Acting Freely Author(s): Gerald Dworkin Source: Nos, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Nov., 1970), pp.

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ActingFreely
GERALD DWORKIN
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

And those who act under compulsionand unwillingly act with pain. Aristotle Nichomachean Ethics Whenever coercion takes place one will is subordinated to another. The coerced is no longer a completely independent agent. If my will is overborne by yours I serve your ends and not mine. I am motivated by your interests and not mine. I do what you want, not what I want. The domain of human motivation is always haunted by a tautology hovering overhead. The strongest motive always prevails; the dominant desire determines action; we always do what we want to do. Since coercion designates a process in which a particular class of reasons for acting is singled out it might be predicted that, sooner or later, these truisms would make their appearance. And following close behind, as usual, we find paradox. I The following is surely a plausible explication of what it is for a man to be free. I am free when my conduct is under my control, and I act under constraint when my conduct is controlled by someone else. My conduct is under my own control when it is determined by my own desires, motives, and intentions, and not under my control when it is determined by the desires, motives, and intentions of someone else. Universityof CaliforniaAssociates [11], p. 599. Against this view Oppenheim [8], p. 36, argues that Whenever I act my conduct is 'determined by my own desires, 367

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motives, and intentions.' This follows from the very definitions of -'action'. Plamenatz [10], p. 110, takes a similar position. It is, of course, quite clear that all action is necessarily voluntary, since it is never possible for a man to do what he does not wish. Indeed, to do what one wishes is the same thing as to act, for an action which has no motive is inconceivable. This remark occurs in the context of a discussion of freedom and Plamenatz illustrates his comment with a typical example of coercion. If, for instance, A threatens to shoot B unless he raises his hand above his head, then B's motive for doing what is required, although it consists in the fear of what will happen to him if he does not (or rather in the effect of this fear, which is the desire to do what may ensure its not happening to him) is as much his motive as any other motive would be. But if it is true that we always do what we wish, that we always act in accordance with our own desires, then how is the distinction between acting freely and acting under constraint to be drawn? What happens to Mill's definition of liberty as "doing what one desires"? What sense is to be attached to the idea of making or forcing someone to do what he doesn't want to do? How is coercion possible? Another way of putting the problem is in terms of the kinds of explanation we give of human action. If asked to explain why Jones acts in a certain way we may make reference to certain goals he is pursuing, certain intentions or desires, and/or particular beliefs he has about his condition and environment. If we have specified correctly his beliefs and his goals and have ascertained further that the proper connection exists between them, we have given an explanation of his behavior (assuming it is an action which is to be explained, for we may give the same kind of explanation to explain why someone desires something). If a reference to beliefs and desires is possible in every case of explanation of motivated behavior, there will necessarily be a reference to something the agent wants or desires. Hence, so this argument goes, it is always true that an agent does something that he wants to do. This form of the argument is presented by Daveney [2], p. 139, in an article on "Wanting." It may be stated of every intentional action that I perform that in some sense I want to do it; because if I didn't want to do it I

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how it wouldn't do it. If anyonewishesto deny this, let him explain in termsof some"want" -is possiblefor everyactionto be explained statement. What for Oppenheim and Plamenatz is a necessary connection between the concepts of action and desire is for Daveney a consequence of the kinds of explanationthat are available for understanding human action. In both cases the conclusion is that we always do as we wish or want. II Obviouslythose who hold this view can find ways of drawing a distinction between actions done under compulsion and those done freely, just as, in another philosophical tradition, the egoist can argue that he can distinguish altruism from selfishness. The enlightened egoist having read his Butler and Bradley agrees that a man's laying down his life for his country is, in many respects, quite different from a man's betraying his country for monetary gains. All the egoist insists upon is that both men act to satisfy some desire of theirs. Similarly one can argue that to act under compulsionis to act as one wants but there are important differences which depend on the source of our wants. There are desires which a man has naturallyand spontaneouslyand those which are imposed upon him by force. There are wants which come from inside and those which come from outside. This view assimilates desires to possessions,some of which a man comes with, some of which he borrowsor acquires, and some of which are thrust upon him-still they are all "his." Even with property, however, not every mode of acquisitionentitles us to say that something belongs to a man, is his. With the "inner" world, whether it be the realm of the will or the understanding,"mine"and "thine"are immensely complicated notions. I propose in this essay to follow out some of the alternative ways of conceptualizing this relation and to examinethe consequencesof adopting various alternatives.

