Free Will, Cross-Cultural Style

I started writing this post before Joe’s and Neil’s recent comments because I could no longer stand the deafening silence each day when I clicked on my gfp bookmark. Anyway, here’s a thought experiment that I hope will get a few comments going to warm us up for our discussion of the Doris, Knobe, and Woolfolk piece.

Imagine we discover a culture (of humans somehow previously hidden here on Earth or of intelligent aliens on a distant planet, I don’t think it matters) that resembles modern, Western cultures in many ways. Most notably, after hanging out with the people in this culture for a while, we recognize that they have basically the same practices regarding moral responsibility (i.e., praise and blame, punishment and reward) as ours, they express and seem to experience the same reactive attitudes (pride and shame, indignation and gratitude, etc.) as we do, and they talk about choice, freedom,  responsibility, and so on in basically the same ways we do (e.g., we have no problem translating the relevant aspects of their language).

However, perhaps in part because of their advanced science, these people also believe causal determinism is true. They believe that there is only one possible future given the actual past and laws of nature. They believe that every event has a set of sufficient prior causes. They believe that this is true of all of their choices and actions as well as everything else in the universe. [You may substitute here whatever conception of determinism incompatibilists take to preclude free will and moral responsibility.]

Now, it’s not just the scientists and philosophers who believe determinism is true. It’s everyone. It’s a belief that’s become understandable to the folk and seeped into the culture as fully as the belief that the earth is round and moves around the sun has seeped into ours (I wish I could say “as fully as the belief in evolution has seeped into ours”!). Hence, the ordinary folk in this culture appear to believe in free will and moral responsibility as much as the ordinary folk in our culture do but also to believe explicitly that determinism is true. [I’m not sure whether to say that the philosophers just don’t recognize the compatibility question to be a philosophical problem or that they take themselves to have “solved” it a long time ago by adopting some compatibilist strategy, such as rejecting transfer of non-responsibility principles.]

My question is what we should say about this thought experiment and this culture. Here are some of my thoughts, but I’d really like to hear from others (especially incompatibilists):

1) Compatibilists should presumably say this culture has discovered what is true.

2) Incompatibilists might say that, despite the surface similarities, these people mean different things than we do when they use the language of responsibility and freedom (especially, desert and retribution).  How might we show that they really mean different things than us?  Do they also feel something different when they feel and express the reactive attitudes?

3) Incompatibilists might say that these people (especially their philosophers!) are simply missing an important truth (e.g., some principle, such as transfer of non-responsibility, or some conceptual connection, such as the necessity of ultimate sourcehood for desert). If they thought about it enough, they’d recognize it (or maybe they wouldn’t, but either way, it’s still true). Skeptics about free will might say that, in this way, these people are just like most ordinary folk here.  Is so, what sort of truths are these (a priori, conceptual, necessary, what?)?

4) Incompatibilists might say that these people just think determinism is true but they are wrong. They have libertarian freedom and that’s what allows them to develop the practices and beliefs and attitudes about freedom and responsibility that they do.

5) Incompatibilists might say that the thought experiment is incoherent.

I can’t see why 5 would be right. Regarding 4, I can’t imagine an incompatibilist (certainly not a skeptic!) would want to argue that we can know we have libertarian freedom based on our practices and beliefs about freedom. I’d like to hear more about 3 or 2 (both of which I find problematic for reasons I can explain more fully later) or any other response anyone has.

[The post's title is a reference to Machery, Mallon, Stich and Nichols' "Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style" which suggests that Kripkean intuitions about reference vary across cultures.]

Comments

[Neal]

I think many incompatibilists would take option (3). These people are missing an important truth, namely, the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, or some version of it anyway.

And if you were to change the example so that the people explicitly endorsed both determinism and PAP, but still held each other responsible, then the truth they are missing is the soundness of the Consequence Argument.

But of course this option is not available for incompatibilists who reject PAP. What should they say? I'm not sure...I'll think some more about it.

