Dispositions, Abilities To Act, and Free Will: The New Dispositionalism

Dispositions, Abilities to Act, and Free Will:
The New Dispositionalism
Downloaded from http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of North Dakota on June 10, 2015

RANDOLPH CLARKE
This paper examines recent attempts to revive a classic compatibilist position on free
will, according to which having an ability to perform a certain action is having a cer-
tain disposition. Since having unmanifested dispositions is compatible with deter-
minism, having unexercised abilities to act, it is held, is likewise compatible. Here it
is argued that although there is a kind of capacity to act possession of which is a mat-
ter of having a disposition, the new dispositionalism leaves unresolved the main
points of dispute concerning free will.
[I]t is obvious that what is at issue in the free will–determinism

controversy is not whether things possess powers and agents pos-
sess abilities which they do not exercise, but whether things and
agents are able to exercise those powers, even at times when it hap-
pens that they are not exercising them. The ‘can’ of power and abil-
ity, in short, is not the ‘can’ of the free will controversy.
Don Locke, ‘Natural Powers and Human Abilities’
What is it to have an ability to perform a certain action, for example, an

ability to raise one’s arm, or to say something in Spanish, or to drive a
car to the store? And are we ever able to do such things on occasions
when we do not in fact do them? Might we have such abilities to do
otherwise if our world is deterministic—if a complete description of
the total state of the world at any given time, conjoined with a complete
statement of the laws of nature, entails every truth about how the world
is at every other time? If we might, does that fact entail that free will is
compatible with determinism?
One classic compatibilist line — a view on which having free will
requires being able to act otherwise, and having that ability is compati-
ble with determinism—takes abilities to act to be dispositions or causal
powers, and offers a conditional analysis of the latter. To be able to per-
form an action of A-ing, it is said, is to have a disposition or power to A.
And something has a certain disposition or power if and only if a cer-
tain simple conditional is true of that thing. For example, some sub-
stance is water soluble if and only if it would dissolve if placed in water.
Likewise, an agent has a disposition or power to A (and thus an ability
Mind, Vol. 118 . 470 . April 2009 © Clarke 2009

doi:10.1093/mind/fzp034
324 Randolph Clarke
to A) if and only if she would A if she so willed, or chose, or desired, or

something of that sort. Just as objects can have unmanifested disposi-
tions even if determinism is true, so agents can have unexercised abili-
ties. In having such abilities, one has the abilities required for free will.1
This classic line is now widely recognized as mistaken.2 But several
writers have recently advanced close variants of it, albeit by discarding
one of its key elements. As they see it, abilities to act are indeed disposi-
tions (Vihvelin 2004), or one has such an ability if and only if one has
some disposition (Fara 2008), or the proper analysis of abilities draws

on a correct understanding of dispositions (Smith 2003). Where the
classic line went astray, these authors hold, was in its analysis of disposi-
tions. Correcting that mistake, they maintain, we can see that the
understanding of abilities in terms of dispositions, and hence compati-
bilism, is correct.
Drawing on recent discussion of finkish or masked dispositions, pro-
ponents of the new dispositionalism show that scenarios undermining
the classic analysis of ability in terms of a simple conditional are inter-
estingly similar to problem cases for the classic analysis of dispositions.
Further, they make a convincing argument for the view that there is
something properly called an ability to act about which dispositional-
ism is at least roughly correct, and that some such ability is compatible
with determinism. If incompatibilists had hoped that their view would
be irresistible once it was agreed that having free will requires being
able to act otherwise, they were mistaken.
Nevertheless, in some of its guises, the new dispositionalism still
embraces a problematic view of dispositions. More importantly, all of
its existing versions leave untouched many of the main points of dis-
pute concerning free will. Its accomplishments fall short of a convinc-
ing case for compatibilism. I aim here to exhibit the successes of the
new dispositionalism, while also revealing its limitations.
1. Dispositions and conditionals

What was wrong with the old conditional analysis of dispositions? For
one thing, the analysis failed for cases involving finks, entities that
might remove a disposition in just the circumstances that would ordi-
narily trigger its manifestation, or that might add a disposition in pre-
cisely such circumstances (Martin 1994). A glass might be fragile,
1
This line of thought can be found, for example, in Hobart 1934 and Smart 1961.
2
Some classic objections to it are raised by Austin (1956), Chisholm (1964, p. 29), and Lehrer
(1968).

Dispositions, Abilities to Act, and Free Will: The New Dispositionalism 325
disposed to shatter if struck. Yet a wizard might stand ready to render

the glass non-fragile should it be struck, and quickly enough that it
would not then break. Then, although the glass is fragile, it is false that it
would shatter if struck. Conversely, a wizard might render a glass non-
fragile (perhaps by heating it) but stand ready to make it fragile as soon
as it is struck. Then, although the glass is not fragile, it would shatter if
struck.
David Lewis (1997) observed that finks work by altering intrinsic

properties of objects that constitute the causal bases of their disposi-
tions. He proposed the following template for a revised conditional
analysis of dispositions:
(RCAD) Something x is disposed at time t to give response r to stimulus s iff,
for some intrinsic property B that x has at t, for some time t’ after t, if x were
to undergo stimulus s at time t and retain property B until t’, s and x’s having
of B would jointly be an x-complete cause of x’s giving response r. (1997,
p. 157)
An x-complete cause is ‘a cause complete in so far as havings of proper-
ties intrinsic to x are concerned, though perhaps omitting some events
extrinsic to x’ (1997, p. 156).
One proponent of the new dispositionalism, Kadri Vihvelin (2004),
assumes that something like RCAD is correct. But there are several rea-
sons to doubt that this is so.
First, finks remove or add dispositions. Things of another sort —
masks—prevent dispositions from manifesting without removing the
dispositions. A poison’s power to kill when ingested can be masked by
an ingested antidote (Bird 1998, p. 228). A glass’s fragility can be
masked by internal packing that prevents breakage even if the glass is
struck (Johnston 1992, p. 233). Masking presents a difficulty even for
RCAD. For apparently, given the possibility of masking, the causal
basis for a disposition can be retained while the stimulus conditions
are present, and yet the manifestation still not occur.
Can any conditional analysis of dispositions accommodate masking?
One might think that the absence of all that might interfere with a dis-
position’s manifestation can be considered part of the stimulus condi-
tion, or that an additional condition that none of the possible masks is
present can be added to the analysis. But a difficulty with either strategy
is that there might be no end to what can mask a given disposition, and
the potential masks need have no more in common than that each can
prevent the manifestation of the disposition, even when (the rest of)
the stimulus as well as the causal basis of the disposition are present.

326 Randolph Clarke
Whether any conditional analysis can overcome this difficulty is a mat-

ter of some dispute.3
I return to the issue of masking below. As we shall see, the phenome-
non presents a problem for some conditional analyses of abilities as
well.
Second, even setting aside finks and masks, the stimulus conditions
for the manifestation of a disposition need not guarantee its manifesta-
tion. There need be no such guarantee. A causal power might be inde-

