberation are possible for the agent without them having ceded any more control over deliberation than a compatibilist agent might claim. Thus, the modest libertarian can posit an ultimacy-promoting indeterminism (Mele 1995: 235) without compromising or reducing the nonultimate control that real agents exert over their deliberation even on the assumption that real agents are internally deterministic (ibid.). At one level, Meles proposal is one that an optimistic incompatibilist should welcome: all attempts to make indeterminism both freedom- and agency-friendly (in ways that escape the apparent problems of traditional libertarianism) are likely to advance the incompatibilist cause. Further, Mele provides a useful framework within which to characterise other non-traditional incompatibilist proposals, including the one being advanced in this paper. Indeterministic moments of imaginative generativity contribute to freedom in part because they help secure a degree of ultimate control; and it is not clear that a compatibilist could or would want to claim greater proximal control for the agent over their exercises in imaginative generativity. Finally, there is the possibility of overlap between Meles account and the current proposal, especially in so far as deliberation might be thought to include both (a) the exercise of imagination (esp. in the
31 See, for example, van Inwagen (1983, 2000).

380

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

comparison of alternative possible futures), as well as (b) occasional moments of imaginative generativity per se in which possible futures are imagined and compared. The primary difference I would highlight between Meles account and the current proposal is that Mele posits indeterminism where he thinks the compatibilist cannot plausibly claim any greater level of proximal control, even if there was reason to think that more control over what comes to mind in deliberation would be a good thing for compatibilist autonomy/ free agency. It might be false to claim that we control everything that comes to mind in deliberation, but the compatibilist might nevertheless wish for more control, and think that this would further enhance claims of autonomy. In contrast, the proposal about imagination posits indeterminism where a compatibilist will struggle to convince us that more control is desirable, let alone possible. We value the generative open-endedness of imagination because it promotes creativity, novelty and spontaneity. Exerting greater control over imagination seems an unlikely means by which to enhance these features of imaginative processes. Thus, even compatibilist agents should recognise the value of not having too much proximal control over their imagination. In short, genuine indeterminacy in imagination seems to be valuable both because of what it means for imaginative processes and because it promotes ultimacy; whereas genuine indeterminacy in deliberation might seem important if you value ultimacy, but otherwise looks like some kind of deficiency (because considerations that would otherwise influence deliberative outcomes can fail to come to mind).32 V It is inevitable that, beyond the objection considered at the conclusion of Section III, further objections will be levelled at the core proposal of this paper, most notably by compatibilists and sceptical incompatibilists. I will restrict myself to considering and briefly responding to three such objections. First, in what way does the hypothesis escape or remove the worry that, if things are undetermined, then they are not up to us? The question of whether or not events that are undetermined can be up to us is, in the context of my proposal, ambiguous. In the sense of up to us-ness that requires an agent to have a requisite amount of control over how things turn out, I have already allowed that we do not have complete control over the process and outcomes I have described. But this is as it should be when it comes to open-ended imaginative generativity, what we want is for imagination to run free. At the same time, on the basis of the analogy with reading a novel, we do exert control over other aspects of the process, including when we engage in imaginative activity, for how long, what we do with the products (e.g. thinking about them, memorising them, talking about them or externalising them in some other way), etc.
32 My more general concern about Meles position is that it adds a (non-traditional) libertarian condition for free agency to an already demanding set of compatibilist conditions for autonomy. There are a number of problems that might arise from this, and I cannot mention all of them here. At bottom, however, is the concern that on Meles account, ultimacy-enhancing indeterminism only matters once compatibilist autonomy is in place. But if optimistic incompatibilists (including traditional libertarians) have been right to value and pursue ultimacy-enhancing indeterminism, is that not partly because it can ground claims of freedom in less rational, less-than-ideally-self-controlled agents than those sketched in various compatibilist accounts? (I discuss these kinds of concerns in Part II of Pitman 2011). Moreover, if compatibilism is, as Kant (1788/2010: 96) thought, a wretched subterfuge, perhaps saving only parts of compatibilism is a much more prudent strategy than presupposing the integrity of a full set of compatibilist conditions.

