Ayer on Freedom and Necessity1

According to A.J. Ayer, the problem of free will arises from the apparent incompatibility of two

common assumptions about human action: (1), that excepting certain rare and easily identifiable

cases, human action is free in the sense required for holding agents responsible for their actions,

and (2), that like all events, human actions are governed by deterministic causal laws. If human

actions are governed by such laws, it would seem that we are never free to act otherwise than we

do and hence that we can never be held responsible for what we do. Much of the free will debate

has proceeded with determinists on one side affirming (2) and denying (1) and those Ayer calls

“moralists” doing exactly the opposite in an attempt to preserve the reality or legitimacy of moral

responsibility.2 Ayer believes that this way of proceeding is hopeless for the moralists because

so long as we understand the freedom required for moral responsibility as freedom from causal

determination, then (1) will be false whether (2) is true or not. Ayer argues that the freedom

required for moral responsibility should not be construed as freedom from causal determination,

but rather as freedom from compulsion or constraint. This kind of freedom, he argues, is

compatible with the principle that all events are causally determined. In this paper, I will first

explain why Ayer thinks the freedom required for moral responsibility should not be understood

as freedom from causal determination. Then I will try to explain his own conception of freedom

and why he thinks it is compatible with (2).

The moralist agrees with the determinist that if our actions are determined by causal laws,

then we are not free in the sense required by moral responsibility. So, if he is to maintain that we

are free and responsible, he must deny Determinism.3 But, Ayer would demand, the denial of

Determinism can be of no help to the moralist. If our actions are not under the purview of causal

laws, then to that extent, they are random and inexplicable in which case it would seem irrational

to hold anyone responsible for what they do. As Ayer puts it, “if it is a matter of pure chance
that a man should act in one way rather than another, he may be free but can hardly be

responsible.” (p. 17)4

At this point Ayer considers an objection the moralist is likely to raise against the

argument thus far. It will be instructive for us to review it and Ayer’s response. The moralist

will say that he never meant to imply that free and responsible actions must be random and

inexplicable. They must proceed from the agent’s character and in that sense they must be

predictable and explicable. But since the moralist believes we are responsible for our own

characters, he will conclude that we are also responsible for the actions we perform as a result of

the characters we have.5 Ayer responds that this just pushes the problem back but does not solve

it. How, the determinist will naturally want to know, can we be responsible for our characters?

Did we choose the characters we have? That seems implausible, but even if we did, it was either

a random inexplicable choice, or one determined by causal laws. In neither case could the

moralist plausibly maintain that we are responsible for our own characters.

On one point, however, Ayer and the moralist are agreed: it is primarily for actions

consistent with our characters that we are held responsible.6 In this sense, Responsibility, so far

from being incompatible with, actually presupposes some degree of predictability. Here Ayer

seems to make a rather crucial leap to conclude that responsibility presupposes Determinism and

hence that unless we want to be forced to conclude that Freedom is incompatible with

Responsibility, we must find some way to reconcile Freedom with Determinism.7

In proposing a reconciliation of Freedom and Determinism, Ayer does not want to revise

or replace our ordinary notion of freedom. Rather, he thinks that our ordinary notion is already

compatible with Determinism. In particular, he thinks that the sorts of considerations that

ordinarily lead us to extend or withhold judgments of responsibility have very little to do with

Determinism. What sorts of considerations are these? According to Ayer, we are generally

prepared to withhold judgments of responsibility when we judge that the agent in question acted
under some sort of constraint or compulsion.8 If someone puts a gun to my head and makes me

do his bidding, no one will hold me responsible.9 Nor do we punish a kleptomaniac like a

common criminal but instead try to treat his kleptomania as an illness. Hence, Ayer seems to

want to conclude that since most of us do not generally act under some similar sort of constraint

or compulsion, human action is generally free in the sense required for holding agents

responsible for their actions; and this is true even if Determinism is true.