terministic. In the case of such a disposition, the stimulus might be
present, the causal basis retained, and all masks absent, and still the
manifestation might or might not occur.4
Perhaps this possibility can be accommodated by adding degrees of
probability to a revised conditional analysis. Such a strategy would
require some subtlety, however, for the probability of an object produc-
ing a certain response can depend not just on the strength of its disposi-
tion to produce that response but on its other features and on the
circumstances as well.
The fact that dispositions can be indeterministic is of some relevance
when what is at issue is the proper understanding of an ability to
choose, particularly if such an ability is, even in part, a causal power.
On a common conception of free will, to be able, on some occasion, to
choose freely is to be able then to choose one way and also able then to
choose at least one other way instead. Vihvelin (2004, p. 429) agrees and
maintains that to have this ability is to have a bundle of dispositions.
And, she says, ‘no one denies that dispositions are compatible with
determinism’ (2004, p. 429).5 But even if having the ability in question
is having a bundle of dispositions, having that ability might require
indeterminism, for it might require having indeterministic disposi-
tions. Identifying the requisite ability with a bundle of dispositions thus
3
Lewis (1997, p. 153) defends his revised conditional analysis against the problem of masking,
and Choi (2006) defends a simple conditional analysis. Bird (1998) and Fara (2005, pp. 48–61) ex-
amine several ways in which a conditional analysis might be revised so as to accommodate mask-
ing; both draw the conclusion that none of the strategies can succeed.
4
Fara (2008, p. 848) takes an object’s disposition to M in certain circumstances to be masked
anytime the object is in the relevant circumstances, retains the disposition, but does not M. Fol-
lowing Bird (1998) and Johnston (1992, p. 233), I take masking to be limited to cases in which
something interferes with (or would interfere with) a disposition’s manifestation, despite the ob-
ject’s retaining that disposition and being in the relevant circumstances. (Bird calls such factors
antidotes.) An indeterministic disposition might fail to manifest in the relevant circumstances
without anything interfering with its manifestation.
5
The point, I take it, is that it is uncontested that determinism is compatible with the posses-
sion even of dispositions that are unmanifested because of the absence of their characteristic stim-
ulus conditions.

leaves unaddressed the main point of contention between compatibil-

ists and incompatibilists.
Third, some dispositions are unconditional: their manifestations are
not conditional on any stimulus. Some such dispositions might be con-
tinuously manifesting. George Molnar (2003, p. 87) suggests that rest
mass may be such a disposition, as massive objects manifest gravita-
tional power in interaction with space-time (curving it) for as long as
they possess mass. Other unconditional dispositions spontaneously

manifest. A muon has a capacity to decay into an electron, a neutrino,
and an antineutrino. The power is manifested (when it is) without any
trigger or stimulus (Molnar 2003, p. 85). A conditional analysis seems
ill-suited to cover such unconditional dispositions.
Certainly no one wants to claim that abilities to act are continuously
manifesting dispositions. And no one should hold that an ability to act
is just a spontaneously manifesting disposition, for the manifestation of
such a disposition, in a case like that of the muon, is just a matter of
chance. But might having an ability to choose to A consist in possessing
a spontaneously manifesting disposition and its being up to oneself
whether that disposition is manifested? That, it seems, is what is held by
certain libertarians —those who hold that basic free actions, such as
free choices, need not have any internal causal structure and need not
be caused by anything at all (Ginet 1990, Goetz 1997, McCann 1998,
Pink 2004).6 Though there might be good reason to reject this view,
taking abilities to be dispositions does not suffice to rule it out. In any
case, from the possibility of spontaneous dispositions, we again see that
dispositions can be indeterministic.
Other proponents of the new dispositionalism (such as Fara and
Smith) avoid commitment to any specific analysis of dispositions.7 Given
the problems faced by RCAD, such neutrality appears well advised.
2. Abilities and conditionals

Setting aside the question of whether there is any correct conditional
analysis of dispositions, is there some such analysis of ability to act?
Vihvelin (2004, pp. 437–8) observes that abilities to act, like disposi-
6
Goetz (1997, p. 196) maintains that ‘a choice is the exercising by an agent of his mental power to
choose, where … the exercising of a mental power is essentially an uncaused event’. McCann (1998,
p. 180) writes: ‘An exercise of agency has to be spontaneous and active; it is a creative undertaking
on the agent’s part, to be accounted for in terms of its intrinsic features, not via the operations of
other denizens of the world’.
7
Fara elsewhere (2005) advances an account of what it is to have a disposition. However, his ac-
count of abilities is not committed to that account.

328 Randolph Clarke
tions, can be finkish. A fink can remove an ability in just those circum-
stances in which it would, if retained, be exercised, or create an ability
to act only when such circumstances obtain. For example, a sorcerer
might stand ready to remove someone’s ability to speak French, should
that person try to do so, or to restore a paralytic’s ability to raise her
arm should she try to raise it.
The lesson, Vihvelin recommends, is that ‘persons have abilities by
having intrinsic properties that are the causal basis of the ability’ (2004,
p. 438). She suggests the following revised conditional analysis of abil-

ity, which is modelled after Lewis’s revised analysis of dispositions:
(RCAA) S has the ability at time t to do X iff, for some intrinsic property or
set of properties B that S has at t, for some time t’ after t, if S chose (decided,
intended, or tried) at t to do X, and S were to retain B until t’, S’s choosing
(deciding, intending, or trying) to do X and S’s having of B would jointly be
an S-complete cause of S’s doing X. (2004, p. 438)
She maintains that RCAA, or something reasonably close, is correct for
‘basic abilities’, those that are dispositions. ‘Complex abilities, including
the ability to make choices for reasons, are not dispositions; they are
bundles of dispositions’ (2004, p. 439).
Vihvelin argues that various objections that were taken to be forceful
against the simple conditional analysis of ability fail when applied to
RCAA. Some of her claims here seem mistaken.
One objection was that an agent might be able to A, and yet might
try but fail to A, without losing the ability. (The truth of the analysans
was thus said not to be necessary for possession of the ability.) J. L. Aus-
tin’s case (1956, p. 218, n. 1) of the skilled golfer who misses a very short
putt illustrates this possibility. Vihvelin (2004, p. 442) claims that the
objection has no force against RCAA, but it applies as powerfully here
as it does against the simple conditional analysis, for it has nothing to
do with the subtraction or addition of any causal basis of the ability. In
a plain sense, Austin’s golfer is able to make the putt, but Vihvelin’s
analysis implies that he lacks that ability.
Austin’s example appears to be a case of masking: the golfer’s ability
to sink a short putt is apparently masked, perhaps by a momentary dis-
traction or a simple lapse of attention (cf. Fara 2008, p. 847). Masking
presents a difficulty for RCAA similar to the problem it presents for
RCAD, which is unsurprising, since RCAA is modelled after RCAD.
A second objection was that the conditional ‘if S chose (decided,
intended, or tried) to A, then S would A’ might be true, but still S might
be unable to A, for S might be unable to choose (decide, intend, or try)
to A (Chisholm 1964, p. 29). (The truth of the analysans was thus said

not to be sufficient for possession of the ability.) Vihvelin considers this

claim as part of a regress objection (which adds that if we in turn try to
analyse ‘S is able to choose to A’ in terms of a similar conditional, then
we are off on an infinite regress). But the original objection can be con-
sidered in its own right, and as such it counts as fully against RCAA as it
does against the simple conditional analysis. It might be true, as Vihve-
lin (2004, p. 443) says, that an agent (an animal, or a young child) can
have an ability to perform an action of A-ing without having any ability