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

381

On a second sense of up to us-ness, the process and outcomes are up to us because, in so far as they represent the dynamic confluence of a unique set of variables in the agents lifeline, there is a very strong sense in which the outcomes of the imaginative process are an expression of who that agent is. Moreover, as is evident when comparing moments of imaginative generativity to our interaction with a work of fiction, or the production of a work of art, the products of these moments of constructing imagined futures need be no more or less up to us than our reactions to the novel, or the artists expression of themselves in their art. A second objection might follow Dennett (2003) in his criticism of Kane: it might be alleged that randomness is just randomness. Perhaps we can imagine a range of alternative functional arrangements for the imagination that outsource the indeterministic element to other genuinely random processes (a Geiger counter) or pseudo-random processes (a computer generated pseudo-random number). But if the internality of the indeterminacy doesnt matter functionally, then how can it matter to claims of freedom-friendly ultimacy33? In response, I would claim that it matters a great deal that the indeterminism involved in these moments of imaginative self-shaping is internal to, and indeed a function of the history and internal dynamics of the agent. As noted in Section III, these works of the imagination represent the creative, novelty-producing confluence of all the influences in the individual agents life their experiences, ideas, emotions, values, hopes and fears; their history of decisions, projects, actions, successes and failures; their second and third hand experiences imagined on the experience and testimony of others; their experience and know-how and knowledge gained in the make-believe worlds of pretend play, fantasy, fiction, poetry and art; and their parental and societal context (to name just some of the potential variables) and would be associated with probabilistic dynamics as uniquely individual as the pattern of neural connections in the brains of even genetically identical individuals34. For this reason alone, the internality and ownership of these indeterministic dynamics matters a great deal as an expression of who that individual is, and it matters also to the possible creative outputs of the process35. Third and finally, what about the core of the anti-libertarian suspicion, and specifically the conclusion to the Mind argument that indeterminism in choice or the causal antecedents of choice renders the choice a matter of mere chance? My preceding response to the claim that randomness is just randomness already indicates much of what I think it wrong with this idea. That the products of imagination are products of probabilistic causal processes does not remove all up-to-usness, and does not make them a mere matter of chance. But the objector usually has something more, or something else in mind here usually an example of a counterpart faced with the same choice situation but who, because of the indeterminacy of antecedent events, lacks something that our agent has. So here we might consider the counterpart not having imagined one of a number of possible futures for themselves that our agent did, thus leaving them with33 In Meles sense of ultimate control, rather than Kanes notion of Ultimate Responsibility. 34 See Edelman (2004). 35 To be fair to Dennett (2003), his argument against Kane was focussed on the idea of indeterminism playing a role in a knife-edge choice situation between a restricted range of known alternatives. I would hope that, in the context of a multidimensional and dynamic process of imaginative generativity, Dennett would not propose that remote radioactive decay could functionally substitute for internal brain dynamics.

382

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

out the influence of this factor in their future deliberations and choices. Isnt this difference just a matter of chance, such that any outcomes of the difference are not creditor blame-worthy (qua matter of chance)? It seems to me that the incompatibilist might offer a two part response. First, it seems right that the lifelines of counterparts should very quickly diverge on this account that is what the genuine open-endedness and novelty of exercises of the imagination would predict. But then, second, having diverged, the two agents are no longer relevant counterparts when it comes to future choice situations. As I argued in Section III, there is likely to be a bootstrapping effect in how the products of imagination impact on the psychology of the agent, including the impact on further indeterministic exercises of the imagination. Perhaps this sounds like a dodge perhaps we have to allow tracking of the counterpart for long enough to see what an allegedly chance difference of imaginative output makes to some future choice. So suppose, down the line from a process of imaginative generativity, our agent has imagined options a, b and c, while their counterpart imagined only a and b (or they imagined a, b and d). Our agent, in their choice situation, chooses c (relative to a and b). Obviously the counterpart does not choose c. If we grant that the difference between the agents in having c as an option is, in part, a matter of chance, does that make the agents choice of c a matter of chance or, stronger, a mere matter of chance? It seems to me that the incompatibilist would respond that this does not follow, because the agent chose c relative to the availability of imagined futures a, b and c, and relative to any impact that imagining those futures options might have had on their psychology (again, in ways that make their deliberative position different to their counterpart). And it is presumably not a matter of chance that the agent chose c relative to this deliberative context, whatever their relationship to their counterpart. References Dennett, D.C. 1984. Elbow room. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Dennett, D.C. 2003. Freedom evolves. London: Penguin. Dupr, J. 1993. The disorder of things: metaphysical foundations of the disunity of science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Edelman, G.M. 2004. Wider than the sky: the phenomenal gift of consciousness. London: Allen Lane. Guyer, P. 1993. Kant and the experience of freedom: essays on aesthetics and morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guyer, P. 2006. Kant. New York: Routledge. Honderich, T. 2002. Determinism as true, compatibilism and incompatibilism as false, and the real problem. In R.H Kane (ed.) The Oxford handbook of free will. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kane, R.H. 1996. The significance of free will. New York: Oxford University Press. Kane, R.H. 2002a. Free will: new directions for an ancient problem. In R. Kane (ed.) Free will. Oxford: Blackwell. Kane, R.H. (ed.) 2002b. Free will. Oxford: Blackwell.

S. Afr. J. Philos. 2012, 31(2)

383

Kane, R.H. (ed.) 2002c. The Oxford handbook of free will. New York: Oxford University Press. Kant, I. 1788/2010. Critique of practical reason. New York: Classic Books. Kneller, J. 2007. Kant and the power of imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCrone, J. 1999. A bifold model of free will. Journal of Consciousness Studies 6 (8-9), 241259. McGinn, C. 2004. Mindsight: image, dream, meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mele, A.R. 1995. Autonomous agents: from self-control to autonomy. New York: Oxford University Press. Mele, A.R. 2006. Free will and luck. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pitman, M.M. 2011. Free agency and its place within psychology. Unpublished doctoral thesis: University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Rose, S.P.R. 1997. Lifelines: life beyond the gene. New York: Oxford University Press. Russell, P. 2002. Pessimists, Pollyannas, and the New Compatibilism. In R.H Kane (ed.) The Oxford handbook of free will. Oxford: Oxford University Press. van Inwagen, P. 1983. An essay on free will. Oxford: Clarendon Press. van Inwagen, P. 2000. Free will remains a mystery. Philosophical Perspectives 14, 1-19.

Copyright of South African Journal of Philosophy is the property of Philosophical Society of Southern Africa (PSSA) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.