In “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person”, Frankfurt presents a theory of free action. Some philosophers argue that free will cannot co exist with the idea of determinism. These philosophers are known as incompatibilists. Incompatibilists say that causal determinism and free will are fundamentally unrelated. Compatibilists say that unrestrained choice and causal determinism are not fundamentally unrelated. Free will just implies that the operator was the causal beginning of an action. Furthermore, a free activity can be free regardless of whether it was causally controlled by the specialist's hereditary qualities. So, for compatibilists, a free activity is one that wasn't caused by imperatives or powers other than the operator.
Frankfurt argues that the mystery for determining this truth is founded in the following question: does freedom of the will have to do with whether it is the will that the person wants to have or not? In asking this, Frankfurt creates a strong opinion through explaining that humans have an intuition that animals don’t. He says that animals have a first-order desire, but not a second. This shows that animals lack free will due to the fact that they do not have second-order desires which he claims as necessary in order to have free will. Also, he explains this concept of free will in simple and clear terms in order to be effective. Frankfurt has a strong belief about free will as a whole. He is convinced people have the ability to will what they want to will, rather than just the ability to have a will. It appears to be possible that it ought to be conceivable that a man is allowed to want what he wants. In the event that this is possible, at that point it may be causally established that a person appreciates or enjoys this sense of freedom through choice. If Frankfurt is correct about free will, it is rather consistent with the belief of a determinist in thinking that human beings do in fact have free will.
Frankfurt’s point is summed up in “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person”. He uses an example known as the Frankfurt Case: “Black wants Jones to perform a certain action A. Suppose Black is an amazingly reader of body language cues such that he can tell, in advance, what Jones has decided to do. If Jones decides to perform A, then Black will do nothing; If Jones does not decide to perform A, then Black will intervene and force him to do A. Now imagine that, as it happens, Jones decides to perform A and Black never has to intervene. Is Jones responsible for A? Either Jones is responsible for A and principle of possibilities is false; or principle of possibilities is true and Jones is not responsible for A.”
Frankfurt created accounts of self-determination that create a clear difference between an operator's wants or thought processes that are inward to the specialist and from those that are outer. The thought is that although specialists are not or possibly may not be indistinguishable to any inspirations, they are related to a subset of their inspirations, rendering these inspirations inside to the operator so that any activities achieved by these inspirations are self created or inspired.
A strong objection and defense to the objection of Frankfurt’s view will be examined in the following text. The strongest argument against Frankfurt is that free will is seemingly irrational or even impossible. This idea aligns with the views of a philosopher named Galen Strawson. Strawson connects free will with being ‘ultimately morally responsible’ for one's choices or decisions. He believes that, since how one acts is a consequence of "how one is, rationally". For one to be in charge of that decision one must be in charge of their reasoning included. And, that reason must have backed the choice made before, and so on. This is a never ending cycle that goes back to a personal genesis of sorts. Free decision requires an outlandish unbounded relapse of decisions to know how one comes to a decision on settling the numerous amounts of choices to be made in making those decisions. Therefore, these decisions must be determined rather than truly chosen.
A response to Strawson, in favor of Frankfurt, would break down Strawson’s argument piece by piece. For one, to claim that free will is entirely impossible seems somewhat radical. Although Strawson includes logical ideas within his argument, they are only a fraction of truth. Strawson’s ideas seem to imply that one’s actions are directly in line with their thoughts or reasoning. Since one's use of choice is causally undetermined, it doesn't appear valid to believe that there is an outside force causing these decisions, but rather one's own self.