to choose to A, but the further possibility that some agent might lack
that ability to choose and, for just that reason, lack the ability to A
undermines RCAA as an analysis of ability to act. A phobic agent
might, on some occasion, be unable to choose to A and unable to A
without so choosing, while retaining all that she would need to imple-
ment such a choice, should she make it. Despite lacking the ability to
choose to A, the agent might have some set of intrinsic properties B
such that, if she chose to A and retained B, then her choosing to A and
her having B would jointly be an agent-complete cause of her A-ing.
Vihvelin (2004, p. 443) suggests that, in such a case, if asked whether
the agent can A, we should answer, ‘Yes and no’: the agent is not para-
lysed, but she cannot make the choice. However, it is a feature of the
case that the agent’s lacking the latter ability bears on whether she is
able to A: she is unable to A without so choosing. The case is not one of
lacking one ability while retaining some other, independent ability.
Michael Smith (2003) construes an ability to act otherwise (than how
one in fact acts) in terms of a capacity to have believed or desired differ-
ently. For example, an agent who continued drinking despite judging
that she should stop has acted akratically, and could have resisted so
acting, if and only if she could have exercised self-control and desired in
accord with her judgement. And she could have so desired if and only if
she had a rational capacity to desire in accord with her judgement and
she could have exercised that capacity.8 Smith takes it that the agent
8
I believe this is Smith’s view. He says that what distinguishes his account from certain others,
which require only certain general capacities or reasons-responsiveness, is ‘the explicit suggestion
that the “could” required for responsibility [in cases of recklessness, weakness, or compulsion] can
be elucidated in terms of the possibility of exercising such a rational capacity’ (2003, p. 19). There
are several points in the paper (e.g. 2003, p. 23) where he says that an agent could have done some-
thing ‘in the sense of having a capacity to do so’. But apparently Smith does not take possession of
the capacity to suffice for having the ability that is required for responsibility. He holds that it
would be wrong to blame someone for forming a mistaken belief about what she ought to do if,
despite the agent’s having a capacity to form the correct belief, her mistaken belief was the product
of self-hatred that she could neither acknowledge nor eliminate (2003, pp. 29–30). The agent has
the requisite ability only if ‘her failure to form the correct belief is appropriately explained by her
failure to exercise her capacity to form the correct belief in response to the evidence available to
her’ (2003, p. 30).

330 Randolph Clarke
could have exercised the capacity in question if and only if her failure to
exercise that capacity is what explains her acting as she did.
Smith offers an account of such a rational capacity in terms of coun-
terfactual conditionals true of an agent possessing it. The conditionals
concern what the agent does in a variety of similar circumstances in
nearby possible worlds. Drawing a lesson from the recognition of fink-
ish and masked dispositions, Smith takes the relevant worlds to be
restricted by ‘abstracting away from all those properties that could have

an effect on what the [akratic] woman … desire[s] except the relevant
properties of [her brain]’ (2003, p. 35). (The ‘relevant’ properties are
those that constitute the capacity in question, and whatever caused the
woman to in fact desire contrary to her practical judgement is appar-
ently taken to be among the masking conditions that are abstracted
away.) The agent will then have ‘a whole host of counterfactuals true of
her. She would desire to refrain from similar drinks, and the like —
drinks of ever so slightly different kinds, in ever so slightly different cir-
cumstances, and so on—in those nearby possible worlds’ in which she
believes that she should so refrain (2003, p. 35). The agent has the
capacity in question if and only if there is relevant structure in what
underwrites the truth of these counterfactuals.
It is worth noting that the task of turning this account into an analy-
sis of a rational capacity faces a difficulty parallel to the problem of pro-
viding a conditional analysis of a disposition: there might be no end to
what can mask a given capacity, and all that the potential masks need
have in common is that they can prevent the exercise of that capacity,
despite its continued possession and the occurrence of its typical stimu-
lus.
The details of Smith’s account aside, it is doubtful that an ability to
believe or desire otherwise is required for an ability to act otherwise.
And certainly the former ability does not suffice for the latter.
Note, first, that an agent who akratically takes a drink despite think-
ing she should not might in fact desire not to have that drink. She
might have conflicting desires, both to drink and to refrain. Her
refraining need not require her acquiring a desire she does not already
have.
It might be thought that what she needs is to desire more strongly to
refrain, where the strength in question is motivational strength. And
perhaps the thought is that one can act in accord with one’s judgement
concerning what is best if and only if one can bring what one desires
most strongly into line with one’s judgement.

The suggestion raises a number of important issues.9 I shall com-

ment on just two. First, any plausible principle linking motivational
strength to intentional action will allow that, if indeterminism is true,
then an agent might intentionally A despite desiring more strongly to
do something else instead (Clarke 1994).10 Second, and more impor-
tantly, even if one’s attempts always aligned with what one desired most
strongly, one’s actions would likely not always do so; however strongly
one wants to A, one might be unable to A, for one might lack what it

takes to succeed. An ability to desire in accord with one’s practical
judgement, then, does not suffice for an ability to act in accord with
such judgement. Where overt bodily action is at issue, an ability to act
requires a command over one’s body—the movement of one’s arms or
legs or what have you — and in many cases a control over things in
one’s environment as well, that exceeds any control one has over one’s
desires.
Smith might be unconcerned about the first of these remarks. He
might aim only to characterize a type of ability to act that we can have
on the supposition of determinism. And since his focus is on what dis-
tinguishes an akratic agent from a compulsive one, he might take it for
granted that both have the required bodily command, and aim only to
identify an ability to desire that the former but not the latter possesses.
Nevertheless, we should observe that what is then characterized is not
an ability to act; an ability to desire most strongly to A does not suffice
for an ability to A.
We do not exercise control over our actions only by exercising con-
trol over what we believe or desire. Performing an intentional action is
itself an exercise of control. Being able to exercise that control is having
an ability in addition to whatever abilities to believe or desire one might
have.
Setting this issue to the side, it still is not clear that Smith’s account
will give us the results it should. He would have us employ the abstrac-
tion procedure in two stages, first to determine whether the agent has
the rational capacity in question, and second to see whether she can
exercise that capacity—as Smith maintains, whether her failure to exer-
9
Mele (2003, Ch. 7) presents a careful discussion of motivational strength and its connection to
intentional action.
10
There is also a case to be made that agents can intentionally A even if they are motivated
equally strongly to do something else instead. On this view, forming an intention to A does not re-
quire first being most strongly motivated to A (or to intend to A), and such an intention can move
one to intentionally A without altering the balance of strength of one’s motivations. Intentional
action can proceed despite a motivational tie. A case for this view is advanced by Mele (1992,
pp. 70–5 and Chs 9–10).

332 Randolph Clarke
cise it is what explains her behaviour. In the first stage, as previously

explained, we abstract away all properties that could have an effect on
what the agent does except certain relevant properties of her brain, and
we see what she would do in a variety of similar circumstances. If the
result is that the agent does indeed have the relevant capacity, we then
imagine back in place the agent’s emotional states, and see whether so
doing undermines the truth of the counterfactuals resulting from the
first stage. If these counterfactuals are no longer true, we are then to

conclude that some emotional state, and not the agent’s failure to exer-
cise her rational capacity, is what explains her behaviour (Smith 2003,
p. 30).
But emotional states that have such an impact on what one would do
need not be debilitating, and they need not undermine one’s responsi-
bility. Suppose that Adam, out of affection for a friend, has told a lie,
despite having believed that, all things considered, he should tell the
truth. He might have a capacity to have desired and acted differently.
But it might be that given his affection for his friend, in a range of simi-
lar circumstances he would still tell the lie. If that is the case, it is never-
theless consistent with his being responsible for what he has done. His
affection might have greater causal power than his judgement without
overwhelming or compelling him. And it need not be something that
he regards as an alien force. Akrasia can be something that would sur-
vive various changes in circumstances, without thereby turning into
compulsion.
Finally, there is a familiar sense in which an agent might be unable to
desire to A even though she has a capacity to have that desire and her
failure to exercise that capacity explains her not A-ing. For it might not
be up to her on that occasion whether she so fails. The failure might, for
example, be caused by meddling neuroscientists in such a way that they,
and not the agent in question, are in control of whether the capacity is
exercised then.
Smith would surely hold that, in this case, it is not the agent’s failure
to exercise her capacity, but rather the meddling of the neuroscientists,
that is the ‘relevant’ explanation of her behaviour (2003, pp. 30, 37). But
both explanatory claims are true; in virtue of what is the latter the rele-
vant one? Perhaps just in virtue of citing something that settles the
question of whether the agent is responsible for what she does. But this
suggestion raises the question of which causes of a failure to exercise a
rational capacity that an agent possesses settle that question negatively.
Though Smith provides an example or two (e.g. self-hatred), he does
not give any systematic answer to this question.