III
It is essentialto clarify the relationshipbetween the identification of a desire as belonging to a man, as being his desire, and the mode of acquisitionof the desire. With property we can considel both possession and ownership, what a man has and what

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belongs to him. The concepts are independent for something may belong to a man although he does not possess it, e.g., it is stolen from him, and he may possess something that doesn't belong to him. Sometimes determiningwhat belongs to someone will be, in part, tracing how the object came into his possession. Did he buy it? Was it given to him? Did he take it without permission?Did he make a mistake and take the wrong object? The criteria for either possession or ownershipare very complicated and may only be definedby consideringappropriateconventionsand the purposes they serve. Can a similar distinction be drawn with respect to our desires? We might begin by consideringanother "innerstate" that of "belief."We identify a belief p as belonging to X i.e., that X believes p, if his behavior is such that it can be explained on the assumptionthat he does so believe. Others, or indeed X himself, may know that he acquired the belief in some unusual manner, say, through conditioning or manipulation or the injection of a drug, and this may make a differencein their appraisalof his actions but this does not affect the fact that X believes p, i.e., that the belief belongs to X. The assertion"He (X) doesn't believe p; he was brainwashed" is a non sequitur. The latter part has no logical bearing on the former. Nor will it help to bring in a "really" to save the situation. "He doesn't really believe it" applies to someone who pretendsto believe p, or, perhapsto someonewho deceives (pretends to) himself about p. There is no question in any of these situations of acting in accordance with the beliefs of another, of one's action being determined not by one's own beliefs but by those of someoneelse. The normal,rationalpaths to belief may have been circumvented but then there are no necessary (essential) paths that one must tread before the belief can be ascribed to one. In view of this it seems plausible to say much the same kind of thing in the case of desire. Don't we identify a desire as belonging to someone in terms of the role played by the desire in explaining the actions of the individual? Shouldn'tthere be this parallel since beliefs and wants enter explanationin a symmetricfashion? Action can only be explained in terms of a belief given knowledge, perhaps assumed, about the wants of the agent. If I explain Xs crossingthe street by saying that he believes the drugstoreis open, it is in a context that assumes X must want something that is in some way connected with the drugstorebeing open. Aren't there, then, exactly parallel cases to the ones I gave in connection with

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belief? A man may desire to eat toothpastebecause of a post-hypnotic suggestion. Someone may want to commit suicide given the choice between that and public disgrace. The father of a kidnapped child may want to give money to the kidnapper.In each case we identify the desire as belonging to the agent in terms of what is needed to adequately explain his behavior. I am going to argue that cases like the last example are significantly different from the others and that bringing out the differencewill show that the basis for ascribing desires to individuals is more complicated than that for ascribingbeliefs.

IV
When we speak of what a man wants to do we may be referring to his intentionsor to his desires, to what he is preparedto do or to what he is pleased to do. When we focus on the formerwe are interested in what he is aiming at, what the point of his doings is. When we examine the latter we are concerned with what satisfies, with that which brings action to a (temporary) stop. In many instances the two notions go together as we prepare to do what we wish to do and so it is easy to pass from "he did it" to "he intended to do it" to "he wanted to do it." In general we can form two lists, the first containingnotions such as intention, decision, choice, will, the second containing desire, want, wish. The terms of these two lists are related in non-contingentways-no special explanationis requiredto account for the fact that we intend to do what we want to do. When I have decided what I want to do then I have decided what I intend to do if the circumstancesare favorable and there is no counter-vailingconsideration.But our wishes and our intentions may spring apart due to such varied factors as obligations,natural necessities, conventionalpressures,coercion, etc. Though these all differfrom one anotherthey all representconstraintson our inclinations, obstacles to the normal satisfactionof our desires. Consider the victim of a highwayman.Why do we say that he doesn't do what he wants? Is it that he is doing something that he doesn't want to do? That depends on how what he is doing is described.If it is describedas handing over money to anotherthen he may or may not mind doing that sort of thing; it depends on the circumstances.A man might want to hand over some money to anotherbecause he is asked by a relative, or because he is feeling charitable,or because he desires to rid himself of worldly things.