[Fritz]

A quick reaction --

You give the incompatibilist 4 probably non-exhaustive choices. And not all of the choices exclude one another - some do some don't. Of the 4, the two that seem to deserve serious attention are 2 and 3. 5 is a non-starter and I don't really know what you're getting at with 4. Notice, about 4, that many *compatibilists* might want to in part respond by saying "oh, they have the false belief that determinism is true". In 4, the part that I don't understand is the part about libertarian freedom being thought to be what allows the responsibility concepts to arise - that sounds a bit odd. But ok, the more I think about what you might mean by 4 the more it's clearly not an answer that excludes, for example, 2 or 3. Notice still further about choice 4 that a "motion to divide" might be in order -- the first part of response 4 and the 2nd part could surely be separated.

Turn to the compatibilist -- I'm surprised that you only give option 1 as the option for what compatibilists should (might?) say. It's no part of compatibilism that determinism is true or that people are morally responsible. So though compatibilists might in one sense be impressed by people having arrived at what compatibilists think is a true belief (viz. Compatiblism is true), different compatibilists might well react differently to the reason these people give. These people, after all, are committed to the following argument's soundness:

1. Determinism is true
2. We are morally responsible
C. So, D and MR are compatible.

Though all compatibilists about D and MR obviously accept the conclusion, many would (or at least Could) reject one or both premises of the argument. I think the issue of what compatibilists should say about the thought experiment might be just as interesting as what incompatibilists should say.... But ok, it's your post and you can focus on what incompatibilists would/should say.

It'd be easier to do it if the choices you wanted to focus on at least excluded one another.

But finally, applying a bit of charity and thinking a bit more, my (incompatibilist) initial reaction would be to find the best philosophers in this culture and see what, if anything, they have to say about arguments that seem to me to at least strongly pressure us towards incompatibilism about D and MR. If they haven't thought about these issues, I'd try to share with them arguments that seem relevant and then see what, if anything, they say in response. My leaning, obviously enough, is toward an answer of your type 3.

[Fritz]

One small point (not essential to your story, it'd be an easy fix) --

You mentioned rejecting TNR principles as a "compatibilist strategy" that the philosophers of this culture may have used in the past in rejecting incompatibilism. If *that's* what they did, they require philosophical instruction and their compatiblist complacency leads me to be suspicious: one can reject TNR principles and still be an incompatibilist.

[Eddy Nahmias]

Just to be clearer, response 1 is mis-stated. I did not mean to say that the compatibilist should say they have discovered what's true, since the thought experiment does not require that determinism is true. Rather, for the compatibilist, as opposed to the incompatibilist, this culture does not have inconsistent beliefs (or practices that conflict with their beliefs). Even that is not quite right if there are reasons other than determinism that their practices and beliefs about freedom and responsibility are mistaken (e.g., in my opinion, if epiphenomenalism about conscious deliberation were true).

I also did not mean to present the four incompatibilist responses I mentioned as mutually exclusive or exhaustive. I threw out 4 and 5 as what I take to be possible but weak responses. As I said, 2 and 3 are more plausible but I'd like to hear more about them, especially what exactly distinguishes them and how exactly response 3 (or something like it) should be developed.

One way to see the thought experiment is that this culture seems to be where van Inwagen says he would be if he came to believe determinism were true.

[On a completely different note relevant to previous discussions here, I just read Watson's introduction to his Free Will anthology, 2nd edition, and noticed that he calls incompatibilists who don't think we have free will "sceptics."]

[Kip Werking]

My answer would be 2. And this answer would be in keeping my emphasis upon the semantic nature of the free will debate/problem. Arguing about free will (or God, or moral facts) is very different than arguing about, for example, the chair I am sitting on. If there any dispute about this chair, we can just inspect the chair and settle the dispute. But we cannot inspect free will. Indeed, the major parties in this debate (with the curious exception of libertarians) agree, in detail, on what exists or does not exist---they just disagree on what to call/name this. So if this culture, and our own culture, are disagreeing about compatibilism, then the semantic nature of the free will debate suggests that we are just using the same words to talk about other things.

