Gary Watson

In the subsequent pages, I want to develop a distinction between wanting and valuing which will enable the familiar view of freedom to make sense of the notion of an unfree action. The contention will be that, in the case of actions that are unfree, the agent is unable to get what he most wants, or values, and this inability is due to his own "motivational system." In this case the obstruction to the action that he most wants to do is his own will. It is in this respect that the action is unfree: the agent is obstructed in and by the very performance of the action.

Standard treatments of responsibility have been preoccupied with issues of blame and punishment, and concerns about free will. In contrast, Raz is concerned with problems about responsibility that arise from the “puzzle of moral luck,” puzzles that lead to misguided skepticism about negligence. We are responsible not only for conduct that is successfully guided by what we take to be our reasons for action, but also for misexercises of our rational capacities that escape our rational control. To deny this is to lose sight of the ways “moral luck” is an inescapable feature of our agential engagement in the world. The present essay attempts to set out Raz’s argument as sympathetically as possible. Raz’s shift of focus is a powerful counter to current tendencies and points us in new and promising directions. Nonetheless, as it stands, it may just relocate skepticism about negligence to a different place.

My concern in this paper will be to explore and develop a version of nonsocratic skepticism about weakness of will. In my view, socratism is incorrect, but like Socrates, I think that the common understanding of weakness of will raises serious problems. Contrary to socratism, it is possible for a person knowingly to act contrary to his or her better judgment. But this description does not exhaust the common view of weakness. Also implicit in this view is the belief that actions which are contrary to one's better judgment are free in the sense that the agent could have done otherwise. To take seriously the possibility of acting contrary to one's better judgment is at the same time to raise problems about the distinction between weakness and compulsion. I argue that the common view, according to which the differentiating feature is that the weak are able to conform their behavior to their practical judgments, is unjustified. Instead, I have proposed that weakness of will involves the failure to develop certain normal capacities of self-control, whereas compulsion involves desires which even the possession of such capacities would not enable one to resist.

The first part of the essay explores the relations between the will and practical reason or judgement. The second part takes up decision in the realm of belief, i.e. deciding that such and such is so. This phenomenon raises two questions. Since we decide that as well as to, should we speak of a doxastic will? Secondly, should we regard ourselves as active in the formation of our judgements as in the formation of our intentions? The author's answer to these two further questions is ‘no’ and ‘yes’, respectively: the boundaries between the active and the passive are not marked by the will.