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What he doesn't want to do when faced with the highwaymanis to hand money over in these circumstances,for these reasons. Suppose it is claimed that handing the money over in these circumstances is a way of preserving his life and that this is something that he wants to do. This is presumablythe kind of thing Daveney has in mind when he says it is "possiblefor every action to be explained in terms of some 'want' statement."I don't know whether the general form of this thesis is correct or not. It could be stated this way. Given any action of an agent he either wants to perform the action for its own sake or there is something the agent wants which is such that he believes that performingthis action is a condition (necessaryor sufficient) for obtaining what he wants. I am inclined to think that this isn't so, that one may performan action for reasonsthat have nothing to do with one's wants and that the only But way to establish the thesis would be to invent "pseudo-wants." even acceptingthe generalthesis doesn'tcommitone to acceptingthe view that we always do what we want to do unless we accept the inference from 'X wants A' and 'B is a necessary condition for obtaining A' to 'X wants B'; a form of inference which is clearly invalid in view of any number of counter-examples. "He who wills the end, wills the necessarymeans to it" is only true if by 'willing'is understood 'intending' and not 'wanting.' There are very good grounds for supposing that a man doesn't intend to go on living when we find out that he doesn'tintend to go on breathing.On the other hand finding out that a man doesn'twant to go to the dentist doesn't supply very good grounds for supposing that he doesn't want to get rid of his toothache. It might be argued that we can describe what the man is doing as "preserving his life" instead of doing x as a means of preserving his life just as we can describe what a person does as "turningon the light" instead of "flippingthe switch in order to turn on the light." Under this descriptionisn't the man doing what he wants to do? More generally won't it always be possible to redescribe the action in terms of some more general desire whose object is promotedby the action as describedmore narrowly?Thus the man who hands money over to a kidnapperis "savingthe life of his child"!the man who accedes to the demands of a blackmaileris his reputation", "preserving etc.' And since it is admittedthat these
1 It is interesting in this connection to read discussions by the Scholastics concerning the binding force of coerced oaths. St. Bonaventure in his Commentary on the Book of Sentences argued that a forced oath was not

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are genuine desires of the agent it follows that the agent is doing what he wants. Normally the difficulty with this type of argument is that statementsof desire are cases of indirect discourseso that it is not safe to take inferences for granted. From "Kennedywanted to become the 37th Presidentof the United States"we cannot infer that "Kennedywanted to be the only President assassinatedin Dallas" although, in fact, the two descriptionsrefer to the same man. The usual explanationfor this is that a man may want something under a certain descriptionand not be aware that another description is also true of the object of his desire. This explanationcannot account for the kinds of situations we are considering for there is no ignorancepresentin these cases. If it is properto redescribethe act of handing money over to the kidnapper as "saving the child's life" one cannot avoid the conclusion that the man is doing what he wants by claiming that he is not aware of both descriptions. His reason for handing over the money is to save the child's life. This is not something he might discover later as a man might discover that the 37th President will be assassinated. This argument relies on two premises neither of which can be taken for granted.The first assumesthe legitimacy of redescribing the specific action that takes place (handing over the money, keeping silent) as "saving his child" or "preservinghis life." The second premise assertsthat a certainform of inference is valid; that from "X wants A" and "X knows that A is B (doing A is doing B)" we can infer that "Xwants B."Let us considereach of these assumptions. The first assumptionconcernsthe conditionsunder which we may replace one descriptionof an action by some other description. It is a claimthat one and the same actionmay be referredto by different descriptions.Unfortunatelywe know very little about the modes of individuatingactions and the criteriafor the identity of actions. All that we have are some pre-systematicdata about when we are inclined to say that doing one thing is the same as doing another and when we feel reluctant to make such claims. Anscombe [1],
binding in the ecclesiastical forum since "the Church presumes that one who is forced to swear does not swear with the intention of fulfilling the oath, but rather of avoiding the danger." McCoy [71, p. 42. While the argument itself is not very cogent, for it is not the mere absence of intention to carry out one's promises that excuses one from being obliged to carry them out-or else all insincere promises would be excused-it is a move similar to the one I am discussing.