Note that there is an ongoing dispute, in the empirical studies, about whether people actually have incompatibilist intuitions. Suppose (as I suspect) that people do have somewhat incompatibilist intuitions. Then this suggests that people are using a more demanding concept of free will (perhaps especially in more abstract and emotionally-neutral contexts). If people in this other culture perform differently on this test, then they are probably using the same words/names to refer to different things---because both that culture and our own has a similar understanding of human nature.

Finally, I've been doing some research into the heuristics and biases literature, and learned about how people are sometimes irrational in specific ways---which may influence/infect one's thinking about free will. People are vulnerable, for example, to the fundamental attribution error, the illusion of control, demonization (or biased recall of transgressions), the just world phenomenon, and other biases. If this other culture has differing intuitions/beliefs from our own about free will, it would be interesting to test whether they are also vulnerable to these same biases. One possibility is that they are somehow not vulnerable to them, and so these biases have not led them to use a more demanding concept of free will, and so their concept of free will is consistent with determinism and human nature. In this case, again, my response would be 2: we are just using the same words to talk about different things.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Kip,

You said that, "So if this culture, and our own culture, are disagreeing about compatibilism, then the semantic nature of the free will debate suggests that we are just using the same words to talk about other things."

However, the people in Eddy's story believe that their conception of moral responsibility grounds their retributive practices and further they believe they have "what it takes" to be morally responsible.

Thus, the debate can't possibly be about semantics alone. There is more at stake here.

[Manuel]

Great thought experiment, Eddy.

Fritz raises some interesting questions, but I predict that he would be unimpressed by the responses given by their philosophers. I suspect that in response to various arguments for incompatibilism, they would say things like "sure, there is some sense in which determinism means that you can't do x, y, and z, but that isn't the sense required for moral responsibility." I take it that part of the aim of Eddy's example is to realize raise the specter of a large, functioning community of people who simply lacked the underlying intuitions on which incompatibilist arguments seem to depend. (I don't intend this in a contentious way— we could ask about a similar thought experiment where we stipulate that everyone had incompatibilist intuitions and lacked the compatibilist intuitions upon which compatibilist arguments hinge).

I am inclined to think that there are deep issues here about the meaning of words, but I also doubt that issues stack up as neatly as Kip may be suggesting. One thing I take Eddy's example to get at is the idea that we could have a whole group of people who's (let's suppose) conceptual commitments are devoid of incompatibilism but who nonetheless think they can justify their responsibility practices, attitudes, and so on. Presumably, an incompatibilist has to say that they cannot. Otherwise, it looks like the incompatibilist is forced to say something like "they can justify praise, blame, desert, and so on, but nevertheless they don't know how to use the word 'responsibility' properly" or "they can justify p, b, d, etc., but they aren't talking about responsibility." Neither looks like a very attractive thing to say, and perhaps this is some of what Mark has in mind when he suggests that there is more than semantics going on here.

Considerations like the above dilemma oftentimes incline me to think that any sane semantics of responsibility is going to tied to things like the conceptual role of 'responsibility' and whether there is anything in the world that satisfies that conceptual role. Of course, once we go that way we may discover that we've got some error-ridden beliefs about what actually does satisfy that conceptual role.

[Fritz]

Here's a closely related thought experiment. Pretend we're at an APA convention and come across a group of philosophers at a group meeting for the "Society of Determinism/Responsibility Compatibilists". These philosophers have all reached their compatibilist conclusion in the same way:
(a) they read off the truth of the thesis that we are morally responsible from their practice of attributing responsibility to one another
(b) they conclude that determinism is true because of what they take the testimony of relevant scientists to be.
and they infer from (a) and (b) that
(c) Determnism and moral responsibility are compatible.
What should we say to these people?
Well, your choices and others are once again available. I would once again like to hear what they say about incompatibilist arguments and what other reasons, if any, they have for taking their compatibilist position or for adopting (a) and/or (b) above.

