Deliberation and Metaphysical Freedom

Deliberation Incompatibilism

“…They are something rational deliberators just ‘assume’ or ‘take for granted’ when they deliberate (Kapitan 1986; Clarke 1992). Second, it seems clear that van Inwagen would want to restrict the notion of ‘deliberation’ to what he calls ‘serious deliberation’ and describes as a sort of deliberation that occurs when “one is choosing between alternatives and it does not seem to one (once all the purely factual questions have been settled) that the reasons that favor either alternative are clearly the stronger” (2004, 217; see also Coffman and Warfield 2005). There are two reasons for this restriction.…”

“…But what does this tell us about the content of ‘serious deliberation’ as opposed to what we ordinarily call ‘deliberation’? Much of the criticisms of van Inwagen's notion of serious deliberation have been sparked by Coffman and Warfield's (2005) interpretation of it. According to Coffman and Warfield, van Inwagen “conceive[s] of deliberation as a ‘trying to choose’ or ‘trying to decide’ what to do that occurs before action but after reasons for various actions have been weighed and evaluated (but have not decisively favored one course of action over all others)” (Ib., 28).…”

Determinist Deliberations

“…Coffman and Warfield (2005), defending a version of the belief in freedom presupposed in deliberation that is designed to be compatible with determinism and indeterminism, have made a similar claim, arguing that deliberation between two options is possible, even when the agent believes that one of her options is blocked, only if she also believes that it is not blocked. That is, ‘it seems possible that one deliberate about a course of action while simultaneously believing that one can and cannot perform it’ (Coffman and Warfield 2005, 38). Incompatibilists might therefore respond by arguing that insofar as Sally deliberates, she must have inconsistent beliefs; indeed Warfield has advanced precisely this objection to my case 2…”

“…The interpretation that I have offered is supported by van Inwagen’s claim that Holbach cannot consistently deliberate because he believes that only one course of action is metaphysically open to him. Coffman and Warfield (2005) interpret van Inwagen as arguing that in order to deliberate we must believe we are free in some sense compatible with indeterminism and determinism. But their interpretation cannot make sense of van Inwagen’s claim about Holbach, since it is insofar as Holbach was a determinist, and not insofar as he was a free will sceptic, that the latter was, according to van Inwagen, unable consistently to deliberate.…”

“…4 4 I note the consistency of Sally’s being able to ‘deliberate’ in the sense of ‘trying to decide after reasons have been weighed’ simply because this is how Coffman and Warfield (2005) define ‘deliberation’. This definition strikes me as highly eccentric; deliberation is usually used to refer to the weighing of reasons itself, not something that happens after the weighing of reasons.…”