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p. 40, gives an example of a man pumping water (which is poisoned) into a cistern which supplies water to a house in which a number of party chiefs are living. She points out that we may ask the man why he is x'ing (moving his arm) and get an answerthat is either of the form "to y" (to operate the pump) or "I'my'ing" (I'm pumping the water). This can go on for a while but at some point are you x'ing?" there is a break such that while one can ask "VVhy the answercan only be of the form "toy" not of the form "I'my'ing." the answer To the question"Whyare you poisoningthe inhabitants?" "tosave the Jews"does not allow the furtherdescriptionof what the man is doing as "savingthe Jews."UnfortunatelyAnscombe gives us no tests for determiningwhen such a break occurs. There are obvious hypotheses which suggest themselves. For example that it is a necessarycondition for redescribingx as y (where one does x in orderto bring about y) that x and y be sufficientlyclose together in time and that there be reasonablegrounds for supposing that x will be followed by y. Thus A's stabbing B in order that B shall die may be redescribedas A's killing B (provided that 1) B dies, and 2) does so within a reasonablyshortperiod of time). But A's making a speech in orderto be elected Presidentwill not be redescribedas A's being elected President.However, both these conditionsare met by the example of the man who hands over his money to a kidnapper. He has groundsfor supposing this will save his child and this will presumablyhappen within a short span of time. The general thesis that we can always replace "doing x in order to do y" by "doing x, in these circumstances,is doing y" is false. If I am practicing parking in order to pass my driver'stest then it just is not the case that practicingparking,in those circumstances, is passing my driver'stest. The specific thesis that when a man hands money to a kidnapperwe can identify "what he does" as saving his life seems to me to be wrong and to arise from a confusion between an action which is discrete, particular, done or performed,and an end which is general,occupies no definitestretch in time, is accomplished or succeeded in. One can succeed in an end (acquiringmoney) without doing anything at all. On the other hand one can succeed in an end (preservingone's life) by performing very different kinds of actions (eating a steak dinner, running from the battlefield). To fully substantiate this point one would have to have a fully developed theory about how we individuate and typify actions. All I have hoped to accomplish here is throw doubt on the first premise of the argument.

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The second premise states that the following inference is always valid: "X wants (to do) A", "X knows that (doing) A is (doing) B",hence "Xwants (to do) B." One can think of a number of counter-examples.X wants to marry A, knows that A is the woman with the worst temper in the world, but it is not the case that X wants to marry the woman with the worst temper in the world. X wants to push the switch (to see if his hand still functions after an accident), knows that pushing the switch turns on the lights, yet X doesn't want to turn on the lights. X wants to sleep with A, knows that sleeping with A is committingadultery,but it is not the case that X wants to commit adultery. As in the case with many such argumentsabout intensionalcontexts one may deny the plausibility of the counter-exampleand insist in each case upon the validity of the inference. It is possible to say that "in a sense" X wants B in all these cases, but the sense is specified by repeating the conditionsof the example. One can also insist, to refer to more familiarproblems,that if Smithbelieves that Jones is next door, and Jones is the murdererof Robinson,then "in a sense"Smith believes that the murdererof Robinsonis next door, where again the sense is specified by the belief condition and the identity condition.Such victories are hollow because if anything significantdepended upon them we would ultimatelyrely on our priorrecognitionof the meaning of the key terms; a meaning which is usually less problematic than the inferences. Although I think that the thesis that we always do what we want to is false it does bring to our attention a significant point about motivatingconduct by creating reasonsfor action. When we speak of providing a motive for someone to act this may be taken in two ways. It may mean that we have created or stimulateda new type of motivation (curiosity, exercise of skill) or that we have harnesseda pre-existingmotivationof the agent by creating a situation in which he now has a reason for acting which he lacked previously, i.e., he can satisfy an antecedently existing basic drive. Coercion always involves this latter process, utilizing basic drives which almost everyoneshares-self-preservation,avoidance of pain, concern for the welfare of those close to us. It is embarrassment, a mistake,however, to jump from the fact that there must be some pre-existingdesireof the agent to be exploitedto claimingthat when the agent acts to satisfy those desires he does what he wants. Two patternsof action should be kept distinct although they may both be schematizedas follows: X wants to do A, some factor

