Agents with free will must be such that they could have done otherwise on some occasions of their life histories with respect to some character- or motive-forming acts by which they make themselves into the kinds of persons they are.
A second account carries no implication that having the relevant freedom in the present always requires an ability to do otherwise in the present, though it does require an ability to do otherwise at various times in one’s life history. For according to Robert Kane, “Agents with free will . . . must be such that they could have done otherwise on some occasions of their life histories with respect to some character- or motive-forming acts by which they make themselves into the kinds of persons they are” (Kane 1998, 72). In a similar vein, James F. Sennett defends the free will of the saints in ...