Ayer concludes his paper by briefly considering an objection to his view. As Ayer

concedes, the reason the kleptomaniac is not responsible for what he does is that he does not act

as a result of his deliberation. He either does not deliberate, or his deliberation is irrelevant to

what he does; whatever he decides to do, he will end up stealing. But even if it is granted (as it

should be) that the kleptomaniac cannot refrain from stealing by choosing not to whereas we can,

if our choosing to not steal is just a product of the unguided forces of nature, then how can we be

any more free or responsible than the kleptomaniac? We are not any more ultimately in charge

of what we do than the kleptomaniac. Ayer responds that this objection misconstrues the idea of

an action being produced by the forces of nature. The objector supposes that the forces of nature

compel us to act in the same way as a threatening gunman, an addiction, or a psychological

compulsion.10 But, Ayer insists, this is at best a misleading metaphor. All Determinism is

committed to, is that our actions are invariably correlated with certain other events; whenever A-

type events occur, B-type actions ensue. This, he holds, is perfectly compatible with our

sometimes acting free of any compulsion or constraint and hence in a manner for which we could

and would legitimately be held responsible.11

Endnotes
1
This is intended as a sample of one of your short summary papers. I want to make sure you know what I’m
expecting. For your additional benefit, I’ve included something of a running critical commentary in endnotes. This
will hopefully be of some help to you as you try to think through Ayer’s arguments on your own. These sorts of
footnotes are unnecessary and unwelcome in your own summary papers. You will have the opportunity to critically
engage with these arguments elsewhere.
2
Ayer’s moralists are nowadays known as libertarians.
3
Note that Ayer does not give us a definition of ‘Determinism’. At this point he seems to be relying of an intuitive
and pre-theoretical understanding of Determinism and related notions. Towards the end of the paper he will have a
little more to say about this. It seems as though, on his understanding, Determinism requires only that every event
(including human actions) be subsumable under a causal law of the sort: events of type A invariably follow or are
followed by events of type B, or something similar. We will encounter more specific definitions of ‘Determinism’
in the coming weeks when we read van Inwagen and Chisolm.
4
In a paper of this length, you should limit your use of quotations to a bare minimum. Certainly no more than two
lines per quote  though even that is pushing it  and probably no more than four or five lines total. Always try to
paraphrase succinctly instead.
5
It seems to me that there is a better objection in the vicinity which the moralist could raise that Ayer does not
consider. As stated, the objection plays right into the hands of the determinist insofar as it doesn’t directly address
the worry that everything we do is either determined or random and inexplicable; it just pushes the problem back. It
seems to me that the better strategy for the moralist to pursue is to insist that there is a way of not acting randomly
and inexplicably that is not just a matter of being determined by the laws of nature. There seems to be a very great
difference between someone saying to you “I knew you were going to help that baby because that’s the kind of
person you are” and “I knew you were going to help that baby because it was necessitated by the laws of physics
and neuroscience.” For many of us, it seems much less threatening to know that our actions can be reliably
predicted based on our characters than it is to know that they can (in principle) be predicted based on the laws of
physics, neuroscience, biochemistry, etc. Here it seems to me that Ayer’s failure to give us a very clear or precise
definition of ‘Determinism’ leaves us in a muddle. He seems to suggest that all determinism requires is that our
actions be “explicable.” (see p. 22) But if it is enough that our actions be explainable in terms of our characters,
why would anyone have ever thought that determinism was incompatible with freedom and responsibility?
6
This a familiar point in Free Will debates. To my knowledge, David Hume was the first to make it in his Treatise
on Human Nature. Along with Ayer, many philosophers seem to think that it is either obviously true or at least that
it contains an important kernel of truth. But is it, or does it? It is certainly not true of legal responsibility. It will do
no good to say to a judge “yes your honor, I did murder that man, but it was entirely out of character on my part.”
Of course, we are concerned with moral responsibility, not legal responsibility so this is not conclusive. But I think
it should at least give us pause.
7
