Introduction – the problem outlined

In addressing my own view of an appropriate free will defence, I offer something both slightly more technical and certainly more speculative than elsewhere. The technicality is warranted both because, this late in the text, readers are ready for it and because it offers hope for a solution.

As we have seen, there is no mileage in objecting to premise 1 of the determinist argument; further, while the two-language view may oblige the determinist to make some drafting changes (Chapter 6, p. 95), the force of premise 2 of the determinist argument cannot be avoided in that two-language way: the notion of choice is undermined. None the less, the two-language view offers some insights, in emphasizing the importance of context; seeing answers as understood in terms of the question being asked, rather than in some neutral way. Although we cannot appeal in the same way to the importance of context for causal explanation, perhaps something may be learned about causation from this characterization. As we saw earlier (also McFee 1992: 63–4), causal explanations too might operate in response to specific questions. For instance, requests to know the length of some object might admit different answers when different issues were assumed (also Chapter 8, p. 122).

So the “insight” of the two-language view was (roughly) that actions are not causally necessitated because action-description is context-sensitive. This did not defeat determinism: since causes did necessitate in the destructive sense, the bodily movements comprising any actions (or omissions) were necessitated, even if the actions were not (Chapter 6, p. 95–6).