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intervenes,X does B. Sometimeswhen the interveningfactor is of the proper kind, e.g., incentives, new information,re-examination of the consequences of doing A, X no longer wants to do A and of his changing his mind. doing B is a result of this transformation, desires as changing but Sometimes,however,we do not think of XNs of being frustratedor thwarted.To return to the earlier discussion of the mode of acquisition of desires I am suggesting that it is a mistake to think of someone as acquiring a new "want' or "desire as a result of coercion.What a personmay acquire to do something" as a result of such interventionis a new intention,a new disposition to act. But wants are not to be equated with mere dispositionsto act. We must be able to distinguishbetween those actions which we perform because we want to and those we perform because we have to. V Granted that sometimes we do things for other reasons than our wanting to do them there still remainsthe problem of why acting on some of these reasons, but not others, is not acting freely. What I want to do now is account for the fact that only certain reasons are considered coercive and restrictive of liberty; why, contra Hobbes, we regard fear and not covetousnessas cancelling liberty.2It is obvious that the mere presence of external intervention, that is the creatingof reasonsfor action by othersis not enough to explain why acting on some of these reasons, but not others, is acting unfreely.3If I had not been told of a book sale or been given tickets to the opera I would have done something else this evening. Given the new situation I no longer do what I wanted to do formerlybut that is because I now want to do somethingelse. But the notions of "doing what I want" and "actingfreely"cannot be identified.It does not follow that if I do what I do not want to do I act unfreely. Considerthe following situation in which another person creates a reason for my doing somethingwhich I would not choose to do had the reason not been created. A dull and boring
2 "For there appeareth no reason why that which we do upon fear, should be less firm than that which we do for covetousness. For both the one and the other make the action voluntary."Hobbes [51, p. 286. 3 Cf. "What we say of a man "'hen we say that he has not acted of his own free wil is that the action of some other person has caused him to be confronted with an object of desire or aversion but for which he would not have acted as he did." Hardie [4], p. 22.

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acquaintanceinvites me to his home for dinner knowing that I accept some principleof reciprocityor gratitude.I now have a reason for extending him an invitation to my house-something I do not want to do. Yet my invitation is issued freely, albeit reluctantly. My liberty has not been infringed upon. What differentiatesthis kind of situationfrom that of the kidnapperor blackmailer?I suggest it is the attitude a man takes toward the reasons for which he acts, whether or not he identifies himself with these reasons, assimilates them to himself, which is crucial for determiningwhether or not he acts freely. Men resent acting for certain reasons; they would not choose to be motivated in certain ways. They mind acting simply in order to preserve a present level of welfare against diminutionby another.They resent acting simply in order to avoid unpleasantconsequenceswith no attendantpromotionof their own interests and welfare. On the other hand although I may not want to perform the particular act of issuing a dinner invitation to a boring acquaintance I do not mind acting for reasons which fall under the heading of reciprocity. Such examples are interesting because there are many parallels in the vocabulary used to talk about obligationsand that used to talk about compulsion.We speak of "havingto do it," having no choice."There is present in both a contrast between what one does reluctantly and what one does willingly. In his Lectures on Ethics Kant [6], p. 27, has a category called "moralcompulsion"which is defined as "a determinationto of an action"and I am morallycompelled the unwillingperformance to act by anotherif he "forcesme by moral motives to do an action which I do reluctantly."The Japanese have a species of moral or of obligationcalled Giri and they talk of being "forcedwith girn" someone "concerningme with giri" meaning that someone has argued the speaker into an act he did not want to performby raising some issue of on (moral indebtedness). Many of these situations involve calling someone's attention to reasons which already exist for doing something rather than creating reasons for acting and thereforefall under the heading of moralpersuasion-but the dividing line is not sharp. The weight of advice is often due as much to the statureof the adviser-his saying it is a new reason for actingas to the cogency of the reasonsto which attentionis directed. I am chiefly interestedin what Fried [3], p. 1261, calls "moralcausation"; moving another to action by "bringing about circumstancessuch is required that the desired action is one which in the circumstances by an acknowledgedmoral principle."Like coercion this provides

