More on My Way

I’m reviewing My Way for the Philosophical Quarterly. It will probably be a short review, so I won’t have time to do much more than express admiration. Nevertheless, I’m reading the book carefully. I wanted to try out some (rather inchoate) thoughts on fellow gardeners.

My Way

Papers from the INPC symposium on John Fischer's My Way are now available in the latest issue of Philosophical Books (subscription required). I forebear commenting on David Zimmerman's last footnote!

Bled Conference

Did anyone out there go to the Bled Conference? Any experiences you want to share? Was everyone singing the praises of Semicompatibilism? No, seriously, do you mind sharing some thoughts about this conference? What is the venue like?

Congratulations to Neal Tognazzini

Congratulations to Neal Tognazzini on winning UC Riverside's Excellence in Teaching Award. His course, "God", is, well, "awesome". This is a well-deserved honor.

Also, check out Neal's article in the current Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

Neal is a great "role-model"--for us faculty!

Cuypers on Externalist Autonomy

In the latest issue of Philosophical Studies, Stephen E. Cuypers has written an excellent critique of externalist compatibilist autonomy and of Mele’s view in particular (“The Trouble With Externalist Compatibilist Autonomy”, Philosophical Studies 129:171-196). One recent development in my own view (the evolution of which never ceases to surprise me) is the embracing of an element with which I’ve always sympathized: internalism about moral responsibility. I just do not think there can ever be a rational basis for judging an agent as being morally responsibility, or not, for choices depending upon factors over which the agent had no awareness whatsoever—however convenient such a view might be for soft compatibilists who would like to distinguish between CNC controlled agents and “mere determinism.” Experimental philosophers, such as Josh Knobe, may compile data showing that the folk are not internalists—indeed, I suspect they are externalists in multiple ways—but I would regard these as widespread performance errors, no different than the countless other varieties of human irrationality (for a list of such irrationalities, see the Wikipedia article “

List of cognitive biases”).

Related to the question of internalism/externalism is the question of whether a view on freedom or autonomy should be historical. In the literature it seems common to distinguish between hard compatibilists—who are more willing to endorse a bullet-biting historical view—and soft compatibilists—who give historical factors more consideration. Harry Frankfurt has given perhaps the most eloquent statement of the hard compatibilist theme:

“A manipulator may succeed, through his interventions, in providing a person not merely with particular feelings and thoughts but with a new character. That person is then morally responsible for the choices and the conduct to which having this character leads. We are inevitably fashioned and sustained, after all, by circumstances over which we have no control. The causes to which we are subject may also change us radically, without thereby bringing it about that we are not morally responsible agents. It is irrelevant whether those causes are operating by virtue of the natural forces that shape our environment or whether they operate through the deliberate manipulative designs of other human agents (2002).”

I have had more difficulty in identifying soft compatibilists. Mele’s emphasis upon historical considerations has suggested him as perhaps the most prominent soft compatibilist, if he is one (I understand that he defends agnosticism about whether compatibilism or libertarianism secures human autonomy). Once one begins to make this distinction between soft and hard compatibilism, however, one realizes that these views are not discrete but rather help constitute a spectrum of more or less historical views. Thus, I doubt that even the most time-slice hard compatibilist could attribute moral responsibility to a murderer who came into existence one second before the murder, loaded into the murdering position (I welcome any suggestions for defenders of this view). Similarly, it seems to me that many or most defenders of human freedom (or autonomy) are willing to attribute moral responsibility to a murderer even if the relevant CNC control is not immediately local but ultimately distant. For example, it seems that many or most defenders of human freedom (or autonomy) would be willing to attribute moral responsibility to a murderer even if God (or whoever) designed the entire trajectory of the universe before it came into existence: Frankfurt, Fischer, Watson, Dennett and (if I understand his view correctly) Mele—even if Frankfurt, Watson and Dennett are willing to tolerate somewhat more local manipulation than Fischer and Mele are. Paul Russell seems to call this latter problem the notion of manipulation “at the horizon” (see his contribution to Kane’s Oxford Handbook). Gary Watson reserves this latter notion of ultimately distant manipulation for the term hard compatibilism and concluded his contribution to the Journal of Ethics issue in honor of Harry Frankfurt: “The philosophical alternatives for those who take freedom seriously (as I think we all must, in practice) are hard.”