Smith allows that in some cases in which the agent’s failure to exer-
cise the pertinent capacity explains her behaviour, we might have no
explanation for why the agent so failed —‘not, at any rate, without
retreating to brain science’ (2003, p. 36). But if determinism is true,
there will always be an explanation — in fact, many of them— citing
ancient states of the world that determined the failure. Such explana-
tions, he implies, are not the relevant ones. So long as the failure to
desire in accord with practical judgement occurs ‘in a suitable context

of nearby possible worlds’ in which the agent does so desire, ‘it thereby
follows, analytically, both that she could have had that desire, in the
sense of having a rational capacity to have the desire … and that her
failure to exercise her capacity is the relevant explanation of her failure
[to so desire] … And this, in turn, is what legitimizes our holding her
responsible’ (2003, pp. 36–7). If it is stipulated that the context in ques-
tion is just the one that Smith has characterized, then what we have
here is an assertion of compatibilism; but the argument to back it up is
lacking.
3. Abilities and dispositions

Setting aside the question of whether there is any correct conditional
analysis of either dispositions or abilities to act, is having an ability to
act simply having a disposition (or a bundle of dispositions)?
Vihvelin (2004, p. 431) notes several important similarities between
dispositions and agents’ abilities to act. Like dispositions, abilities to act
are relatively stable features that typically continue to exist even when
not being manifested. Indeed, like a disposition, an ability to perform
an action of a certain type can exist even if never manifested. (I can
study Russian, but I never will.) And as an object possessing a certain
disposition can (in virtue of that fact) behave in a certain way, so an
agent possessing a certain ability to act can (in virtue of that fact) act in
a certain way. Further, as previously noted, Vihvelin observes that both
dispositions and abilities to act are subject to finking.
On the basis of the observed similarities, Vihvelin advances the fol-
lowing thesis:
(ABD) To have an ability is to have a disposition or a bundle of dispositions.
(2004, p. 431)
She subsequently states ABD as ‘abilities are dispositions or bundles of
dispositions’ (2004, p. 432).
Michael Fara, too, observes similarities between dispositions and
abilities, and he notes particularly the susceptibility to masking: ‘we can

334 Randolph Clarke
imagine that a certain sorcerer has the ability to frighten his enemies
when they are near just by raising his eyebrows. But that ability can be
masked by a literal mask: if the enemies do not see the eyebrows then
the sorcerer will fail to exercise his ability even if he tries’ (2008, p. 847).
Although, as Fara sees it, one might be able to A without being dis-
posed to A, there is, he observes, a close relation between one’s abilities
and one’s dispositions: ‘necessarily, an agent’s ability to do something
(in certain circumstances) is masked if and only if her disposition to do

it when she tries to do it (in those circumstances) is in turn masked’
(2008, p. 848). Fara offers the following dispositional analysis of abili-
ties to act:
(DAA) An agent has the ability to A in circumstances C if and only if she has
the disposition to A when, in circumstances C, she tries to A. (2008, p. 848)
As he explains, the ability and disposition ascriptions in DAA are to be
given wide scope readings: what is analysed is the ability to A in circum-
stances C, and the disposition at issue is a disposition to A when, in cir-
cumstances C, one tries to A (2008, p. 848, n. 8).
Fara observes that if dispositions were analysable by simple condi-
tionals, then DAA would fail for the same reasons that the simple con-
ditional analysis of abilities failed, including the fact that it would
wrongly disallow the possibility of failing to exercise an ability despite
being in appropriate circumstances and trying. But Fara rejects a con-
ditional analysis of dispositions, leaving the latter unanalysed for the
purposes of his account of abilities. And unlike the classic conditional
analysis of abilities, DAA allows that Austin’s golfer is able to make the
putt. The golfer’s disposition to make such a putt when he tries can be
masked, and hence so can be his ability to make the putt.11
How does this proposal fare against the second objection to the sim-
ple conditional analysis of abilities (that the truth of the analysans is
not sufficient for possession of the ability)? An agent might be unable
to A because she is unable to try to A. Fara considers a case of this sort
in which an agent, Alice, has a neurosis that makes her so afraid of spi-
ders that she cannot stand even to be near one. She would nevertheless
lift one if she tried. Fara accepts that Alice is unable to lift a spider. But
11
On a familiar understanding of trying, there are things we do best by not trying to do them
but instead trying to do something else. A golfer might find that he is able to reproduce a swing
taught to him by an instructor, but only so long as he tries just to take a relaxed swing, and does
not try to swing in the manner instructed. He is able to swing in the manner instructed; but does
he lack a disposition to swing in that manner when he tries to swing in that manner? Fara says of
the sort of trying that is at work in DAA that ‘one tries to perform an action by placing oneself, as
best one can, in circumstances appropriate to or conducive to performing the action’ (2008,
p. 849) Apparently, then, when the golfer tries just to take a relaxed swing, he is thereby trying to
swing in the manner instructed.

DAA, he says, agrees. Alice lacks the disposition to lift a spider when she
tries, because the manifestation condition — Alice’s trying to lift a
spider — is impossible. In general, he maintains (2008, pp. 851–2),
objects have no dispositions to do things in conditions that cannot
obtain.
What type of impossibility is invoked here? Fara (2008, p. 852)
remarks that it is not metaphysical or nomological impossibility, but he
offers no general characterization of it. He does provide illustrations.

For example, ‘if a rubber ball is nailed to the wall, and so cannot (in the
relevant sense of “cannot”) be dropped onto the floor, it is no more dis-
posed to bounce when it is dropped than it is disposed to melt when it
is dropped; it simply lacks any dispositions to behave one way or the
other when it is placed in conditions that it cannot be placed in’ (2008,
p. 852).
My own sense is that the ball, like an intrinsically similar one that is
not nailed to the wall, does have a disposition to bounce if dropped.12
After all, it is still rubbery. Likewise, it seems, salt that is permanently
sealed in an unbreakable container remains soluble, disposed to dis-
solve if mixed with water, even though it cannot be so mixed. (If being
so enclosed deprived it of solubility, that disposition would not be an
intrinsic property.) Similarly, two particles might be disposed to inter-
act with each other in a certain way despite the fact that they are so
short-lived and so distant that they cannot be brought into interaction.
(Our evidence that they have such a disposition might be the actual
interactions of pairs of intrinsic duplicates of them.) If there is some
kind of impossibility of manifestation conditions (short of metaphysi-
cal or nomological impossibility) that precludes possession of a given
disposition, Fara has not made clear what it is.
Perhaps it is nevertheless correct that Alice lacks the disposition in
question. However, a different example presses the insufficiency objec-
tion more forcefully. Suppose that on a certain occasion Bob formed an
intention to wave to Cathy, but a momentary neural glitch made it
impossible for Bob, on that occasion, to try to wave — he could not
even begin to implement his intention—though he would have waved
12
I say ‘if ’, whereas Fara says ‘when’. Since he accepts (2008, p. 849) that an object can have a
disposition even if the relevant manifestation condition is never realized, I do not think that the
difference in formulation is of any substance.