This is supposed to be an expository paper. You are being asked to explain, not evaluate or otherwise criticize the
authors’ main argument. However, the sort of minimal criticism hinted at in this sentence is appropriate. I cannot
give you a definition of ‘minimal criticism’; you will have to use your best judgment. There is, however, at least
one salient feature worth pointing out. I did not have to go out of my way to record my complaint. The grounds for
my criticism were, to some extent, already rather obvious from my reconstruction of Ayer’s argument. All I had to
do was to call attention to it in passing.
8
Why are we talking about responsibility here? As we’ve reconstructed his argument, Ayer takes himself to already
have established that Responsibility is compatible with Determinism. We are now trying to reconcile Freedom with
Determinism so that we can preserve the intuitive link between Freedom and Responsibility. Why then, is Ayer
talking about our ordinary judgments of responsibility? Perhaps a better way to think of Ayer’s argument  though
he clearly does not think of it this way  is to view it as an attempt to save our notion of Responsibility from
incoherence. On the one hand, it seemed as though Responsibility presupposed Determinism; on the other, it looked
as though as though they were incompatible. (How can I be responsible for the workings of causal forces?) We can
then see Ayer as denying this second appearance on the grounds that our ordinary notion of responsibility, when
properly attended to, does not support it.
9
I would certainly not be blamed in such circumstances. But is it so obvious that I would not be held responsible?
Consider a ship’s captain who throws his cargo overboard to save his ship and crew during a storm. He would not,
of course, be blamed for losing his cargo (provided he is not responsible for the ship’s being unable to handle the
storm safely). But the fact that someone would not properly be blamed for doing X does not entail that he wasn’t
free when he did X, nor that he wasn’t responsible for doing X. We don’t blame the captain because his choice was
appropriate to the circumstances, however undesirable his choice may ultimately have been. In fact, we may even
praise him for quick thinking in the face of danger and saving the ship and its crew and we certainly wouldn’t praise
him for something he didn’t freely choose to do and for which he was not responsible. We might want to say that he
was free in doing X under one description (e.g. saving the ship and crew) but not under another (e.g. throwing the
cargo overboard.)
10
Ayer claims, quite explicitly, that the objection will only work if the notion of causation is taken as “equivalent to
‘constrain’ or ‘compel’.” (p. 21) But one might think that is unfair. The objection is not that our relation to the laws
of nature is exactly the same as the relation of a victim to a coercing gunman or of a kleptomaniac to his
compulsion. One obvious difference, is that we do not feel the influence of the forces of nature on our deliberation
(this may be what Ayer has in mind). But one might think that that wasn’t the point. Surely the cases are not
identical; but they are relevantly similar. If you found yourself manipulated by a mad scientist who could control
your actions without your ever knowing or feeling it  the scientist makes you do X by first making you choose to
do X, or at least by making you have all the characteristic feelings of choosing to do X  would you be inclined to
say you are free and responsible because, unlike the kleptomaniac, you do not feel compelled? In any case, it does
seem to me that Ayer is being unfair here. We are not inclined to say the kleptomaniac is unfree simply because he
is compelled to do what he does but because compulsion is an instance of a deeper problem: the kleptomaniac is not
ultimately in charge of what he does. If Determinism is true, neither are we.
11
I hope this gives you a good idea what I’m expecting. Let me make a couple closing remarks. First, note that I
did not discuss everything in Ayer’s article. I didn’t even discuss everything important. That is just impossible
given the length limits  and Ayer’s article is less than 10 pages; imagine trying to cover everything when we read
20 and 30 page papers! The important thing is not to cover all the important points, but the main points.
Unfortunately there is no rule I can give you for picking out what the main points are; this task will require carefully
considered judgment on your part though you are welcome to come and speak to me about the article on which
you’re writing. Finally, please observe the length requirements; part of what I hope you’ll learn is to separate what’s
essential in the argument from what is not, and to be able to convey what’s essential as clearly and succinctly as you
can. This paper is 1,027 words (yours should be that, plus or minus 200 words). Using normal double-spacing, 12pt
font, and 1-inch margins, your papers should be 2 to 3 pages.