This story differs from yours in that this story doesn't hypothesize a whole community with members who have all implicitly or explicitly internalized the position sketched. Does this make a difference? I take it your idea is (may have been?) that the response about "meaning different things" by the terms is more plausible when its a cross cultural encounter? And/or maybe you think that the culture-wide unanimity in your example is relevant to the assessment of their position -- something like "the folk *and* the professionals all agree, so that's tougher to reject than if it's only the philosophers who agree"?

I'm not sure.

I continue to think the right thing to do if we encounter either crowd is get down to the business of discussing the best arguments for both positions. The fact that in some cases we incompatibilists will have less receptive audiences than in other cases is something many of us are used to by now. Give an APA talk on freedom and you might get a crowd dominated by the likes of O'Connor, van Inwagen and the incompatibilists .... or you might get a crowd dominated by Mele and others who pretend to be officially agnostic but are really compatibilists (sorry, writing a discussion up about Al's new book and couldn't resist!).

[Mark Smeltzer]

Fritz,

This is a bit of a tangent, but do you think that someone who affirms that (1) [we are morally responsible for at least some of our actions] and that (2) [determinism could be true] can conclude that (3) [we are morally responsible regardless of whether determinism is true]?

I tend to think that (3) follows from (1) and (2), which also means I tend to view van Inwagen's mysterian position as invalid. (Though this is not an adequate set of criteria to define compatibilism since one could be a compatibilist without affirming (1)).

[Fritz]

Mark,
on neither the "is possibly true" nor "is true for all I know" reading of "could be true" is the inference from your 1 and 2 to 3 formally valid. And I don't see a clean way of sharpening it up. I briefly discussed an argument for compatibilism about determinism and freedom along these lines in the Loux/Zimmerman Handbook of metaphysics [that argument took as premises:
A. For all I know determinism is true
and
B. Freedom exists
and tried to reach the compatibilist conclusion.
But though many have been tempted by this sort of argument, I've yet to see a promising way of shoring up the form of the argument.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Fritz,

Thanks for the reference. I'll have to check out the argument.

For the record, I believe you are correct that we cannot get (3) from (1) and (2) deductively. My tendency to accept (3) on the basis of (1) and (2) is in regards to the strength of the inductive evidence for (2).

Van Inwagen's view is based on the following,

a) X is morally responsible for Y
b) [determinism is true] or [determinism is false]

c) [1] and [2]

(c) Can be restated as,

(c*) ([a] and [determinism]) or ([b] and [indeterminism))

If we establish that [a] and [determinism] yields Compatibilism and that ([b] and [indeterminism]) yields either Compatibilism or Incompatiblism, we can restate (c*) as,

(c**) Compatibilism or (Compatibilism or Incompatibilism)

This further simplies to the simple disjunction of Compatibilism or Incompatibilsm. So van Inwagen's view at the core is simply a rejection of the skeptical position.

Back to the original three statements... Let S1 be the set of possible worlds in which the statement [there exists some X that is morally responsible for Y] is true, let S2 be the set of possible worlds in which the thesis of determinism is true, and let P be the statement that [there is a possible world W that is contained in both S1 and S2].

My emperical hypothesis is that people who are inclined to assent to (3) on the basis of (1) and (2) have something like (P) in mind. However, since (P) is fundamentally a compatibilist claim, this point seems a bit moot.

I agree with your overall analysis that a case such as Eddy's should not worry incompatibilists anymore than the reverse situation shoud worry compatibilists. So, perhaps this thread is an argument in disguise that experimental philosophy is at best a kind of psychology or cultural anthropology... Hmmmm...

[Mark Smeltzer]

In the above (c*) is stated incorrectly. It should have read,

(c*) ([a] and [determinism]) or ([a] and [indeterminism))

[Eddy Nahmias]

Geez, I use an old-fashioned thought experiment to get at old-fashioned questions about whether the principles and claims in incompatibilist arguments are supposed to be a priori, necessary, based on conceptual truths, or what, and it turns into an attack on experimental philosophy!