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reasonsfor acting which depend for their efficacyon pre-established motivations.One might say that the differencebetween moral persuasion and moral causation is the differencebetween blowing on existing coals to make them glow (or burn) and providing new fuel. Why don't we consider moral causation an infringementon the liberty of the agent? The agent doesn't do what he wants to do and he only acts in this way because a reason has been provided by another agent. I suggest that it is the agents attitude toward acting for that kind of reason which makes the difference. Since moral causation can only succeed if the person accepts certain principles of morality and accepting such principles is accepting new reasonsfor acting the agent has alreadyaccepted the legitimacy of certain motivations.Whether this acceptance is due to the fact that such principles are ultimately self-imposedlimitations (Kant) or whether some reference must be made to prudential gains that accrue from such acceptance (Hobbes) need not be settled at this juncture.All that is essential is that most of us do not resent acting for reasonsof morality. This factor, the attitude of the agent toward the reasons and desires which motivate his conduct, makes it difficult,at times, for us to assess correctly whether or not someone acts freely. The kleptomaniacwho regards his impulses to steal as, in some sense, an alien feature of his personalityand resents being driven to act as he does, is a case in point. It is highly questionablewhether such people literally could not act otherwise, that it is beyond their powers to offer resistance to their anti-social impulses. It is more plausible to suppose that it is just very difficultfor them to refrain, that they act in this fashion not in order to satisfy some rationally recognized need but rather to avoid some danger to their psychic economy the details of which may be spelled out by psychologists. They are, therefore,similarin importantways to victims of external coercion.Any theory of internal,psychologicalfreedom has to have notions which correspondto those psychoanalystsrefer to as "egoalien."There must be part of the human personalitywhich takes up an "attitude"toward the reasons, desires, and motives which determinethe conduct of the agent. Let me put my thesis in another way. Aristotle observes that "those who act under compulsion and unwillingly act with pain." I am arguingthat this is a necessaryfact. We only considerourselves as being interferedwith, as no longer acting on our own free will,

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when we find acting for certain reasons painful. To put the thesis we do not find it painful to act because we are epigrammatically; compelled; we consider ourselves compelled because we find it painful to act for these reasons. VI I shall conclude by discussing some objections that can be raised to my theory and some applicationsof it. First some objections. Consider a kleptomaniacwho knows that what he does is wrong, who cannot stop himself by his own conscious efforts, but does know that constantsurveillancewith its attendantthreatsof detection and punishmentis effective in preventinghim from stealing. It could be said of him that he welcomesthe motivationprovidedby threat of punishment yet isn't it true that he is interfered with, deprived of liberty, as much as any other person would be? It is importantto bear in mind the distinction between what a man is free to do and what he does freely. The kleptomaniacis not free to take other people's property in a society which has a legal apparatuswhich forbids such acts. A man is not free to do something if he is either preventedfrom doing it or if his doing it would result in severe deprivationto him. All this is true independently of the wants of any particular person. That I have never contemplated kidnapping anyone, nor have any desire to do so, doesn't negate the fact that I am not free to do so. Nevertheless it may be the case that at some point I want to kidnap somebody and yet refrain from doing so and it can now be asked whether I did so of my own free will. The answer to that question will depend on my reasons.It will make a difference whether I refrained out of fear of being punished or because I decided it would be wrong to act on my desire or because an easier way of making money occurred to me. To give anotherexample, I may pay my taxes freely (because, say, I accept some principle of fairness which requires all to make an equal sacrificein returnfor benefits which all share in), although I am not free not to pay my taxes. Even if I didn't want to pay my taxes I would be forced to. There are a number of distinct locutions that include the word "free"and which deserve some systematic analysis. The only one who has attemptedthis, as far as I know, is Oppenheim.[8]. In addition to "acting freely" and "being free to do x" there are the notions of "feelingfree,""beingfree," and something we might call

