Moral Responsibility Without Libertarianism
Lynne Rudder Baker
The terms ‘compatibilism’ and ‘libertarianism’ standardly refer to positions on the question of free will. However, compatibilist vs. libertarian accounts of free will lead to compatibilist vs. libertarian conditions of moral responsibility. Since, as I said, my concern here is with the conditions for moral responsibility, I’ll use the terms ‘compatibilism’ and ‘libertarianism’ to distinguish two positions on what is required for moral responsibility. As we shall see, what libertarians insist on, and what compatibilists deny, is that moral responsibility for an action requires that the agent be the source or originator of the action in a way that precludes determinism.
So, both embrace moral responsibility. But they disagree regarding the nature of the "agent"? The libertarian agent "somehow" acquired free will when the human brain itself "somehow" acquired it. Free will here being the way most of us imagine it. I do what I do because of my own volition I opted to do it. End of story. Whereas the compatibilist agent is a still a determinist but "somehow" the laws of matter encompassing his or her brain resulted in the agent being the source or originator of an action in a way that
precludes determinism?
The part that still makes no sense to me. Although, again, I'm always willing to admit that it does make sense and -- click -- I am simply unable to grasp it.
On the other hand, neither one is actually able to explain how the human brain did evolve biologically into whatever it is that "in their head" they think it is when we do this instead of doing that.
And just once I'd like the author of an article like this [one defending compatibilism] to tackle head on the question of whether what they write about they themselves were the source or originator of in a way that includes determinism. Given how their brain actually functions here while they are writing it, what for all practical purposes does that mean?
I shall defend compatibilism in two steps: First, I shall argue that libertarianism is false: no one has libertarian freedom. So, if moral responsibility entails libertarianism, then we are never morally responsible for anything that we do.
Here, of course, I suggest that, even given libertarian freedom as many understand it in the is/ought world, this often revolves around dasein. We are free to opt for particular behaviors, but...but the behaviors that we do opt for are rooted existentially [more or less] in our indoctrination as children and in the historical and cultural contexts in which we acquire experiences as adults.
And, even in the either/or world, the Benjamin Button Syndrome can have a profound impact on how our lives unfolds.
Second, since I do believe that we are morally responsible for certain of our actions, I shall propose nonlibertarian (i.e., compatibilist) conditions for moral responsibility—a ReflectiveEndorsement view. I shall add to Harry Frankfurt’s compatibilist conditions to make them sufficient for moral responsibility. Then, I shall defend compatibilism against a recent sustained attack by Derk Pereboom. Finally, I shall comment on the pervasiveness of luck. Along the way, I shall show how compatibilism can accommodate certain libertarian intuitions.
Okay, but given particular contexts?
Stay tuned.