Missions Methods and Principles
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 57, No. 1 – Fall 2014
Managing Editor: Terry L. Wilder
By Helen Steward. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 267 pages. Hardcover, $60.00.
The traditional problem of free will (though by no means the only problem of free will) focuses on whether or not human freedom—however this is defined—is consistent with determinism, the thesis that from the present only one particular future can possibly unfold, which entails that the future is closed. But, could it be that this traditional problem is not one involving human freedom and determinism, but one that that asks us to consider whether or not the concept of an entity (human or non-human) performing an action—i.e., agency— is consistent with determinism? This is what Helen Steward in A Metaphysics for Freedom contends is the fundamen- tal issue in the traditional problem of free will.
Steward argues for a version of libertarianism that she calls “Agency Incompatibilism,” which is the thesis that the existence of agency in the world indicates that the future is open, that more than one possible future can unfold from the present. Steward outlines her position in chapter 1. Agency, Steward claims, refers not to the loftier and more sophisticated abilities that most philosophers reference in free-will literature, but rather to animal agency, the ability to move one’s body in such a way that one can carry out plans of one’s own devising—i.e., plans that are the product of self-moving or that are “up to” us (2-9). It is this humble ability that humans and animals of certain complexity possess that seems to indicate that the future is open and that freedom and determinism are incompatible. In chapter 2, Steward defends this claim against compatibilists who argue that the idea of some- thing being “up to” us is not inconsistent with determinism. Here, she introduces her key concept of “settling.” “Settling” expresses the idea of an action bringing about or causing something to be that was not established before, an action that closes off other possibilities that until that time remained open until that action occurred (39- 42). Steward points out that if determinism is true, then agents cannot be the causes of their actions because those actions have already been settled at a time prior to the agents’ existence, which means that agents’ actions cannot be “up to” them. Consequently, if determinism is true, then agents are not free at all, either in a compatibilist or libertarian sense.
Chapters 3 through 5 flesh out Steward’s account of Agency Incompatibilism. Chapter 3 focuses on objections to Steward’s concept of “settling” that she argues are ultimately unsatisfactory. Chapter 4 gives a fuller definition of the concept of agency. Agents are entities that (i) can move their bodies, (ii) are centers of subjectivity, (iii) have intentional states, and (iv) are settlers of matters concerning the movement of their bodies (71-72). In the same chapter, Steward argues based on developmental psychology and evolutionary continuity that agency should be ascribed to certain animals. Chapter 5 addresses the epistemological objection, which states that because the question of determinism is a question that only physics can answer and because physics may one day prove that determinism is true, one cannot claim to know that there are agents in the world as Steward has described them. Steward argues that this objection ultimately begs the question.
In the last three chapters, Steward addresses two problems that every libertarian position encounters—the problem of chance—and whether the proposed libertarian position actually exists given what we know about the world. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with the former problem; chapter 8 deals with the latter. Chapter 8 is particularly important since Steward’s libertarian position is a modification of agent-causation. After answering objections against agent-causation in general, she attempts to explain how her agency theory could possibly be instantiated in a naturalistic world, defending a top-down view of causation in which the causal power of the organism over its respective parts is not reducible to the sum of the causation governing its parts.
Steward’s book is both unique and intriguing, which incidentally accounts for its strengths. She notes that her inquiry deviates from the traditional lines of discussion that are familiar in the philosophical literature on free will, and by doing so, she has identified not only the fundamental issue that motivates libertarianism in general—the idea that an agent plays a unique and irreducible role in the actions that he or she performs—but also has corrected an oversight of many libertarians. Both libertarians and compatibilists insist that free agents’ actions are “up to” them, which means that at the very least agents contribute to the production of those actions. However, it is not possible for actions to be “up to” an agent if determinism is true because, as Steward points out, causes outside of the agent have already “settled” the action without the agent’s involvement. In this case, the agent is merely a passive conduit through which the action will take place, not a contributor to the action. As Steward points out, this entails two conclusions. First, compatibilists cannot speak of agents whose actions are “up to” them, for determinism rules out the existence of agents and, thus, actions altogether. Second, libertarians should not speak of agents performing actions that are not “up to” them, for there are no such things as actions that are not “up to” agents. Libertarians need not concede to compatibilists that there are such things as “our actions” that are not “up to” us—a concession that seems to have gone unchallenged until now and has placed libertarian positions in the rather difficult quandary of explaining how agents cause (either in a noncausal, event-causal, or agent-causal fashion) those actions of theirs that are determined. Obviously, the strength of Steward’s position hinges her concept of “settling”; but, as far as I can see, the concept seems to describe accurately what we mean when we say that agents are entities that perform actions. Steward seems to present a very plausible argument for why the existence of agents reveals ipso facto that determinism is false.
