H. P. Grice on rationality and freedom

Grice propounds to tread some familiar ground to him, but which he thought was underestimated by analytic philosphers of action. 

Some quotes from "Actions and Events". 

Doyle concentrates on the final episodes of that essay where Grice provides the four-stages for 'free', and further reflections which were shared with this forum and elsewhere. 

Here are some quotes from the parts _leading_ to that conclusion.

The first sort of central quote seems to begin on p. 11, where he mentions Prichard. 

Davidson made a big case _against_ the notion (or locution), 'act of will'. 

So Grice may have an axe to grind (as they say?) since it is his contention, with Prichard, that such acts _are_. 

So this is Grice: 

"Frustrated in these directions [as to what constitutes 'to act' -- Latin agere] we might think of turning to a longstanding tradition in Ethics from the Greeks onwards, of connecting the concept of action [praxis -- does Democritus or Epicurus use this root? -- cfr. pragma] with that of the Will; a tradition which reads its peak in Prichard, who not merely believed that action is distinguished by a special connection with the will, but maintained that acting is to be _identified_ [italics Grice's] with willing.

"The trouble for Davidson: Grice goes on: 

"It is clear from Davidson's comments on Chisholm, that, at least when his article was written, he would have none of such ideas, perhaps because the suggestions that actions are distinguished by a connection with the will may be expected to lead at once to the idea that particular actions are distinguished by their connection with acts of will; and the position that there are such things as acts of will is not merely false but disreputable." 

A second good quote comes on p. 24. 

It refers to the Aristotelian 'aitia' --. 

Since, as in the quote from Hardie by Doyle from Hardie "My own free will", we want 'free will' to stand against causation, or something like that. 

We want talk of causation to be relevant when it comes to the discourse on free will. 

This is Grice: 

"Events do not seem to me to be the _prime_ bearers of causal properties; that I think belongs to enduring, non-episodic things such as substances [but cfr. quantum mechanics?]." 

"To assign a 'cause' is primarily to hold something accountable or responsible for something, and the primary account-holders are substances, not events, which are (rather) relevant items which appear in the accounts. I suspect that a great deal of the current myopia about causes has arisen from a very un-Aristotelian inattention to the place of Substance in the Conception of Cause" --- which perhaps with some further very odd un-Kantian inattentions should give 'un-Kantotelian in-attentions' the prize for the best of Griceian litotes. 

A third quote comes on p. 25, and is again then Grice trying to systematise the territory with some Latinate variants. 

We have the 'aitia', and the 'agere' (Latinate), from which we extract the 'agendum'. 

"When Davidson addresses the question of the nature of agency, he suggests that two ingredients are discernible; the first of these is the notion of _activity_; in action the agent is active, what comes about is something which is made by him to come about, of which he is the cause; the second ingredient is that of purpose [telos] or design or intention; what comes about comes about as he meant or intended it to come about."

"This seems to me to be substantially correct, though I am inclined to think that there is a somewhat more illuminating way of presenting it."

"In the meantime, what these ingredients seem to me to indicate is an intimate connection between agency and the will." 

"I am, and what I do is, in paradigmatic cases, subject to my will."

"I impose my will on myself, and my actions are actings only insofar as they are the product of this imposition."

"This imposition may take various forms, and may relate to various aspects of or elements in the deliberation process. In many cases explicit exercise of the will is confined to the finding of means to the fulfillment of some already selected end."

"Such cases are
relatively undramatic and are also well-handled in the early chapters of Eth. Nic.
III."

"But sometimes what goes on is more dramatic, as when one needs to
SELECT AN END [emphasis mine. JLS] from one's established stock of ends, or
when the stock of ends itself has to be in some way altered, or (perhaps most
dramatically) when an agent is faced with the possibility of backsliding
and following the lure of inclination rather than the voice of reason or
principle." 

Here Grice starts a series of reflections which provide quotes for "Dialogues with myself". Grice writes: 

"Particularly in such cases as the last, what takes place in action (paradigmatically) is essentially part of a transaction between a person and a person." 

He goes on to consider Plato's tripartite division of the soul, and Aristotle. 