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"being free with respect to x.' I am free to pay my taxes because nobody preventsme from doing so or threatensme with harmif I do so. Oppenheimsays I am not free to pay my taxes because I am not free to refrainfrom doing so, but this is a mistake.What he should say, and what he does sometimesslip into saying, is that I am not free with respect to paying my taxes, e.g., it is not open to me to refrain. Thus some sample definitions would run: (I use "iff"to mean "if and only if".) (1) A is unfree to do X, iff either A is prevented from doing X or it is made punishablefor A to do X. (2) A is free to do X, iff it is not the case that A is unfree to do X. (3) A is free with respect to doing X, iff A is free to do X and A is free to refrain from doing X.4 How the notions of "feeling free"and "beingfree"are related is very obscure. The following observationseems quite wrong as it stands, although it is reasonable if "being free" were replaced by "feeling free": (and maybe free evenwhensubjectto restrictions .. . an individual of his facilitatethe achievement if those restrictions compulsions) purposes,and providedthat he willinglyaccepts these restrictions Pennock in principle. [91,p. 59. If one accepts the statementas it stands then one is led to the paradox of the free slave, the individual who accepts the fetters that bind him. But fetters are fetters even if they are accepted fetters. Nevertheless,as opposed to those like Oppenheimwho dismiss the and not a worthy notion of "feeling free" as somehow "subjective" candidate for "scientific treatment" of the question of human freedom, I think that this idea is a very importantone, that ultimately we care about being free because there are occasions on which we want to feel free. We think that it is significant to the slave that he is not free because we believe, given certain plausible assumptionsabout human nature, that there will come a time when
4 As one of the referees for this paper points out there is a purely normative sense of being free with respect to doing an action which is roughly equivalent to being permitted to do or not to do the action in question. Thus if I promise to come to your dinner party I have limited my freedom of action. There is also a sense of punishable which involves making an assessment of responsibility and is thus also normative in character. As I am using the term I am only referring to the use of threats in order to deter. My definitions, therefore, should be understood as normatively neutral.

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he will desire to do something (which he doesn't at this moment of time) and will then resent the restrictionsthat have always been present. He will mind not being free to do certain things which hitherto he has not wanted to do. As for "acting freely", which is what I have been concerned about, I am suggesting that it be defined as follows: A does X freely iff A does X for reasonswhich he doesn'tmind acting from. This definitionimplies that A may do somethingfreely though he is neither free to do it nor free with respect to doing it. To return to the kleptomaniac,normally people who refrain from stealing because of fear of punishmentare said not to be acting freely but I would argue that given the case as it is described this man does act freely. For since he welcomes the motivation provided by the fear of punishmentwe can take this as an indication that what he really wants to do is to be stopped from acting as it appearshe wants to act. In so far as the threat enables him to do what he really wants to do he cannot regard it as an obstacle to acting freely but merely as an additional and necessary motivation for doing what he wants to do. To understandwhat a man wants to do is at least partly to understandwhich interventionshe regardsas obstacles and which he regards as either aids to present desires or considerationsfor changing desires. Still it might be objected that there may be aberrant individuals who don't mind acting for reasons which most of us do mind acting for, and conversely do mind acting for reasons that most of us are indifferentto or welcome. Thus Mr. X doesn't mind being motivated by fear of loss. Are we to say that he acts freely when he hands his money over to the robber?It is difficultto know what to say here for we are faced with a breakdownof normalconnections which are not quite strong enough to be necessary bonds but are not so loose that their severance does not create difficulties for our understanding of what is occurring.We are asked to imagine a man who having the normal attitudes toward his goods does not resent giving them up when confrontedwith a "moneyor your life" situation.What will this man do when faced with a choice between two paths: one of which he knows to be free of robbers and the other of which he believes to be lined with them? Consider the following dialogue.

