Doing the Right Thing Open Lecture Series 201516

‘Doing the Right Thing’ Open Lecture Series 2015/16 Lecture 2: Moral Responsibility Dr Dorothea Debus Department of Philosophy University of York

What does it take for someone to be morally responsible for something? Are we ever morally responsible for anything at all?

(1) Bob is a very conscientious bank clerk. One sunny afternoon he suddenly finds himself faced with a bank robber who puts a gun to his head; the bank robber tells him in no uncertain terms that she will kill him if he does not do what she tells him to do. She orders him to go and empty the safe, and to hand over the safe’s contents. Bob does as he is told. Should we hold Bob morally responsible for emptying the safe?

(2) For the last twenty years, Betty has been a very conscientious bank clerk. However, she has recently started to feel a little unsettled. In fact, she feels like she is wasting her life, and she wants a new start. She therefore makes an elaborate plan, and then, one sunny afternoon, while no-one else is around, she puts her plan into action: She empties the safe at the bank, and successfully escapes to a new life in the Bahamas. Should we hold Betty morally responsible for emptying the safe?

Most people will say that we should not hold Bob responsible for emptying the safe, but we should hold Betty responsible for emptying the safe. Why do we assess the two cases in such different ways?

Bob and Betty engage in the same kind of action – namely, the action of emptying the safe. What exactly justifies our different assessment of the two actions?

Bob engages in the relevant action under extreme duress – after all, the bank robber threatens to kill him if he doesn’t empty the safe –, so it really is not up to him whether or not to empty the safe; he could not have done otherwise.

Betty engages in the relevant action by her own free will – she has meticulously planned her escape, and eventually she puts her plan into action, so it is up to her whether or not to empty the safe, and she could have done otherwise – that is, she could have refrained from emptying the safe.

More generally, we might therefore conclude that in order for us to hold someone responsible for an action, it is necessary that what they did was up to them somehow, that they could have done otherwise.

In the philosophical literature, this is usually referred to as the ‘Principle of Alternate Possibilities’ (or PAP): In order for someone to be responsible for an action, it is necessary that they could have done otherwise.

If we accept PAP, we can explain the difference between cases like those of Bob and Betty: While Bob’s situation does not meet the condition set out by PAP, Betty’s situation does meet that condition. Thus, we can hold Betty responsible for what she does, but we should not hold Bob responsible, because he could not have done otherwise.

‘Principle of Alternate Possibilities’ (or PAP): In order for someone to be responsible for an action, it is necessary that they could have done otherwise.

BUT: Do we ever meet this condition? Are any of our actions ever such that we could have done otherwise?

According to Determinism, ‘the state of the world at any given time is fixed in all of its details by prior states and by the laws of nature. ’ (Watson 2003: 2)

At least at first sight, Determinism might seem quite plausible.

For example, one might argue that (i) the sciences are based on the assumption that Determinism is true. (ii) We value scientific work highly, so we should accept the assumptions on which the sciences are based. (C) Thus, we should accept Determinism.

But then… …if Determinism was true, could we ever be morally responsible for any of our actions?

The ‘Principle of Alternate Possibilities’ (PAP): In order for someone to be responsible for an action, it is necessary that they could have done otherwise.

According to determinism, whatever happens next is fully determined by how things were before together with the laws of nature. If determinism is true, no-one could ever have done otherwise.

Incompatibility Argument (i) PAP: In order for someone to be responsible for an action, it is necessary that they could have done otherwise. (ii) If determinism is true, no-one could ever have done otherwise. (iii) Therefore, if determinism is true, no-one is ever responsible for anything at all. (iv) Determinism and responsibility are incompatible.

We might have good reason to endorse determinism… so, do we have to accept that no-one is ever responsible for anything at all?

Maybe we should look at the Incompatibility Argument again: Incompatibility Argument (i) PAP: In order for someone to be responsible for an action, it is necessary that they could have done otherwise. (ii) If determinism is true, no-one could ever have done otherwise. (iii) Therefore, if determinism is true, no-one is ever responsible for anything at all. (iv) Determinism and responsibility are incompatible.

What about premise (i) of this argument? Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP): In order for someone to be responsible for an action, it is necessary that they could have done otherwise.

At least at first sight, PAP seems eminently plausible, especially once one has considered cases of coercion, for example Bob’s case.

It seems clear that someone who is coerced to do something should not be held responsible for the relevant action, and ‘it is natural enough to say of a person who has been coerced to do something that he could not have done otherwise’ (Frankfurt 2003: 168).

So at least at first sight it seems that we can best explain why we do not hold people responsible when they act under coercion with the help of (PAP), which in turn might give us reason to accept (PAP).