"As Aristotle distinguished" between this part of the soul, from this other 'executive' part, "one which is rational as having the capacity to give reasons and DETERMINE rational behaviour." But we do not want a divided self. We "counsel ourselves" and we "inpute responsibility to ourselves ... sometimes laudatorily, sometimes chidingly." 

"As when my Oxford tutor, called on the telephone by someone who was plainly a woman, said aloud, "Now keep your head, Meiggs"". 

"These are self-addressed commands, and I wrote marginally: "Hobson's
choice?". Grice writes: 

"I lay down what is required of me, by requiring it of myself."

"I am, so to speak, issuing edits to someone who in standard circumstances has no choice BUT TO OBEY" [emphasis mine]. 

In the earlier "Logic and Conversation" (Oxford 1966) lectures he indeed had managed to speak of benevolence and self-love, and those items reappear here, since alla Buber, he sees all this self-talk (which is by definition free of implicature or pleonasm!) as being modeled upon our ability with regard to 

"a background of situations in which I am in a position to direct OTHERS". (emphasis mine). 

"So self-love and self-concern would be indispensable foundations for self-directions."

"Only the assumption of these elements will enable me to justify to myself the refusal to allow myself indulgences which, in my view, would be bad for me." ---- which is as genial as Grice can get -- and the best rewriting of Kantotle ever! 

Grice then goes on to quote Kant, direcetly using Abbott's tr. about the good will as a gem that shines. 

Grice seems to have loved that quote (Grunlegung, p. 11) and has a typical note to the effect that "no doubt mutatis mtandis something comparable could be said about the bad will" -- which may do with free-will concerns, since, after all, 'determinism' seems to be a back-formation from 'pre-determinism', which is the theologian's answer to the 'evil' introduced by acceptance of liberum arbitrium, etc. 

A good quote on 'agendum' comes on p. 30:

 "It will be agenda ["things to do"] which, in deliberation, we consider adoptng, and one or more which, when a decision [free choice] comes, we actually do adopt." 

On the next page p. 31 he provides an account for non-standard agenda, as it were: 

"Items which are action-surrogates no doubt owe their status to the fact that , or presumed fact, that should an agent encounter difficulties or complications a further reflection machinery [which presupposes free will] may e usually counted on to be called into operation; indeed [in a nod to Strawson] part of treating people as responsible persons consists in presuming this to be the case; and unless an agent is thought to be under special stress, or to be temporarily or permanently mentally infirm, a failure of this recall to occur tends to be treated as a case of unconscious bad
motivation." ---- by Socrates and Luther? 

On the same p. 31 he explores 'cause-to' vis a vis 'aitia', which as we see then becomes essential in discussion of 'free will', rather than a counterpart to it. 

"We need," says Grice, "to exercise care in the interpretation of the word 'cause'."

"We need to get away from the kind of employment of the word 'cause' which has become, these days, virtually _de rigueur_ in philosophy (viz., one exemplifying an event-relating, mechanistic, Hume-like conception) into a direction which might well have been congenial to Aristotle." 

"When someone has a preferential concern for some end [TELOS -- cfr. Aristotle on 'final cause'] which would be served by a given agendum, he has cause to perform, or realise, that agendum, and if the agendum is performed by him because he has [a] cause to perform it, then the action is something of which _he is the cause_, and is explained (though *non-predictively eplained*) by the fact that he had a cause to perform it." ---- my marginal note reads: Cfr. Pears -- on predictability of one's decisions. 

A very good quote, I find: 

"Hume-type causation is factive, having [a] cause to is non-factive, and being the cause of one's own action is factive, but factive in a special way which is *divorced from full predictability*" (emphasis mine). There are two references to 'automaton' on p. 32 and 33 which I should recheck with some etymological queries I may have. But Grice refers on p. 32 to"'automatic' bodily realisations' --- this may have to do with the problem (or charm?) of the two-stage model of free will with which Doyle initiated its reintroduction in Chora.

Grice speaks of flexible and inflexible factivity.

