Abstract
In this contribution I will argue that the intelligibility of the category of actions that I call ‘exemplary blameworthy’ depends upon the existence of robust alternative possibilities. This necessity of alternative possibilities is no problem for those who accept a conditional or hypothetical analysis of ‘could have done otherwise,’ although these views have notorious problems of their own. It is a problem, though, for those who want to accept Frankfurt’s famous counter-examples to the principle of alternative possibilities or for those who want to establish compatibilism along the lines suggested by these counter-examples. It is this kind of compatibilism that is the focus of this contribution.
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References
Deep responsibility’ is distinguished from ‘superficial responsibility.’ The latter refers to our ‘merely causal’ responsibility for events; i.e. the kind of responsibility we share with natural phenomena, animals and artefacts.
P. Van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983 ), 16.
T. Honderich, How Free are You? The Determinism Problem ( Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993 ), 138.
H. G. Frankfurt, ‘Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person’, The importance of what we care about ( Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988 ), 11 – 25.
R. J. Wallace, Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments ( Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994 ).
S. Wolf, Freedom within Reason ( Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990 ).
The hierarchical model was, at the same time, also developed by Gerald Dworkin, but is primarily known through the work of Frankfurt. G. Dworkin, The theory and practice of autonomy ( Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988 ).
H. G. Frankfurt, ‘Identification and Wholeheartedness’, The importance of what we care about,159–176.
H. G. Frankfurt, ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility’, The importance of what we care about,1–10; H. G. Frankfurt, ‘Coercion and Moral Responsibility’,op. cit., 26–46.
Wolf s view and Wallace’s view differ greatly in this as in other respects. Wallace restricts the exonerating or exempting circumstances to those that invalidate the powers of reflective self-control itself, whereas Wolf contends that the mitigating or exonerating circumstances include those in which we ‘lack the opportunity to exercise the abilities relevant to responsibility.’ S. Wolf, op. cit., 101–102; R. J. Wallace, op. cit., 187–188, 223 – 225.
It also, thirdly, suggests a way to understand the kind of Compatibilism discussed in this contribution, as a third option distinct from both traditional Incompatibilism and traditional Compatibilism. I elaborate on this in the extended version of this contribution.
Cf. Benson who suggests that the grammar of freedom is perhaps ‘relational.’ P. Benson, ‘Freedom and Value’, The Journal of Philosophy 84 (September 1987), 486.
The case of Tourette’s syndrome is especially worrisome because the ‘inability’ concerned is difficult to define, and relative. People who suffer from the syndrome are often able to constrain themselves and to control their ‘uncontrollable’ impulses, but only with extreme effort. Some people are even able to ‘integrate’ the syndrome to a high degree in their personality. Hence, although it is not literally impossible for them to behave quietly and inconspicuously, it would be unreasonable to expect it of them because it would demand an inhuman effort. Hence, our expectations of one another take into account not only our individual abilities but also the effort it costs us to exercise them.
Cf. B. Gert, T. J. Duggan, ‘Free Will as the Ability to Will’, Noûs 13 (1979), 197217.
P. Benson, op. cit., 465–486
R. J. Wallace, op. cit., 41.
Elsewhere I argue that the general assumption that we are deeply responsible human beings can be justified on the basis of the necessity of a certain modesty with respect to the legitimacy of our normative expectations, see Maureen Sie, Responsibility, Blameworthy Actions and Normative Disagreements (Utrecht University, Ph.D. thesis, 1999), chapter 4.
S. Wolf, op. cit., chapter 6.
D. C. Dennett, ‘Conditions of Personhood’, The Identities of Persons, A.O. Rorty (ed.) ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976 ), 194.
There is a difficulty with regard to our moral sentiments towards so-called moral monsters, but I do not think it would be very difficult to provide an error-account in these cases.
R. Chisholm, ‘Human Freedom and the Self, The Lindley Lectures ( Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas, 1964 ), 25.
Primarily directed at Wolf, op. cit., who accepts the necessity of alternate possibilities with regard to the category of blameworthy actions but argues that it is perfectly reasonable to treat it as compatible with determinism until ‘otherwise is proven,’ because psychological freedom is not necessarily incompatible with physiological determinism, and psychological determinism is not very likely to be true. Cf. criticism of C. Grau, ‘Moral Responsibility and S. Wolf s Ability’, this volume; M. Ravizza, J. M. Fischer, ‘Responsibility, Freedom, and Reason’, Ethics 102 (Jan. 1992), 385–88.
Primarily directed against R. J. Wallace, op. cit.
I thank Jan Bransen, Bert van den Brink, Christopher Grau, Marc Slors and Susan Wolf for commenting on and discussing earlier versions of this contribution. I also thank Ton van den Beld for his helpful corrections and comments.
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Sie, M. (2000). Freedom and Blameworthiness. In: van den Beld, T. (eds) Moral Responsibility and Ontology. Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2361-9_9
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