However, in his paper ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility’, Harry Frankfurt famously tries to show that PAP is false: ‘A person may well be morally responsible for what he has done even though he could not have done otherwise. [PAP’s] plausibility is an illusion, which can be made to vanish by bringing the relevant moral phenomena into sharper focus. ’ (Frankfurt 2003: 167)

Frankfurt’s strategy: show that there are cases where someone does something, could not have done otherwise, but we still think they should be held responsible for what they did; if we can successfully describe only one such case, we will have found a counterexample to PAP, which in turn would show that PAP is false.

Frankfurt’s argument against PAP: Jones 1: decides to do A; is coerced to do A; but is unreasonable and unresponsive to coercion; Is Jones 1 responsible for A?

Jones 2: decides to do A; is coerced to do A; is ‘stampeded’ by the threat (given the threat, he would have done A no matter what he’d previously decided, and indeed, once threat has been uttered, he completely forgets about his previous decision); Is Jones 2 responsible for A?

Jones 3: decides to do A; is coerced to do A; is reasonable and responsive to the threat, but is not stampeded by it; Jones 3 does A ‘on the basis of the decision he had made before threat was issued. When he acted, he was not actually motivated by the threat but solely by the considerations that had originally commended the action to him. It was not the threat that led him to act, though it would have done so if he had not already provided himself with a sufficient motive for performing the action in question. ’ (Frankfurt 2003: 170) Is Jones 3 responsible for A?

First Argument against (PAP) (i) Jones 3 is responsible for doing A. (ii) But Jones 3 could not have done anything but A, that is, he could not have done otherwise. (iii) Therefore, (PAP) is false; it is not true that (PAP) in order for someone to be responsible for an action, it is necessary that they could have done otherwise.

Reply on behalf of (PAP): The argument’s premise (ii) is false. Jones 3 could have done otherwise, in the relevant sense of the term. (Even if threatened with death, one can still choose the option which one has been told will lead to one’s being killed – so even in the face of excessive duress one can still do otherwise. )

Jones 4: - Black wants Jones 4 to do A; - Black is in a position to create a situation in which Jones 4 could not do anything but A (maybe by pronouncing a terrible threat, or by giving Jones 4 a potion, or by hypnotizing him, or by manipulating Jones 4’s brain processes, or by any other means such that we would all agree that, because of Black’s position, Jones 4 could not do anything but A) - Black does not have to intervene because Jones 4, for reasons of his own, does do A Is Jones 4 responsible for A?

Second Argument against (PAP) (i) Jones 4 is responsible for doing A. (ii) But Jones 4 could not have done anything but A, that is, he could not have done otherwise. (iii) Therefore, (PAP) is false; it is not true that (PAP) in order for someone to be responsible for an action, it is necessary that they could have done otherwise.

Our earlier argument: Incompatibility Argument (i) PAP: In order for someone to be responsible for an action, it is necessary that they could have done otherwise. (ii) If determinism is true, no-one could ever have done otherwise. (iii) Therefore, if determinism is true, no-one is ever responsible for anything at all. (iv) Determinism and responsibility are incompatible.

If (PAP) is false, the Incompatibility Argument does not go through. Thus, we can continue to hold that even if determinism is true, we might well have responsibility for some of our actions.

But: If (PAP) is false, what does it mean to say that someone is responsible for a certain action?

We had earlier introduced (PAP) in an attempt to distinguish between certain cases in which we do, and others in which we don’t, want to hold someone responsible for an action – e. g. the cases of Bob and Betty, respectively.

If we follow Frankfurt’s argument and conclude that (PAP) is actually false, we need to find some other way to distinguish between relevant cases.

What does it take for an agent to be morally responsible for a certain action? What reason do we have to say that Bob, who is threatened by the bank robber, is not morally responsible for emptying the safe, while Betty, who wants to start a new life in the Bahamas, is morally responsible for emptying the safe?

In his very influential paper ‘Freedom and Resentment’, Peter Strawson suggests that we might be able to account for moral responsibility if we pay more careful attention to our interpersonal relationships and the ‘reactive attitudes’ which we take and display towards each other.

‘Principle of’ Reactive Attitudes: In order for someone to be morally responsible for an action, it is necessary that, with respect to the relevant action, she is rightly treated as a normal participant in ordinary interpersonal relationships, relationships which are importantly characterized by reactive attitudes, and that the relevant action deserves a certain reactive attitude, such as praise or blame.

‘Reactive Attitudes’: e. g. : gratitude resentment forgiveness love hurt feelings (Strawson 75)

‘Central commonplace’: We attach ‘great importance […] to the attitudes and intentions towards us of other human beings, and […] our personal feelings and reactions depend upon, or involve, our beliefs about these attitudes and intentions’ to a great extent (Strawson 75).

It’s important to realize ‘how much it matters to us, whether the actions of other people - and particularly of some other people - reflect attitudes towards us of goodwill, affection, or esteem on the one hand or contempt, indifference, or malevolence on the other’ (Strawson 76).

But then, how might this observation help in accounting for responsibility?

