I am an incompatibilist about moral responsibility. That is, I maintain that causal determinism and moral responsibility are logically incompatible. (Two propositions p, q are logically incompatible just in case they cannot both be true. Hence, logically incompatible propositions are logical contraries, not contradictories.) Here is an argument for incompatibilism:<\/p>\n
P1. Causal determinism rules out alternative possibilities. For in a causally deterministic world W there is exactly one nomologically possible future at any time t given the laws of nature and the events that have transpired prior to t in W.<\/strong><\/p>\n P2. Moral responsibility requires alternative possibilities (e.g., the ability to decide, choose, intend otherwise.)<\/strong><\/p>\n Therefore<\/p>\n C. Causal determinism rules out (is incompatible with) moral responsibility.<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/font><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/font><\/p>\n Please note that this argument is not an argument for moral responsibility or for free will or for determinism. It is an argument for the logical incompatibility of (causal) determinism and moral responsibility. The argument is plainly valid, and P1 is true by definition of 'causal determinism.' So the soundness of the argument rides on P2. P2 is just a version of the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP). PAP is intuitively very appealing and has been endorsed by distinguished thinkers. So I hope it will be granted that the onus probandi<\/em> rests on those who would contest it. The main threats to P2 are the Frankfurt counterexamples (FCEs).<\/font><\/p>\n A FCE is a possible set-up in which an agent who is assumed to be morally responsible for an action is nonetheless not able to act otherwise. He is not able to act otherwise because some feature of the set-up prevents him from doing so. Suppose the nefarious Mr. Black wants John Lennon dead because Black hates the dangerous utopian nonsense promoted by the song "Imagine." He gets wind of the fact that Mark David Chapman has been having murderous thoughts about Lennon in part because of the hypocrisy and religion-bashing stupidity of the song in question. So Black decides to use Chapman to carry out Black's design, but not by interfering in the actual course of events if he can help it. In the actual course of events, as we know, Chapman shoots and kills Lennon and acts alone from his own reasons and motives. It is for this reason that we consider Chapman morally responsible for his deed. Had Black intervened in the actual course of events, by messing with Chapman's brain or in any other way, then Chapman would not have been morally responsible for the deed. Black is not an actual intervener but a counterfactual intervener<\/em>. He merely stands ready to intervene should Chapman suffer a failure of nerve and change his mind about shooting Lennon. The Frankfurtian point is that Chapman is responsible for shooting Lennon (because he acted on his own, not under duress, while in his right mind, etc.) but that he could not have done otherwise. Why not? Well, had Chapman given any prior sign of changing his mind and renouncing his intention to commit murder, Black would have intervened to ensure that he stay the course.<\/font><\/p>\n This scenario, the possibility of which we do not dispute , seems to show that (P2) above is false. It seems to show that moral responsibility does not entail the ability to act otherwise. FCEs thus appear to refute the above argument for incompatibilism.<\/font><\/p>\n The trouble with FCEs such as the foregoing is that they beg the question against the incompatibilist as Kane, Widerker, Goetz, and others have argued, and thus they do not give the incompatibilist a good reason for rejecting (P2) above. A solid refutation of PAP\/P2 must be a counterexample that is neutral on such issues as determinism versus indeterminism and compatibilism versus incompatibilism.<\/strong> I should think that this neutrality is a condition of adequacy<\/em> for any genuine counterexample to PAP\/P2.<\/font><\/p>\n Either determinism is true or it is not. If determinism is true, then Chapman's decision, his maintenance of the decision up until the time of the shooting, and the shooting itself are all determined. In that case, the incompatibilist will insist that Chapman is not morally responsible even if he acts on his own. What divides compatibilist and incompatibilist is precisely whether or not causal determinism in the actual course of events excludes moral responsibility. Incompatibilists insist that it does. So if the truth of determinism is built into the FCE, then the example cannot be used to refute PAP\/P2. <\/font><\/p>\n If, on the other hand, determinism is not true, then Black, even if he has the powers of a Laplacean demon, will not be able to discern in Chapman's mind any sure sign of a failure of resolve. In order to avoid begging the question against the incompatibilist, the Frankfurter cannot construe the prior sign of a change of mind that Black discerns as a causally sufficient condition of a change of mind. He must take the prior sign as merely raising the probability of a failure of resolve. If the prior sign is not causally sufficient, however, it is false that Chapman could not choose otherwise.<\/font><\/p>\n So the Frankfurter faces a dilemma. Either determinism is true or it is not. If true, then no alternative possibilities but also no moral responsibility. If not true, then moral responsibility but at the price of alternative possibilities.<\/font><\/p>\n What the Frankfurter needs is a possible set-up in which an agent is morally responsible but cannot act otherwise. Now if compatibilism is true, he can easily get what he wants — and indeed without these far-fetched stories of psychosurgery, etc. But if incompatibilism is true, then the Frankfurt cases are impossible.<\/font><\/p>\n The upshot appears to be a stand-off. The Frankfurter has not refuted PAP\/P2, and with it the above argument for incompatibilism. His attempted refutation begs the question against the incompatibilist. The incompatibilist in his turn is saddled with an unpalatable alternative: either reject moral responsibility as an illusion or reject determinism.<\/font><\/p>\n <\/font> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am an incompatibilist about moral responsibility. That is, I maintain that causal determinism and moral responsibility are logically incompatible. (Two propositions p, q are logically incompatible just in case they cannot both be true. Hence, logically incompatible propositions are logical contraries, not contradictories.) Here is an argument for incompatibilism: P1. Causal determinism rules out … Continue reading “Incompatibilism and Frankfurt Counterexamples”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[301],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}