Fritz, in the arguments the incompatibilist philosophers use to try to show the alternative culture the errors in their thinking, what is supposed to get them to accept the principles and conceptions used in the argument (e.g., transfer of non-responsibility, metaphysically open alternatives as necessary for free will or moral responsibility, etc.)? I can see how we might say they are clearly thinking wrong if they fail to accept principles like modus tollens, but I can't see how we can say they are clearly thinking wrong about any principles or concepts that are explicitly tied to their conception (practices, etc.) of moral responsibility itself (i.e., TNR principles). If they just don't see the intuitive force of TNR or PAP, for example, then what do we say to either convince them or claim they are wrong? Alternatively, what would ground our saying that they have different concepts (and practices) than we do?

Mark (or Fritz), I'd also like to hear what exactly the "reverse situation" thought experiment is that should worry compatibilists.

[Fritz]

I'll get to the other part later but, uh, Eddy, who attacked experimental philosophy? Did I miss a post somewhere?

[Fritz]

Eddy --

1. I don't think there is a "reverse situation" that should worry compatibilists. If we tell your sort of story substituting in a culture that universally accepts incompatbilism instead of compatibilism, I think compatibilists should say the same sort of bland things I say about your case: ask to discuss the arguments and reasons with these people. The universality of their beliefs doesn't close down discussion, I hope.

2. Pretend we start the discussion of arguments with the people in your thought experiment. You ask what is going to get them to change their mind and accept premises and/or principles that the incompatibilist will appeal to in discussion with them. Well, maybe nothing will (that is an empirical question of course -- maybe really bad arguments will convince them). What should do it, if anything? How about trying to show that their other beliefs and practices seem to commit them to the truth of things that then serve as premises in the incompatibilist arguments? Example, tease out their view about, eg, responsibility (or not) for the distant past... -- I think the case is closer to modus tollens disagreement than you think - the main difference being that in this debate it's harder to know ahead of time who is correct.

Again though, I don't see how this situation with another culture is different from a normal discussion with a single philosopher who disagrees with me about determinism and responsibility. Such a philosopher is for sure not immediately accepting my incompatibilism and such a philosopher will likely be initially inclined towards skepticism about premises and principles I put forward in arguing for incompatibilism. Some he may accept, of course, but others he will resist or doubt or...
The best (only?) things to try in an effort at rational persuasion is trying to show that he is implicitly committed to the premises/principles or trying to show that they follow from other things he accepts or... -- it's just a normal philosophical discussion with someone who one disagrees with about a major claim.

I'll ask again because I really am interested: do you think there's a key difference between the case of an incompatibilist disagreeing with a compatibilist *philosopher* and the case of an incompatibilist disagreeing with a compatibilist *culture*? Maybe the "mean different things" reply is more plausible in the latter case? Was that the idea?

[Fritz]

Eddy - I'll answer your questions if you answer mine. Here's an attempted answer for you.

you asked:

"whether the principles and claims in incompatibilist arguments are supposed to be a priori, necessary, based on conceptual truths, or what"

Well, apparently not everyone agrees with me, but at a minimum the principles had better be *necessary* because incompatibilism is, if true, a necessary truth and arguing for it by appeal to a contingent premise is a quick path to modal fallacy [this is the criticism of the consequence argument I have pushed in print - most who defend the "fixity of the past and/or fixity of laws" defend only the contingent version of that claim and this is too weak].

I'll plead ignorance on whether the premises/principles of these arguments (or compatibilist arguments for that matter) are supposed to be "a priori", or "based on conceptual truths" because these notions are nowadays so contentious that I don't think there's a firm enough meaning attached to them. Going out on a limb after giving that officially wimpy answer, my quick reaction would be that at least not all of the premises that show up in familiar incompatibilist arguments are supposed to be "a priori" and that they are no doubt in part "based on conceptual truths".

[Kip Werking]

Here are some brief responses to Mark, Manuel, and Fritz:

Mark wrote:

"You said that, 'So if this culture, and our own culture, are disagreeing about compatibilism, then the semantic nature of the free will debate suggests that we are just using the same words to talk about other things.'

However, the people in Eddy's story believe that their conception of moral responsibility grounds their retributive practices and further they believe they have 'what it takes' to be morally responsible."