"It is likely, I think that the items which we are here specially
concerned with, like actions and causes (to), though not inflexibly factive are
flexibly factive; actions with individual non-realisations are possible only
against a background of general realisation. If this were not so, the
'automatic' bodily realisations which typically supervene upon adopted agenda
might NOT BE FORTHCOMING, to the ruin of the concept of action."
---- as when I try to scratch my head (or your back) and circumstances
prevail me (from thus doing). The second instantiation concerns 'automatically' qua adverb, on p. 33,

"[T]he sequene of movements involved in the realisations of vulgarly specified actions tend, on the vast majority of occasions ... to appear
'automatically' ... without attention to the geometric pattern of the movements
being made." ----- I think this should connect with Ancient controversy and general agreement that free will need not be involved in each 'act' of the 'will'.

On p. 33, and I may need an etymological search on this, Grice proposes a
fascinating analogy or figure: that of 'monitoring'. 

His scenario is a
gymnastic instructor who tells the squad, "Raise your right arm!" and then, oddily, asks them, How many of you actually raised your right arm, and for how many of you was it simply the case that your arm went up? this strikes us as _unGriceian: 

"The oddity of this question indicates that raising the right arm involves no distinguishing observable or instrospetible element ... What, then, is special about raising one's arm or about making any bodily movement?"

"The answer is, I think, that the movement is caused by the agent in the sense that its occurrence is MONITORED by him; he is aware of what takes place and should something go wrong or should some difficulty arise, he is ready to intervene in order to correct the situation." 

In one of his earlier commentary to my posts -- one in which I compared Grice's account of 'free will' (and neurophysiological jargon attending it)
with his account of the 'causal theory of perception', Doyle wrote, "You
lose me there", or words to that effect, but I think this connects with
WoW:240. 

In a way, this complication that Grice saw regarding 'perceive' Grice
may be overlooking regarding 'doing'. Back in 1961 he wrote (WoW:240):


"I suggest that the best procedure for the Causal Theorist is to indicate the mode of causal connection by examples; t say that, for an object to be perceived by X, it is sufficient that it should be causally involved in the generation
of some sense-impression of X in the kind of way in which, for example, when I look at my hand in a good light, my hand is causally responsible for it looking to me as if there were a hand before me, or in which ... (and so on), _whatever that kind of way may be_; and to be enlightened one that question, one must have recourse to the specialist." ---- or physical therapist, as it were, if the gymnastic instructor has uttered his instruction and, one's monitoring notwithstanding, the wretched right arm stays low. "should something go wrong or should some difficulty arise" -- indeed. But ceteris paribus we trust it won't -- and causation and free will remain 'friends'. 

It is only THEN, on that second bit of p. 33 that Grice goes on to provide the four-stages which involve (as per stage 2 that of a 'free moving'
body, as per stage 3 the idea of 'free' in biology, and as per stage 4 the, as
it were, full Kantian-Hegelian freedom of spirit) and the concluding
remarks on that noumenal-phenomenal monumental conflict with which Grice found
himself coming, in a way, to good terms. 

He considers various topics and concludes that essay with a four-stage development of the idea of "free" Stage I -- the realm of Democritus, really -- and before him Leucippus. These authors did wrest to give man some freedom, but ironically they were the main proponents, even unwillingly, of Determinism. 

This first stage then, for Grice, involves whatever the kosmos or universe would look like if it were "free"-free. Stage II. This is an interesting stage in that it involves "cosmological" versus psychological "free". Here Grice refers to the "freely moving body". Stage III. This is the stage that Kant had referred to as "arbitrium brutum". 

Grice is more serious than Kant here, since with Aristotle, he considers that "soul" can only be understood in a "series". So this is the level where "free" applies to things which do NOT count as the "rational" soul.


Stage IV. This is human freedom per se. 

It corresponds to Kant´s "liberum arbitrium" proper, and Aristotle´s idea that things are up to us. We have seen in "Causal theory of perception" and "Intention and Uncertainty" that causality plays a crucial role in much of Grice's thinking (cfr. his analysis of 'know' in WoW:iii). For Grice it seems essential that it's the BELIEVING that causes the willing, and so on. Grice concludes his "Actions and Events" then with a note on 'freedom'. He writes: "Finally, it is essential [that I should give] proper attention to the place occupied by ... freedom in any satisfactory account of action." (p. 33). Features such as "agency", as it involves "activity and purpose (or intention) are ... "best viewed as elements in a step-by-step development" of freedom. Grice distinguishes then four stages.