336 Randolph Clarke
if he had managed to try.13 Did Bob have on that occasion a disposition

to wave when he tries to wave?
By way of comparison, imagine that a vending machine that drops
sugar into coffee when the ‘sugar’ button is pressed fails on a certain
occasion. The ‘sugar’ button is pressed, but due to a temporary mal-
function the internal mechanism that drops the sugar cannot be
engaged. Might the vending machine nevertheless retain its disposi-
tion to drop sugar into coffee when the internal mechanism begins to

operate? It seems so.
Assuming that the relevant type of impossibility of manifestation
conditions is uniform across dispositions, it then appears that Bob had,
on the occasion in question, a disposition to wave when he tries to
wave. Yet, in a plain sense, Bob was unable to wave to Cathy then. (He
certainly might be excused for not waving then.) The case thus raises
doubt about the sufficiency of the analysans provided by DAA.
Fara (2008, p. 849) observes that DAA is silent about the ability to try
to do a certain thing. As we have seen, he holds that having a disposi-
tion to A when one tries to A requires that one can (in some relevant
sense) try to A. Apparently, being able to A on a certain occasion might
also require that one can try to A. But is the possibility (the ‘can’) at
issue in these two cases the same? We have seen reason to believe that it
is not.
Setting aside the specifics of DAA, is having an ability to act simply a
matter of having some disposition (or bundle of dispositions)? Here are
some things we might have in mind when we think or say that some-
one, S, has an ability to (is able to, can) A:
(i) S has a general capacity to A. (S can speak Spanish, ride a bicy-
cle, drive a car, etc.)
(ii) S has a general capacity to A, and the circumstances are friendly
to S’s exercising that capacity. (S is capable of driving a car, she
has a functioning car handy, she has the key to it, the weather is
mild, etc.)
(iii) S has a general capacity to A, and it is open to S (at some speci-
fied time) to exercise (at some specified time) that capacity.
13
Deciding to A is not itself trying to A. Often we decide to do a certain thing well in advance of
doing it, or trying to do it; indeed, sometimes we decide without ever doing, or trying to do, the
thing in question. Not even deciding to do a certain thing straightaway is trying to do it; the try-
ing, when it occurs, results from the deciding.

(iv) S has a general capacity to A, and it is up to S (at some specified

time) whether she (at some specified time) exercises that capacity.
(v) S has a general capacity to A, and S has a choice (at some speci-
fied time) about whether she (at some specified time) exercises
that capacity. 14
Some of these characterizations are less than perfectly perspicuous; one
thing we might seek is further elucidation of them. Perhaps some are
equivalent to others (e.g. (iv) to (v)).15 Note that on none of them is an

ability to do otherwise explicitly incompatible with determinism. It
might be that some argument shows that on one or another of these
characterizations, the ability to do otherwise is in fact so incompatible;
but that would remain to be shown.16
The type of capacity characterized in (i) is one that can be possessed
even when one is not in circumstances — and even when one is not
oneself ready—to exercise it. I have all the skills, strength, and healthy
limbs needed to ride a bicycle, even if no bicycle is near; and I am mod-
erately competent in Spanish, even if I am sleeping. A broken leg or a
brain injury leaves one disabled, in this sense, whereas the absence of a
bicycle or being asleep does not.17
A capacity of this sort is perhaps just a disposition or causal power
(or a bundle of these) possessed by an agent. Having such a capacity is
14
I do not mean to claim that ‘has an ability’, ‘is able’, or ‘can’ are ambiguous. That is one possi-
bility. Another, suggested by Lewis (1976, p. 77), is that such expressions are context sensitive. Like
Fara (2008, pp. 845–6), I take no stand on this issue.
15
It was suggested by a referee that the list might be shortened by understanding (iii)–(v) as at-
tributing to S two abilities, one to deliberate and decide to A and another to A on the basis of that
decision. (Perhaps each of these abilities is then to be construed along the lines of (i).) However,
since making a decision is itself performing a mental action, the A-ing in question might be the
making of a decision (e.g. to B). Its being up to oneself whether one decides to B is not a matter of
one’s being able to deliberate and decide to decide to B (and then decide to B). Moreover, arguably,
even when one has decided to A, it might remain up to oneself whether one A-s, where that is not
a matter of one’s being able to make some further decision.
16
Van Inwagen (1983, pp. 93–104) argues that having unexercised abilities, understood along the
lines of (v), is incompatible with determinism. Several writers have denied his claim. They might
be mistaken, but they have not asserted an explicit contradiction.
17
‘Suppose that Jean Paul, a valiant member of the Resistance, has been captured by the Ger-
mans and bound and gagged. Can he speak French? Well, to be able to speak French is to be able to
speak, and he can’t speak because he is gagged: so he can’t speak French. On the other hand, if the
German commander ordered all the prisoners who could speak French brought before him, he
would be unlikely to look approvingly on the action of the subordinate who produced only the
ungagged French-speaking prisoners … Clearly, there is a distinction to be made between a skill,
accomplishment, or general ability, on the one hand, and, on the other, the power to exercise it on
a given occasion. This is true despite the fact that the same words might be used in both kinds of
situation’ (van Inwagen 1983, pp. 12–13).

338 Randolph Clarke
arguably just a matter of having certain intrinsic properties. The

rational capacities that Smith aims to characterize would seem to be
things of this sort. On his view, however, being able to believe or desire
otherwise requires more than simply having a capacity of this sort; it
requires as well that one can exercise that capacity. It is a similar further
requirement with respect to action that Don Locke (1973–74, p. 179), in
the passage quoted in the epigraph, seeks to capture with his distinction
between having an ability and being able to exercise that ability. As we

have seen, Smith’s proposal to explicate this further requirement in
terms of what explains the agent’s behaviour is underdeveloped.
Though Vihvelin takes the ability to act to be a disposition (or bun-
dle of these), and though she maintains that ‘persons have dispositions
and capacities by having intrinsic properties that are the causal basis of
the disposition’ (2004, p. 434), her RCAA does not aptly analyse the
type of ability characterized in (i), and what it analyses is not intrinsic
to the agents in question. If I have no access to a car right now, then, in
a familiar sense, I cannot now drive to the store. (My inability might
excuse my not getting the milk.) RCAA agrees with this verdict. But my
lack of this ability is not a lack of any general capacity to drive. And this
lack of ability is not intrinsic to me; an intrinsic duplicate of me who
has access to a car might be able now to drive to the store.
We often use ‘ability’ in what Austin (1956, p. 229) calls an ‘all-in’
sense, on which being able to A requires the opportunity to exercise
one’s general capacity to A. Vihvelin says that the sort of ability she
wishes to analyse can be contrasted with opportunity, and she charac-
terizes it as the unimpaired skills or competence needed to perform the
action in question (2004, p. 448, n. 3, and p. 449, n. 22). But RCAA fails
to analyse this type of ability. Although I retain an unimpaired compe-
tence to drive to the store, I have no intrinsic properties such that
should I now decide to drive to the store, and should I retain those
properties, these two things would cause my driving to the store. For
there is no car available.
Although the presence of a fink or a potential mask that would pre-
vent one’s A-ing is compatible with having a general capacity (the
unimpaired competence) to A, there is an ordinary sense in which in
such circumstances an agent might well be unable to A. That sense is
captured by (ii), perhaps (iii), and certainly (iv) and (v). If there is
something in place that would prevent me from A-ing should I try to A,
if it is not up to me that it would so prevent me, and if it is not up to me
that such a thing is in place, then even if I have a capacity to A, it is not

up to me whether I exercise that capacity, and I do not have a choice

about whether I do so.
Something of the sort characterized by (iv) and (v) is what many
writing on free will have in mind. Thomas Pink (forthcoming), for
example, writes: ‘Freedom is not a simple capacity to do otherwise. It is
a power that allows us to determine for ourselves whether we do other-
wise’.
Certainly, having an ability of the sort characterized in (ii) is, at least