I don't see the contradiction that your use of the word "however" implies. In other words, it seems to me entirely possible that (i) the story-people believe that their conception of mr grounds their retributive practices and (ii) the story-people and ordinary folk (to the weak extent there is a single folk notion of moral responsibility) are using the same words to talk about different things. Why couldn't these both be true?

Manuel wrote:

"I am inclined to think that there are deep issues here about the meaning of words, but I also doubt that issues stack up as neatly as Kip may be suggesting. One thing I take Eddy's example to get at is the idea that we could have a whole group of people who's (let's suppose) conceptual commitments are devoid of incompatibilism but who nonetheless think they can justify their responsibility practices, attitudes, and so on. Presumably, an incompatibilist has to say that they cannot. Otherwise, it looks like the incompatibilist is forced to say something like "they can justify praise, blame, desert, and so on, but nevertheless they don't know how to use the word 'responsibility' properly" or "they can justify p, b, d, etc., but they aren't talking about responsibility." Neither looks like a very attractive thing to say, and perhaps this is some of what Mark has in mind when he suggests that there is more than semantics going on here."

Why isn't saying "they can justify p, b, d, etc., but they aren't talking about responsibility" an attractive possibility? Of course, we are not talking about attractiveness in the sense of wishful thinking (e.g. I wish compatibilism were true), and I presume we also not talking about traditional objections to incompatibilism that are independent of Eddy's thought experiment. Presumably, the thought experiment (interesting as it is) is supposed to *add* something to the debate. But excluding wishful thinking and traditional compatibilist arguments, what *additional* reason is there for thinking this response is unattractive?

Finally, Fritz wrote:

"I'll ask again because I really am interested: do you think there's a key difference between the case of an incompatibilist disagreeing with a compatibilist *philosopher* and the case of an incompatibilist disagreeing with a compatibilist *culture*? Maybe the "mean different things" reply is more plausible in the latter case? Was that the idea?"

My humble suggestion is that, if the free will debate is (in part) about the meaning of words, and if it is also true that the definitions of words is determined by their common usage, then the difference is this: a philosopher cannot determine the common usage of a term (e.g. moral responsibility)---but a culture might.

You say that "incompatibilism is, if true, a necessary truth" and I agree that, in a sense, this is true. But any argument formulated in words (e.g. "'moral responsibility' and 'determinism' are compatible") will necessarily depend upon *contingent* truths about how people use those words. It is certainly not necessary true that 2+2=4, if by 2 some people mean [what we ordinarily mean by three] and other people mean [what we ordinary mean by four]. Of course, that mathematical example seems silly, because terms are precisely defined in mathematics (for the most part). But the terms "free will" and "moral responsibility" are very different than numbers and their definitions are much fuzzier. So any arguments/claims about these terms will depend upon contingent truths about how people actually use these terms. The upshot is that every view in this debate, including mine, is at least somewhat vulnerable to future empirical falsification---for example, the dust settles after the experimental philosophers have it out and people decidedly don't have incompatist intuitions. When (and if) the dust ever does settle, I think the truth is likely to be somewhere in between, and not altogether consistent or pretty (our intuitions/beliefs about free will may be like the kludge view of moral agency).

[Mark Smeltzer]

Fritz,

Eddy was referring to my comment at the end of my last post. It was more sarcasm than attack though ;)

Kip,

The disagreement about compatibilism is not merely semantic because parties on both sides can accept common definitions of moral responsibility. For example, most would accept that, "Moral responsibility is that which justifies retributive practices, such as praising and blaming, in response to an individual's actions."

Thus, the disagreement must be about the conditions that would satisfy that definition. In other words, the disagreement is about the very nature of moral responsibility itself. This isn't simply a game of words.

[Kip Werking]

Mark,

I know that philosophers sometimes distinguish between concepts and the conditions that satisfy these concepts; this is an area I have not studied myself.

Two points.

1. You write:

"The disagreement about compatibilism is not merely semantic because parties on both sides can accept common definitions of moral responsibility."