Exemplary case: Resentment (A) cases in which resentment is an appropriate reactive attitude vs. (B) cases in which resentment might at first sight seem appropriate, but where ‘special considerations might be expected to modify or mollify this feeling or remove it altogether’ (Strawson 77).

(B) circumstances that might modify, mollify, or completely remove the feeling of resentment: - ‘He couldn’t help it’, ‘He didn’t know’, ‘He didn’t mean to’; - ‘He wasn’t himself’, ‘He has been under very great strain recently’; - ‘He’s only a child’, ‘He [suffers from schizophrenia]’, ‘His mind has been systematically perverted’, ‘That’s purely compulsive behaviour on his part’;

distinguish between the participant attitude - the attitude of involvement or participation in a human relationship and the objective attitude

The objective attitude does not and ‘cannot include the range of reactive feelings and attitudes which belong to involvement or participation with others in inter-personal human relationships; it cannot include resentment, gratitude, forgiveness, anger, or the sort of love which two adults can sometimes be said to feel […] for each other’ (Strawson 79).

What does it take for an agent to be morally responsible for a certain action?

Principle of Reactive Attitudes: In order for someone to be responsible for an action, it is necessary that, with respect to the relevant action, she is rightly treated as a normal participant in ordinary interpersonal relationships, relationships which are importantly characterized by reactive attitudes, and that the relevant action deserves a certain reactive attitude, such as praise or blame.

And indeed, the Principle of Reactive Attitudes seems plausible when we apply it to individual cases. For example, we can explain the difference between Bob’s and Betty’s case with its help.

We excuse Bob in the situation as described earlier, and so we do not treat Bob as a normal participant in ordinary interpersonal relationships in that particular situation; indeed, we would probably all agree that ‘he couldn’t help it’ because he was threatened by the bank robber and was in fear of his life, and this in turn ‘mollifies’ our ordinary reactive attitude of blame towards him: We don’t blame him, because the circumstances in the relevant situation were completely out of the ordinary. Thus, according to the Principle of Reactive Attitudes, we should not hold him morally responsible for emptying the safe, either.

By contrast, we certainly do, and should, treat Betty as a normal participant in ordinary interpersonal relationships – indeed, we blame her for what she has done; as she is rightly treated as a normal participant in our ordinary interpersonal relationships, we can also hold her morally responsible for emptying the safe.

So the Principle of Reactive Attitudes seems rather plausible: In order for someone to be responsible for an action, it is necessary that, with respect to the relevant action, she is rightly treated as a normal participant in ordinary interpersonal relationships, relationships which are importantly characterized by reactive attitudes, and that the relevant action deserves a certain reactive attitude, such as praise or blame.

But then, what if determinism was true?

Would it be appropriate for us to take up participant reactive attitudes towards each other if determinism was true? Or shouldn’t we rather, if determinism was true, give up on participant reactive attitudes completely, and take up an objective attitude towards each other throughout? E. g. : Should we continue to blame someone for a certain action if what they did was fully determined by how things were before together with the laws of nature?

Strawson’s response: ‘The human commitment to participation in ordinary inter-personal relationships is, I think, too thoroughgoing and deeply rooted for us to take seriously the thought that a general theoretical conviction [such as the conviction that determinism is true] might so change our world that, in it, there were no longer any such things as inter-personal relationships as we normally understand them; and being involved in interpersonal relationships as we normally understand them precisely is being exposed to the range of reactive attitudes and feelings that is in question’ (Strawson 81).

i. e. : It is part of our human nature that we stand to each other in interpersonal relationships of which the reactive attitudes are an important part, and we couldn’t simply give up on those ways of relating to each other because there was good reason to believe that determinism is true.

Given who we are (namely: human beings), we simply would not be able to live our lives in a context in which we only related to each other in an ‘objective way’, even if we had some theoretical reason to do so.

Thus, even if determinism was true, it would not be ‘appropriate’ for us to give up on participant reactive attitudes because this is something human beings simply could not do. So, even if determinism was true, we shouldn’t give up on participant reactive attitudes, because as human beings we simply couldn’t give up on participant reactive attitudes.

Thus, even if Determinism is true, we can continue to account for responsibility with the help of the Principle of Reactive Attitudes: In order for someone to be responsible for an action, it is necessary that, with respect to the relevant action, she is rightly treated as a normal participant in ordinary interpersonal relationships, relationships which are importantly characterized by reactive attitudes, and that the relevant action deserves a certain reactive attitude, such as praise or blame.

References: - Frankfurt, H. (2003): ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility’, in: Watson, G. (ed. ), Free Will, second edition, Oxford University Press 2003 - Strawson, P. (2003): ‘Freedom and Resentment’, in: Watson, G. (ed. ), Free Will, second edition, Oxford University Press 2003 - Watson, G. (2003): ‘Introduction’, in: Watson, G. (ed. ), Free Will, second edition, Oxford University Press 2003