often, not just a matter of having some disposition (or bundle of dispo-
sitions); whether the circumstances are friendly to the exercise of a
capacity can depend, for example, on whether finks or potential masks
are present. Further, abilities of the sorts characterized by (iii)–(v) do
not appear to be just dispositions of the agents possessing them, and
having any of them does not appear to be just having some disposi-
tion(s), though it might be in part that. Neither ABD nor DAA appears
to be correct about any of these.
Is, then, being able to act just a matter of having a disposition (or
bundle of these)? The question carries a false presupposition. There are
several different things that we might be thinking or talking about
when we think or say that someone can or is able to do a certain thing.18
Perhaps one or another of these things is just a matter of having some
disposition(s). Some of the others appear not to be.
4. Frankfurt scenarios
According to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP), ‘a person is
morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done
otherwise’ (Frankfurt 1969, p. 1). Harry Frankfurt challenged PAP with
cases of the following sort:
Suppose someone—Black, let us say—wants Jones to perform a certain ac-
tion. Black is prepared to go to considerable lengths to get his way, but he
prefers to avoid showing his hand unnecessarily. So he waits until Jones is
about to make up his mind what to do, and he does nothing unless it is clear
to him (Black is an excellent judge of such things) that Jones is going to de-
cide to do something other than what he [Black] wants him to do. If it does
18
At times, van Inwagen (2008, e.g. p. 333) seems to insist that there is just one kind of thing
that is attributed by saying that someone ‘is able to’ do a certain thing. The example (from his ear-
lier work) cited in the preceding note suggests otherwise, as do other examples examined here.
Perhaps in the later paper van Inwagen means only that, in the context of the free-will debate,
compatibilists and incompatibilists are speaking of the same thing when they speak of an ability to
act; one or the other party is simply mistaken about the nature of this thing. Even if that is so,
however, the characterization offered by the mistaken party might aptly fit some other important
kind of ability to act.

340 Randolph Clarke
become clear that Jones is going to decide to do something else, Black takes
effective steps to ensure that Jones decides to do, and that he does do, what
he wants him to do … Now suppose that Black never has to show his hand
because Jones, for reasons of his own, decides to perform and does perform
the very action Black wants him to perform. (1969, pp. 6–7)19
Frankfurt claimed that Jones could be responsible for what he does in
this case despite being unable to do otherwise. PAP, Frankfurt main-
tained, is not a necessary truth.
The new dispositionalists respond that agents in Frankfurt scenarios

of this type are able to act otherwise. Vihvelin (2004, pp. 445–8) sees the
would-be intervener as a fink: he does not actually remove any of the
agent’s dispositions, but he would, if necessary, remove those that con-
stitute the ability to do otherwise. Since none of these dispositions is
actually removed, the agent is in fact able to do otherwise, despite the
setup. Fara (2008, pp. 854–5) and Smith (2003, p. 25) imagine the
would-be intervener to be a potential mask (though Smith does not
distinguish between finks and masks, and Fara recognizes that cases can
vary on this point).
Frankfurt’s example is not described in sufficient detail to decide the
matter; the case can be filled in so as to be one of a finkish disposition,
or differently, to be one of a would-be mask. Either way, Jones retains
some type of general capacity—an unimpaired skill or competence—
to act otherwise, at least as long as Black does not intervene. And it
would seem that an agent possessing such a capacity to so act can, in a
sense, so act.
Vihvelin (2004, pp. 428–9) and Smith (2003, p. 19) identify their tar-
get as the ‘can’ that is relevant to moral responsibility. If the agent in a
Frankfurt scenario is responsible for what she does, then obviously no
ability that is required for moral responsibility is missing. What could
Frankfurt, and those persuaded by him, have possibly been thinking?
Evidently, they take PAP to require something more than a general
capacity, and they think that Jones (and others in similar scenarios) are
responsible despite lacking this other type of ability to act. And there
apparently are abilities of certain types that Jones lacks, because of
Black’s readiness to intervene. Though Jones might have a capacity to
act otherwise, the circumstances are not friendly to his exercising that
capacity, and it may fairly be said that it is not up to him whether he
exercises it, or that he does not have a choice about whether he does so.
19
I have omitted subscripts that Frankfurt used to distinguish this case from others that he dis-
cussed. For some of the literature on Frankfurt cases, see Widerker and McKenna 2003.

The response to Frankfurt cases by the new dispositionalists, and

particularly by Smith, can be interestingly contrasted with the view of
semicompatibilists, such as John Fischer and Mark Ravizza (1998).
Fischer and Ravizza, like the dispositionalists, hold that responsibility is
compatible with determinism. Unlike the dispositionalists, they take
agents in Frankfurt scenarios to be responsible for what they do despite
being unable to do otherwise.
On their view, the freedom-relevant requirement for responsibility is

that one’s action be produced by one’s own moderately reasons-respon-
sive mechanism.20 Whether an action-producing mechanism is appro-
priately responsive is a matter of whether it has a certain dispositional
property, and that property is given a possible-worlds analysis. Moder-
ate responsiveness requires that, holding fixed the operation of the type
of mechanism that actually produced one’s behaviour, there is an
understandable pattern of similar worlds in which one recognizes rea-
sons (including moral reasons) to act otherwise, in at least one of which
one so acts. A world in which one so responds need not be among those
most similar to the actual world; it may be one in which something
actually present that would have prevented one’s doing otherwise is
absent. There is more than a rough similarity between what is required
here and what Smith requires.
One difference of note is that Fischer and Ravizza do not require that
the agent have the disposition in question; the operative mechanism is
what is required to have that property. It is, of course, possible for some
subsystem of an agent to have a disposition that is not a disposition of
the agent herself. Still, Fischer accepts that in a scenario like the one
Frankfurt described, the agent retains a ‘general ability’ to act other-
wise; what he denies is that the agent ‘can under the particular circum-
stances choose and do otherwise’ (2002, p. 304). As Fischer and Ravizza
observe, the mechanism producing an action might have the required
disposition of reasons-responsiveness without the alternative of doing
otherwise being ‘genuinely accessible to the agent’ (1998, p. 53).
While it is an interesting point that agents in Frankfurt cases retain
finkish or masked capacities, it seems clear that what Fischer and
Ravizza find such agents to lack is something different. Abilities of the
20
Fischer and Ravizza (1998, p. 13) call the requirement articulated here the ‘control’ or ‘free-
dom-relevant’ condition for responsibility; they allow that a theory of responsibility might need
an epistemic condition as well, requiring for responsibility that the agent have pertinent knowl-
edge of what she is doing. Further, the requirement characterized here is for direct or underived
responsibility. When one’s responsibility for an action traces back to (derives from) one’s responsi-
bility for an earlier action, the later action need not meet this control requirement (pp. 49–50).

342 Randolph Clarke
types characterized in (ii)–(v) in the preceding section are candidates

for what is found lacking.
If such abilities are not required for responsibility, does it matter
whether we possess them? It often seems to us not only that we have
general capacities (the required skills, strength, health, etc.) to do vari-
ous things, but also that it is up to us whether we do them. It seems to
us that when we act, we determine whether and how we exercise our
capacities to act. And when one deliberates about whether to A, it gen-

erally seems to one that it is up to oneself whether one A-s. It is of some
importance to us whether this appearance is veridical, whether or not
the sort of ability in question is required for responsibility.
5. Responsibility
Does it suffice for having whatever abilities are required for moral
responsibility that one have certain dispositions (or bundles of disposi-
tions)? Fara and Vihvelin hold that it does. On Smith’s view, it can suf-
fice that one have a rational capacity to hold certain beliefs or desires
(the account of which parallels that of dispositions) and that one’s act-
ing as one did is explained by one’s failure to exercise that capacity.
Here is a thought with some intuitive appeal: to be responsible for A-
ing, one must have possessed a capacity to A, and one must have deter-
mined, oneself, that one exercise that capacity on that occasion. If this
is correct, then it is an important question whether the required self-
determination is simply a matter of manifesting a disposition. There is
also the question of whether self-determination of the required sort is
compatible with determinism.
Some incompatibilists—source incompatibilists, they are called—
follow Frankfurt in rejecting PAP but argue that moral responsibility is
still incompatible with determinism. Responsibility, they maintain,
requires that one be the ultimate source or origin of (at least some of)
one’s actions, and they argue that determinism precludes such ulti-
macy. On this view, we might say, the required self-determination is
ultimacy or origination.
A common line of argument for this position begins with a case in
which a subject’s decision is surreptitiously preplanned and determined
by some other agent or agents, but in such a way that none of the stand-
ard compatibilist requirements for responsibility is violated. The sub-
ject in such a case, it is said, is not responsible for the decision she
makes. It is then argued—sometimes directly, sometimes by way of one
or more intermediate cases—that there is no morally relevant differ-

ence between this subject’s decision and the normal cases of our deci-
sions and other actions, if determinism is true. Source incompatibilism
is drawn as a conclusion of the argument.21
It might be objected to such views that responsibility does not in fact
require ultimacy or origination, or that the ultimacy or origination that
is required is compatible with determinism. None of Fara, Smith, and
Vihvelin advance either of these objections; none of them confront the
claim about origination.
Smith (2003, p. 21) asserts that if incompatibilists were correct, then