382 A: B: A: B:

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"He will take the robber-freepath." "Why?" "Becausehe wants to retain his goods." "Not in all circumstances.Otherwiseone would make the prediction that if faced with two paths one of which is lined with people selling food and the other not, X would choose the path free of vendors.' A: "That'strue. But in the case of buying food he is willing to give up some of his goods. In the case of the robbershe is not." B: "Whynot? By hypothesis,once in a coercive situation he doesn'tmind giving up his goods, so what reasonsdoes he have for avoiding getting into such situations?" It begins to look as if Mr. X cannot have the normalattitude toward his possessionsfor it is part of that attitude that one tries to avoid getting into situationsin which one gives up valued things without getting somethingin return.This is too crude for it sounds as if I am ruling out the possibilityof altruisticor charitableacts. What I want to say is that we can only understandMr. X if we interprethis actions as being altruistic("Poorman, he needs the money more than I do.") or motivated by some need to atone or stemming from a re-evaluationof the worth of possessions,etc. Given our normal attitudes towardvalued objects a man must resent having them taken from him by force. None of this denies that human beings vary with respect to what they mind being motivated by. There are undoubtedly those who view moralityas a subtle scheme enabling like Thrasymachus the powerful to enforce their rule. Such persons when they act for resent having to conform to the demands of reasons of "morality" others. But I am willing to say of such people that they do not act freely. They do not identify themselves with the reasons for which they act. They do regard such considerationsas alien to their personality. I don't regard it as a weakness of my view that acting for certain reasonswill be acting unfreely for some personsbut not for others. In fact the theory will be confirmedby explaining such differenceswhich are found on the pre-analyticlevel. What I have tried to do in this essay is give an account of why we pick out a certain class of reasonsfor acting and say that acting for such reasonsbut not othersis not acting freely, why we consider some interventionsof others as creatingobstacles to our desires and

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others not, why coercion is thought of as a way of getting someone to do what he doesn'twant to do ratherthan a way of getting someone to want to do something else. My explanationwas in terms of the resentmentor aversionmen have to acting for certain reasons. If we could conceive of a creatureso devoid of inner resources,so docile and submissive that he never minded acting in a way different from his original intentions,who saw every action of his as arising from a new desire, then we would also have a being whose liberty we could not infringe.Just as one cannot force open a door that swings freely on its hinges one cannot force a man whose will swings willingly in any direction.5
REFERENCES [1] Anscombe, G. E. M. Intention (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1957). [2] Daveney, T. V. "Wanting", Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 43, April, 1961. [3] Fried, Charles. "Moral Causation", Harvard Law Review (April, 1964). [41 Hardie, W. F. R. "My Own Free Will", Philosophy, January, 1957. [5] Hobbes, T. "De Corpore Politico", in Body, Man and Citizen, ed. R. S. Peters (New York: Crowell-Collier, 1962). [6] Kant, I. Lectures on Ethics (New York: Harper & Row, 1963). [7] McCoy, A. E. Force and Fear in Relation to Delictual Imputability and Penal Responsibility (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1944). [8] Oppenheim, F. Dimensions of Freedom (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1961). [9] Pennock, J. R. Liberal Democracy (New York: Rinehart, 1950). [10] Plamenatz, J. P. Consent, Freedom and Political Obligation (London: Oxford University Press, 1938). [11] University of California Associates, "The Freedom of the Will", reprinted in Feigi and Sellars Readings in Philosophical Analysis (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts,1949). 5 A shorter version of this paper was read at the Pacific Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association, September, 1968. I am much indebted to Professor Robert Nozick for many helpful suggestions.