A first stage, of "transeunt" causation: in inanimate objects. Hume's realm -- the atomists's realm. This is "external or 'transeunt' casuation," "when an object is affected by processes in other objects." A second stage of 'internal' or "immanent" causation: where a process in an object is "the outcome of previous stages in that process, as in a 'freely moving' body." A third stage: where "Internal causation of living beings" (Huggins will like that -- also Lucy): "in which changes are generated in a creature by internal features of the creature which are NOT earlier stages of the same change ... but independent
items, the function (or finality) of which is ... to provide for THE GOOD of the creature in question." 

Finally, a fourth stage: "a culminating stage at which the conception of a certain mode by a human .... of something as being for that creature's good is SUFFICIENT to *initiate* the doing of that thing." Grice expands on this interesting last stage: "At this stage, it is ... the case that the creature is LIBERATED ... from all factive causes." 

Grice's shopping list: "Attention to ... freedom calls for formidably difficult ... undertakings" including the search for a justification for the adoption (or abandonment) of an (ultimate) end. The point is to secure that freedom does not 'dissolve into compulsion or chance' (p. 34). Grice proposes four items for the shopping list. 

The motivation: 

POINT I: "full action calls for 'strong' freedom". 

POINT II: The desire-belief characterisation of action has to accomodate for the fact that we need freedom which is strong. 

"Strong freedom ensures that some actions are represented as directed to ends which are not merely mine, but which are also FREELY ADOPTED or pursued by me." Speranza's marginal note: 

"Not in "Raise your arm!"" 

POINT III: 

"Any attempt to remedy this situation by resorting to the introduction of (a) CHANCE or (b) causal INDETERMINATION ---- will only infuriate the scientist" ---- not the ones D. Frederick knows who are all Heisenbergians -- "without aiding the moral philosopher" -- or even the immoral one, as I prefer! 

POINT IV: "The precise nature of 'strong' freedom ..." turns out to consist, we hope, in 'the idea of action as the outcome of a certain kind of 'strong' valuation'. This strong valuation "would include the rational selection [as per rational decision theory --] of ultimate ENDS." What Grice elsewhere calls outweighed or extrinsically weighed rationality. It's the end that is rational, not the means towards the end. There is a different line, which Grice also pursues: "Action (full human action) calls for the presence ... of reasons ... which require that the actions for which they account shoud be the outcome of strong rational valuation." 

Both lines, Grice notes, "suggest that action requires both strong freedom and strong valuation." How to adapt the desire-belief psychology to reach these goals: "In the case of ultimate ends," Grice writes (p. 35), "justification should be thought of as lying (directly, at least) in some outcome not of their FULFILMENT but rather of their PRESENCE-AS-ENDS." A second point involves: "My having such and such an end, E1, or such and such a combination of ends, would be justified by showing that my having thi send, ... will exhibit some desirable feature (... that the combo will be harmonious -- [for how can one combine one's desire to smoke with one's desire to lead a healthy life?]".



A third point: 

"the desire-belief psychology" is "back in business at a higher level". 

"The suggestions would involve an appeal, in the justification of ends, to HIGHER-ORDER ends which would be realised by having first-order ends, or lower-order ends of a certain sort. Such valuation of lower-order ends lie within reach of the desire-belief pscyhology." A caveat: "The higher-order ends involved in the defense would themselves stand in need of justification, and the regress ... might well turn out to be vicious". Talk of moral philosophers...

Grice concludes: 

"So, attention to the idea of freedom" -- and Doyle's free-will scandal, "may lead us to the need to resolve OR DISSOLVE the most important unsolved problem of philosophy". 

"Namely: how we can be at the same time members" as Kant and Grouch Marx wanted us, "both of the phenomenal and the noumenal world". 

"Or, "to put the issue less cryptically, to settle the internal conflict between one part of our rational nature -- the SCIENTIFIC part which [pace Danny Frederick] calls or seems to call for the universal reign of deterministic law [cfr. D. Frederick's research with N. Cartwright] and the OTHER part which insists that not merely MORAL RESPONSIBILITY [Doyle's topic] but EVERY variety of rational belief demands exemption from just such a reign." On a funnier level, Albritton concluded his talk on free-will for the A. P. A. (presidential). "I will have to stop now. Thank you."