I don't think there is nearly so much agreement on the definition about moral responsibility as you suggest---even accounting for the difference between concepts and conditions that satisfy these concepts. I'll bet that John Fischer and Galen Strawson have *much* different ostensible definitions or understandings of what moral responsibility is, where Strawson's is much more demanding. It is telling that Peter van Inwagen repeatedly asks people what moral responsibility is. He asks this because (if I understand him correctly), he feels the debate has been hijacked by talk about moral responsibility, but it was once about the ability to do otherwise. Similarly, I think there are many people or philosophers who both (i) regard others as morally responsible (when appropriate) and (ii) explicitly reject retribitivism. So it does not seem to me that moral responsibility can be defined just in terms of retributive practices. MR may instead be defined in terms of the reactive attitudes, or some other thing. It just not clear.

2. If we consider the distinction between concepts and conditions that satisfy them, then I think this suggests the alternative incompatibilist explanation for the story-people's behavior: they are just being irrational by considering a concept satisfied in the absence of sufficient relevant conditions. I think this is like the Eddy's 3rd response.

[Kip Werking]

Quick follow-up.

When I wrote:

"Similarly, I think there are many people or philosophers who both (i) regard others as morally responsible (when appropriate) and (ii) explicitly reject retribitivism. So it does not seem to me that moral responsibility can be defined just in terms of retributive practices."

I may be conflating retributivism and retributive practices here. I still tend to the think (for some of the reasons I've mentioned above) that the term moral responsibility is somewhat vague, and this vagueness helps motivate the free will problem. But maybe I am wrong.

[Eddy Nahmias]

Fritz and Mark, I was indeed referring to Mark's mild and sarcastic reference to experimental philosophy and my response was meant to be mild and sarcastic (and a bit affected too, since it is obvious that the thought experiment is related to the questions raised by possible results from experiments on folk intuitions--e.g., results that show that different cultures have different beliefs about free will or that the folk in our culture have intuitions less consistent with incompatibilist principles and concepts than is often taken to be the case.) But in all seriousness, I don't want this discussion to be about any potential empirical results but entirely about a seemingly possible but somewhat bizarre case. I promise to go back to Fritz's and other's questions to address some of them, but I can't right now.

[Kip Werking]

At the risk of a triple post (like others, I think the Garden could use a comment-edit function), let me elaborate on my response to Mark's suggested definition of moral responsibility:

"Moral responsibility is that which justifies retributive practices, such as praising and blaming, in response to an individual's actions."

The following helps explain the concern I tried to mentioned above: one who agrees with some variety of consequentialism can imagine situations in which people seem morally responsible and yet we are justified in not praising/blaming them, and situations in which people do not seem morally responsible, and yet we are justified in praising/blaming them. For example, terrorists might demand that we blame an innocent victim, or else they will start World War 3, so we are justified in blaming the victim.

If moral responsibility is defined just in terms of justifying the retributive practices of praise/blame, etc., then such scenarios should be incoherent, right? But they are coherent---perhaps because moral responsibility is a distinct concept from that of justifying praise and blame.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Kip,

One who affirms that "Moral responsibility is that which justifies retributive practices, such as praising and blaming, in response to an individual's actions" is certainly not required neither to retributively punish someone who is blameworthy nor to vote in favor of retributive punishment for criminals.

What I had in mind by the phrase "retributive practices" has more to do with what happens on an interpersonal level. It relates to our justification to end trust-relationships with friends and romantic partners, fire employees, and more generally to be deeply upset with one another for moral reasons. On the slip side, it also relates to our justification to enter into trust-relationships to form friendships and romantic relationships, extend trust and hire someone as an employee, and more generally to be deeply satisfied with one another for moral reasons.

For example, a society that finds people who commit certain acts to be blameworthy could, in addition to corporately shunning those individuals on moral grounds, elect to outlaw those activities for the society's greater good and to thereafter consequentially punish individuals who commit those acts. The society who accepts moral responsibility does not have to adopt a theory of retributive punishment.

