The evidence is second-hand
The primary texts are unread. No lawful copy of “Asymmetrical Freedom” or of Freedom Within Reason could be found (see their status notes). The asymmetry is reported here through McKenna and Coates’s SEP entry, the only read source the record holds that states it. Nothing is quoted from Wolf. The owner authorised filing it on this evidence on 2026-10-03.
Source
- Wolf, “Asymmetrical Freedom” (1980), LIT-688, Deferred, unread: the article in which, by the SEP’s report, the asymmetry is first argued.
- Wolf, Freedom Within Reason (1990), LIT-685, Deferred, unread: pp. 79–81 for the asymmetry and chapter 5 for the ability it needs.
- McKenna and Coates, SEP Compatibilism, LIT-291, §4.3, read in NOTE-270.
What the source reports
McKenna and Coates (LIT-291, §4.3) report that Wolf “develops a surprising asymmetry thesis according to which praiseworthy conduct does not require the freedom to do otherwise but blameworthy behavior does”, citing “Asymmetrical Freedom” (LIT-688) and Freedom Within Reason (LIT-685, pp. 79–81). They restate it in Fischer’s vocabulary: “only blameworthy conduct requires regulative control. Guidance control is sufficient for praiseworthy conduct.”
Praise. By their report, if an agent acts in accord with the True and the Good and is “so psychologically determined that she cannot but act in accord with” it, her inability to do otherwise does not threaten the freedom responsibility needs: “how could her freedom be in any way enhanced simply by adding an ability to act irrationally?”
Blame. If she acts against the True and the Good and “is so psychologically determined that she cannot act in accord with it, then, being unable to act as reason requires, it would be unreasonable to blame her”. So the “otherwise” blame needs is specific: the ability to have acted on the right reasons, not an ability to do anything at all.
Determinism. Because blame needs that ability, the view is exposed to incompatibilist arguments. They report that Wolf answers by arguing that physical determination does not entail psychological determination, and that the ability blame needs requires only the falsity of psychological determinism, a thesis she takes to have no support. Their gloss: she is “a compatibilist about blameworthiness and physical determinism” and an incompatibilist about blameworthiness and psychological determinism.
Talbert’s SEP Moral Responsibility (LIT-691, preamble) confirms only that Wolf (1980, 1990), with Nelkin, questions the assumption that praise and blame need the same capacities. It does not state the asymmetry, so it is not listed as a source.
What this does not say
- It does not say blame requires indeterminism. On the report, the ability blame needs is compatible with physical determinism and incompatible only with psychological determinism.
- It does not restore PAP in general. The principle of alternative possibilities holds for blame and fails for praise. Robb’s PAP map (LIT-294, NOTE-269) reports that the moral arguments for PAP (fairness, “ought implies can”, the W-defense) cover blame at most, and the asymmetry has exactly that shape.
- It does not yet answer Frankfurt cases for blame. In a Frankfurt-style
case of wrongdoing, an agent does wrong on her own while an idle
intervener ensures she could not have done otherwise. Fischer and
Ravizza’s account (THEORY-121) rests on the judgement that such an
agent is blameworthy. None of the record’s sources reports Wolf’s answer.
This is the open point of the rivalry, and the
promote_whenasks for it. - It does not say who is praiseworthy. It states a condition on the freedom praise and blame need, not their other conditions.
- It does not escape manipulation. An agent manipulated into acting well, who cannot do otherwise, is praiseworthy on this view as reported. LIT-688 draws this out as my inference from the report. It is THEORY-040’s forced choice taken on the bullet-biting side for praise.
Relations
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extendsTHEORY-122 (the Reason View). The asymmetry is the Reason View’s competence condition applied to praise and to blame separately. McKenna and Coates (LIT-291, §4.3) present it as how Wolf makes free will “track moral reasons”: what responsibility needs is the ability to act on the True and the Good. An agent who does act on it has that ability whatever else she can do. An agent who does not has it only if she could have acted otherwise. That builds on the same condition and adds what it requires case by case, so it is a refinement, not a rival. -
rivalsTHEORY-121 (Fischer and Ravizza). The two accounts agree that praise needs no alternatives. They cannot both be right about blame. This account says blame requires that the agent could have acted on the right reasons, which is regulative control in Fischer’s sense, as McKenna and Coates put it. Fischer and Ravizza hold that responsibility for actions, omissions and consequences requires only guidance control. The opening of their concluding chapter says so, as LIT-684 records, and Fischer’s own summary does too (“Stories and the Meaning of Life”, LIT-689, §I, read). So their account counts as blameworthy some agents this one excuses, the Frankfurt-style wrongdoer above being the clear case: she acts from her own mechanism with the intervener idle, so she has guidance control, and she could not have acted otherwise. Where the inability is due only to physical determinism the two may agree, since Wolf holds that it leaves the psychological ability intact. Neither account corrects the other in the record’s sources, so the relation isrivals. If a reading shows how Wolf handles the Frankfurt-style wrongdoer, it should becomecorrectson whichever side that settles. -
Rivals THEORY-119, the claim that the PAP is false. Frankfurt’s 1969 case (LIT-694, pp. 835–837) is stated for blame as well as for praise: the agent who could not have done otherwise is blameworthy. The asymmetry denies exactly that.