‘we would be unable to give any alternative compatibilist account’ of
the meaning of ‘could’ claims that are made in distinguishing, for
example, akratic agents from compulsives. But incompatibilists need
not deny that agents of these two types differ with respect to whether
they possess a type of ability that is compatible with determinism.
Their view is simply that having such an ability falls short of what is
required for responsibility. That contention is one that the new disposi-
tionalists have not refuted.
6. Free will
What is free will? Vihvelin rightly chides earlier compatibilists for
attempting to reduce or replace the question of free will with that of
freedom of overt bodily action. Free will, she suggests, is ‘the ability to
make choices on the basis of reasons, an ability that can be exercised in
more than one way’ (2004, p. 427). To have this ability is to have a bun-
dle of simpler abilities, such as an ability to form and revise beliefs in
response to evidence and argument, an ability to form intentions in
response to one’s desires and instrumental beliefs, and an ability to
engage in practical reasoning with the aim of making a decision about
what to do (2004, p. 439). Each of these abilities is, in turn, a disposition
or a bundle of dispositions. Hence:
(FWBD) To have free will is to have the ability to make choices on the basis
of reasons and to have this ability is to have a bundle of dispositions. (2004,
p. 429)
Vihvelin offers no further analysis of the dispositions that make up this
bundle. Plainly an ability to make a choice or decision is not to be ana-
lysed along the lines of her RCAA. Being able to decide to A is not a
21
Pereboom (2001, pp. 110–17) advances a four-case argument that is of this type. Mele’s (2006,
pp. 188–9) zygote argument also follows these lines, though Mele does not endorse it. Kane’s dis-
cussion of ‘covert nonconstraining control’ (1996, pp. 64–71) employs a similar argument, though
he takes ultimacy to require the ability to do otherwise.

344 Randolph Clarke
matter of having properties one’s possession of which, together with

one’s deciding (or intending or trying) to decide to A, would cause
one’s deciding to A. One might decide to make up one’s mind whether
to A, and that decision might be a cause of one’s subsequently deciding
to A, but a decision to A is not caused by one’s deciding to decide to A.
Similarly, Fara’s DAA is not applicable to an ability to decide; having an
ability to decide to A is not having a disposition to decide to A when
one tries to decide to A.22 We try to make up our minds what to do, or

whether to do certain things, but we do not try to make specific deci-
sions. (I say more on this point in Sect. 8.)
Having free will would not seem to be just having a general capacity
to make choices on the basis of reasons, even when that capacity is con-
strued as one that can be exercised in more than one way. A better char-
acterization would require having such a capacity and its being up to
oneself whether and how that capacity is exercised. On that characteri-
zation, it is not at all obvious that having free will is simply a matter of
having certain dispositions.
As with abilities to act, the ability to choose that is of concern to Vih-
velin is, she says, the sort that is relevant to moral responsibility. Many
writers take as their target a type of ability to choose characterized
roughly along the lines of (iii), or (iv), or (v) above, or as suggested in
the preceding paragraph. It is then an open question whether being
morally responsible requires having such an ability to choose other-
wise. And if we take free will to be a matter of having an ability of this
sort to do otherwise, it is an open question whether responsibility
requires free will. (These questions are, at least, not answered in the
positive by the new dispositionalists; perhaps they are answered in the
negative by Frankfurt’s argument.)
One might stipulate that ‘free will’ denotes whatever the freedom-
relevant requirement for moral responsibility happens to be. Or one
might define free will in the manner suggested in the preceding para-
graph. Neither option can claim exclusive propriety; both find support
in philosophical precedent. And nothing of substance turns on this
choice. Writers may take their pick; they should just make it clear to
their readers which alternative they have taken.
22
Fara observes that his proposal applies only to ‘actions that one can in principle try to per-
form’ (2008, p. 849).

7. The consequence argument

A popular argument for the incompatibility of determinism and the
ability to do otherwise runs as follows:
If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of na-
ture and events in the remote past. But it is not up to us what went on before
we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. There-
fore, the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up
to us. (van Inwagen 1983, p. v)

Several more rigorous presentations of this ‘consequence argument’
employ the following inference rule:
(␤) N(p d q), Np ⵫ Nq,
where ‘N’ prefixed to any sentence p is to be read as ‘p and no one has,
or ever had, any choice about whether p’ (pp. 93–4).
Fara argues, by appeal to his dispositional analysis of abilities, that
‘(␤) is in general false because of the possibility of masked abilities.
Masking conditions for an ability are conditions which, if they were to
obtain, would prevent the ability from being exercised, a fact which
typically no one is able to do anything about. In those cases where no
one has the ability to prevent the masking conditions from obtaining,
therefore, principle (␤) will have a false instance’ (2008, pp. 862–3).
If ‘Np’ denied the sort of ability characterized by DAA, (␤) would
indeed be in trouble. But it does not. As van Inwagen’s gloss and his
informal presentation of the consequent argument suggest, what is
denied is something like what is characterized in (iv) and (v) of section
3 above; and DAA does not properly analyse such an ability.
Anticipating such a reply, Fara remarks that (␤) ‘will have false
instances given any sense of “ability” according to which abilities can be
masked (by conditions that no one has the ability to prevent from
obtaining)’ (2008, p. 863). And, he claims, to require an unmaskable
ability to do otherwise would be to impose an implausible requirement
on free will. On such a conception, he says, ‘whenever one tries but fails
to do something (as happens to most of us much of the time), it turns
out that, on that occasion, one did not have the ability to do the thing
in the first place’ (2008, p. 863). We need not have such sure-fire abili-
ties in order to have free will.
The point here is an interesting one, but it does not show (␤) to be
invalid. The remainder of this section sets out one reason why this is so;
a second is provided in the next section.