Steward’s defense in chapter 4 that certain non-human animals also have free will (in her sense of animal agency) is significant for free-will discussions. Animals exemplify a sort of “randomness” about their actions that seems to defy any law-like description available to us at this time. Steward gives us a way to account for this “randomness” and at the same time explains why we have a propensity to treat more complex animals as if they are persons with goals and desires. Although I think that evolutionary continuity (73) is an unwarranted (or at best weak) assumption upon which to base an argument for certain complex animals having free will, Steward’s argument for animals as agents moving their bodies in ways to carry out certain devised plans rather than as instinctual machines operating by physical laws deserves serious consideration nonetheless.
The major weakness of Steward’s work lies in the last chapter. In explaining how agency can be said to exist in our world, Steward argues for a number of important conclusions that show how free will as agency makes sense given what we know about the world. Of importance is her explanation of how the concept of substance causation (of which agency [or agent-causation] is a species) need not be considered metaphysically mysterious since the assumption that all causation is event-based is unwarranted and appeals on spurious reasoning (207-12). However, in trying to defend a naturalistic view of agency, Steward faces the unique problem of explaining how free will and the choices arising from it do not derive or emerge from lower- level physical properties belonging to the individual parts of an organism that are governed by laws (e.g., physical, biological, chemical) over which the organism has not control. Steward argues that organisms include not just the collection of their lower-level constituents, but also the complex synchronous arrangements of those collections that factor into the organism’s causal story (238-43). What accounts for these arrangements is the phenomenon of “coincidence,” which Steward notes intro- duces the concept of design (237). But, because Steward restricts her view of agency to a naturalistic metaphysic, ultimately it is natural selection that accounts for this design (237, n. 64; 245-46). Even if we grant for a moment that natural selection is an accurate substitute for design, it seems that this does not give Steward the control that associates with agency. Natural selection is subject to the same laws governing the rest of the world, laws that also govern the lower-level physical properties from which higher-level properties are supposed to emerge. Just because nature has found that a more complex synchronously arranged system is required to meet the needs of complex mobile creatures, as Steward says (246), does not entail that this more complex system is anything other than a system whose operation ultimately derives from the same laws that govern lower-level physical properties over which an organism has no control. Steward is correct to see that agent-causal theories need design; but, if what she means by design is the manifestations of natural selection, it does not seem that she can overcome the problem of free will being an emergent property whose operations are reducible to the operations of laws over which one has no control.
One should not be deterred by this weakness in Steward’s agent-causal theory. Although she does fail to show how free will can exist in a naturalistic context, the rest of Steward’s work represents an important contribution to the literature on free will. She provides not only a much simpler way of showing how free will and deter- minism are incompatible, which entails (as she points out) that all of the other kinds of freedoms that we value so highly are also incompatible with determinism, but also an assessment of agency that broadens our understanding of free will beyond the human world and can perhaps resolve some of the persisting problems in free-will literature. Readers will also appreciate how Steward challenges common assumptions underlying many of the free-will debates—e.g., assumptions dealing with the role of physics in establishing the truth of determinism, the problem of chance facing libertarianism, and the nature of causation. Philosophers who are theists may also find Steward’s appeal to design helpful in constructing their own libertarian views. This reviewer certainly considers it such since he believes it reveals that the metaphysics of freedom ultimately requires a designer, not nature, to account for free will in the world.