Regardless, I agree that a softer version of the definition may be more generally amicable, such as, "Moral responsibility is that which justifies deep reactive attitudes (such as praising and blaming; loving and hating) in response to an individual's actions."

[Mark Smeltzer]

Kip,

In the case you mentioned involving the terrorists the acting agent would be certainly justified in blaming/punishing an innocent in order to save lives (who could blame the agent for that decision?), but we would still want to say that a grave injustice had occured, correct?

Moreover, it is hardly clear that we would actually be blaming/punishing these innocents as opposed to acting as if we were. All the terrorists threats in the world would not have sufficient power to make us actually believe that the innocent individual's actions merited our scorn/punishment, which means that our actions in response to such threats has be consequentially motivated.

I believe the converse is equally true. If someone's actions cause us to desire to praise them yet we recognize the validity of consequential reasons *not* to praise them, we cannot force ourselves to believe that they are not praiseworthy on the basis of those consequential reasons. Certainly, we could act as if we didn't believe that they were praiseworthy if the situation required, but we would still believe it regardless of the consequences.

The justification for retributive practices are certainly more demanding that for consequential practices... specifically it demands that our beliefs about another's moral character are both warranted and true. But, now we have crossed over into the business of discussing what satisfies the given definition.

[Eddy Nahmias]

OK, here are some attempted answers to Fritz's points (but how about some other opinions? At a minimum, can't a few more people chime in to say (a) this thought experiment is stupid, Eddy (perhaps Fritz has demonstrated this, but do others agree?), (b) Kip's approach is the right incompatibilist response (contra Fritz and in line with my suggested #2), (c) something like my approach #3 is the right response (this seems to be Fritz's approach), (d) this is a good argument for compatibilism, (e) none of the above?? What should skeptics say about these seemingly delusional people in this seemingly bizarre culture??)

Remember a blog that makes no sound falls in an empty forest.

Fritz says, "I don't think there is a "reverse situation" that should worry compatibilists" but he says it's because "compatibilists should say the same sort of bland things I say about your case." I think, instead, that there is no reverse situation because there would be no deep (philosophical) conflict if this sort of "compatibilist culture" came across an incompatibilist one. They can much more easily say that the incompatibilist culture just has some extra beliefs about freedom and responsibility, beliefs the compatibilist culture takes to be coherent but not necessary or required. They certainly don't have to see the incompatibilists as have self-contradictory beliefs or practices (it's more like they have extra, harmless beliefs, not that they have inconsistent beliefs). And so they don't see a philosophical issue here. [Regarding what they would say to a skeptic culture, I'm not sure.]

They (or their philosophers) might say, "That's interesting. You believe in a more demanding sort of freedom to justify your practices and attitudes regarding moral responsibility. There's nothing wrong with your beliefs, e.g., that you can't be responsible if you are not responsible for some of the antecedent causes of your choices or that freedom requires indeterminism. But we don't see why you need such beliefs to justify your practices and attitudes nor why such beliefs are entailed by your practices and attitudes. We have basically the exact same practices and attitudes and we explicitly do not have those beliefs. And [in the past or now that you raise them] we just don't see any conflict between our rejection of these--what do you call them?--"incompatibilist principles" and "libertarian conceptions" and the way we feel, think, and act towards each other. There's nothing wrong with wanting a "beefed-up" sort of control (or a seemingly impossible sort of self-creation!), but what logical error are we making in thinking such control (or self-creation) is not necessary for us to be legitimately praised and blamed for our actions? Maybe we're using the word 'free will' (control, etc.) differently than you, though it sure seems like we're not doing anything significantly different."

"And, by the way," he would add, "since determinism is true [remember this belief is part of their commonsense], I'm afraid that you don't have the sort of freedom you think is necessary for responsibility. Do you mind if we observe what happens to you as you internalize our deterministic beliefs?"

[OK, I was going to write more, especially about why the different culture case is different than the bickering philosophers case (perhaps I've addressed it a bit above?), but I have to get back to work, so I'll think more about Fritz's and others' questions later.]