346 Randolph Clarke
In the first place, there is considerable logical space between a sure-

fire ability and one that (given the presence of a mask) is guaranteed to
be frustrated. Consider, for example, an ability to A that one has if and
only if one is able to try to do something such that, were one to so try,
one might A. Having such an ability is consistent with its being the case
that every effort one is able to make might fail. What it precludes is that
every effort one can make is guaranteed to fail.
The example that Fara offers as undermining (␤) fails to do so if ‘Np’

is taken to deny this type of ability. We are to imagine an experienced
golfer, able to sink a short putt, who tries on a certain occasion to do so
but fails, due to a sudden gust of wind. We are to suppose that no one
ever had a choice about whether the gust of wind occurred, and no one
ever had a choice about whether, if that gust occurred, then the golfer
did not make the putt.23 Yet, as was assumed, the golfer was able to
make the putt (he commonly makes such putts when he tries).
However, if there is nothing the golfer (or anyone else) could have
tried to do that even might have prevented the wind gust, and there is
nothing that he (or anyone else) could have tried to do that even might
have made it the case that despite the wind gust, he sank the putt, then
it certainly seems that there is nothing that he (or anyone else) could
have tried to do that even might have resulted in his making the putt on
that occasion.
Is it implausible to hold that free will requires abilities to make
attempts (to do various things) that might succeed? We do not always
take success for granted. We do often believe that we can at least try var-
ious things, and that if we try, we might succeed. The nature of such an
ability, and whether having an unexercised ability of this type is com-
patible with determinism, are important philosophical issues, whether
or not moral responsibility requires that one can, in this sense, do oth-
erwise.
8. Trying and deciding

As Fara observes, his DAA concerns only ‘actions that one can in prin-
ciple try to perform’ (2008, p. 849). And he characterizes masked abili-
ties in terms of trying: ‘Cases of masked abilities … are cases in which
an agent fails to exercise an ability that she has and continues to have,
23
Fara (2008, p. 862) says that no one was able to make it the case that there was a gust of wind
but the golfer did not miss the putt. But for all that has been said, the golfer might have been able
to refrain from hitting the putt in the first place, and hence able to make it the case that there was a
gust of wind and he did not miss the putt. Better, then, to say that no one had a choice about
whether if there was a gust of wind, then the golfer did not make the putt.

despite both having the opportunity to exercise it and trying to exercise

it’ (2008, p. 847). If there is any type of action that one might be able to
perform but cannot in principle try to perform, an ability to perform
such an action will be unmaskable (in the given sense).
Is there any such type of action? Arguably, trying itself is. 24 (Fara
(2008, p. 849) seems to agree.) One can, of course, try to bring it about
that one tries to A (where A-ing is some type of action). One might
need to provide oneself with inducements or courage before one can

make the effort. But bringing it about that one tries is one thing; trying
is another. And trying to bring it about that one tries to A is not trying
to try to A. With that distinction in mind, it does not seem that one can
try to try to A. That one cannot is no deficiency on one’s part; it is a
matter of there being no such thing as trying to try.
Deciding or choosing might be another such action type.25 One can
try to decide what to do, or try to make up one’s mind whether to A. So
trying might consist in thinking about considerations bearing on
whether it would be good to A, in weighing and comparing those con-
siderations, etc. all with the aim of reaching a decision. And if one pre-
fers to A but is having trouble committing oneself, one can try to bring
it about that one decides to A. One might try to bring this about by, for
example, doing something (e.g. buying a plane ticket) that makes it less
appealing not to A. But bringing it about that one decides to A is not
the same thing as deciding to A, and trying to do the former is not try-
ing to do the latter. With that distinction in mind, it does not seem that
one can try to decide to A.
Consider the thesis that one exercises free will in A-ing only if one is
able, on that occasion, to instead either try or decide to do something
else.26 If that is correct, and if one cannot try to try or try to decide, then
exercising free will requires having an unmaskable ability to act. Free
will requires such a thing not because it requires sure-fire abilities, but
because it requires being able to do something that cannot itself be
attempted.
The thesis just considered might be resisted by some on the
grounds that an agent might exercise free will in A-ing even if she is
24
Trying is standardly recognized to be an action, though writers so recognizing it hold a vari-
ety of different views about what exactly it is. For some examples, see Adams and Mele 1992, Brand
1984, p. 150, and McCann 1975.
25
For defence of the view that deciding is an action, see Mele 2003, Ch. 9.
26
One who uses ‘free will’ to refer to the freedom-relevant requirement for responsibility, and
who is impressed by Frankfurt’s argument against PAP, will reject this claim. Call what is required
here what one will; it is an interesting kind of freedom. Whether it is compatible with determinism
is an important philosophical problem, whether or not it is the free will problem.

348 Randolph Clarke
not able to perform any other action right then, so long as she is able
not to act at all right then.27 (It might be thought to have still been up
to her whether she exercised her ability to act.) But an ability not to
act is certainly not to be analysed in terms of a disposition not to act
(at all) when one tries not to act (at all); since trying is itself acting,
no such disposition can exist. And only someone badly confused
could try at some time not to act at all right then. If there is such a
thing as an ability not to act at all (as distinct from the mere possibil-

ity of not acting), it is not to be analysed along the lines of DAA and it
does not seem subject to masking of the sort to which abilities to act
are susceptible.
There might be some other way in which an ability to act can be
masked that does not involve trying and failing to so act. And it might
be that abilities to try and to decide can be masked in this other way.
But these things remain to be shown. It has, then, not been shown
implausible to think that free will requires having unmaskable abilities.
9. Conclusion
The new dispositionalists avoid some of the errors of the old concern-
ing dispositions. They succeed in showing that there is a kind of ability
to act—what might be called a general capacity—the having of which
is, at least roughly, having some disposition. Interestingly, they show
that agents in Frankfurt cases retain finkish or masked abilities of this
kind. And there is no doubt that having unexercised abilities of this sort
is compatible with determinism.
But these successes fall far short of showing that free will or moral
responsibility are compatible with determinism. Dispositions can
themselves be indeterministic, and it has not been shown that no such
dispositions are required for free will or responsibility. There are types
of ability the having of which is apparently not just a matter of having
dispositions, and that are required for an important kind of freedom,
even if that kind of freedom is not required for responsibility. The
claim that responsibility requires a kind of self-determination —
origination — that is incompatible with determinism remains to be
dealt with. And the appeal to dispositions has not been shown to
undermine the consequence argument. The new dispositionalism
leaves unresolved many of the longstanding problems of freedom and
27
McCann (1998, p. 174) maintains that ‘if my action is autonomous … I must have had some
alternative, if only the alternative of forbearance or inaction’. And Kane (1996, p. 156) observes that
doing otherwise might be ‘an omission or failure to choose rather than a choosing otherwise’.

responsibility, and indeed fails to address many of the main points of

contention.28
Department of Philosophy randolph clarke

Florida State University
151 Dodd Hall
Tallahassee, FL 32306

USA
rkclarke@fsu.edu
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Dispositions, Abilities To Act, and Free Will: The New Dispositionalism

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Dispositions, Abilities to Act, and Free Will:

The New Dispositionalism

Downloaded from http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of North Dakota on June 10, 2015

[I]t is obvious that what is at issue in the free will–determinism

What is it to have an ability to perform a certain action, for example, an

Mind, Vol. 118 . 470 . April 2009 © Clarke 2009

to A) if and only if she would A if she so willed, or chose, or desired, or

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1. Dispositions and conditionals

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disposed to shatter if struck. Yet a wizard might stand ready to render

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Mind, Vol. 118 . 470 . April 2009 © Clarke 2009

Whether any conditional analysis can overcome this diﬃculty is a mat-

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Mind, Vol. 118 . 470 . April 2009 © Clarke 2009

leaves unaddressed the main point of contention between compatibil-

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2. Abilities and conditionals

Mind, Vol. 118 . 470 . April 2009 © Clarke 2009

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Mind, Vol. 118 . 470 . April 2009 © Clarke 2009

not to be suﬃcient for possession of the ability.) Vihvelin considers this

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Mind, Vol. 118 . 470 . April 2009 © Clarke 2009

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The suggestion raises a number of important issues.9 I shall com-

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Mind, Vol. 118 . 470 . April 2009 © Clarke 2009

cise it is what explains her behaviour. In the ﬁrst stage, as previously

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3. Abilities and dispositions

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if he had managed to try.13 Did Bob have on that occasion a disposition

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(iv) S has a general capacity to A, and it is up to S (at some speciﬁed

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arguably just a matter of having certain intrinsic properties. The

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up to me whether I exercise that capacity, and I do not have a choice

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Mind, Vol. 118 . 470 . April 2009 © Clarke 2009

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The response to Frankfurt cases by the new dispositionalists, and

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types characterized in (ii)–(v) in the preceding section are candidates

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matter of having properties one’s possession of which, together with