Developmental Accounts

In an earlier post last week, Eddy made the following parenthetical insertion:

In a separate post I might argue that the way to get out of the silly infinite regress is to realize that moral responsibility (and desert and free will) is a graded concept and getting from none to just a little bit and then more and more doesn’t require some magical injection of agent-causal powers but the slow development of relevant psychological capacities.  The infinite regress dissolves into a Sorites paradox, and we all know that there are, in fact, heaps.

I've been waiting for him to make good on this promissory note.

For the past few years, I've been thinking that something along these lines is the right response to Strawson's Basic Argument and the like.  I know that in some of the ethics literature, folks attempt to give developmental accounts of how one can go from being a non-moral agent (such as a young child) to a moral agent (such as a normal functioning adult).  One example is Jonathon Jacob's work on habituation, and I'm sure there are other examples in other ethical traditions.  It seems to me that a response to the Basic Argument along the lines that Eddy suggests would be, in some ways, similar to these kinds of developmental accounts of moral agency in ethics or even developmental accounts in psychology.  Has anything like this been attempted in the moral responsibility/free will arenas?

Comments

[R. Clarke]

An idea of this sort is developed in ch. 5 of Al Mele's FREE WILL AND LUCK.

[Brian Parks]

Mark Bernstein makes a similar response to Strawson in,

"Can We Ever Be Really, Truly, Ultimately Free?", Midwest Studies in Philosophy 29: 1-12.

Personally, I find the response unpersuasive. It amounts to his saying,

"True, you can't pull yourself up by the bootstraps in one fell swoop, but you can do it in infinitesimally small increments, starting from birth."

No, you can't do that either ;-)

[Mike in MI]

"Developmental processes" presumably means a combination of physiological maturation and socialization to conform to the norms of one's society. Normal children in Afghanistan grow up into normal functioning adults who believe that killing one's sister is obligatory if she dishonors her family. Compatibilists' redefinitions of freedom and responsibility are hard enough to swallow -- are you now going to ask me to accept cultural relativism, too?

[Kevin Timpe]

Mike,

I don't see why thinking that one develops, over time rather than all at once, the capacities required for moral responsibility would entail (or even suggest) cultural relativism. Can you say why you seem to think it does?

Brian,

I wonder if you think the same about moral agency in general (rather than moral responsibility). I think, for example, that none of my son's actions are morally good or morally bad; after all, he's only one. But presumably some day, some of his actions will be morally good or morally bad, and thus he'll be a moral agent--even if he's not morally responsible for them.

[Brian Parks]

Kevin,

To be honest, I do not think that "moral goodness" and "moral badness" exist objectively outside of the mind, so I do not think that there is an answer to your question.

I would argue that moral properties are like colors--the mind 'adds' them in its perception of reality. It has evolved to add them not because they are "really there", but because they lead to individually and socially adaptive behaviors on the part of the organism.

[Mike in MI]

Kevin,

1. Morally responsible person = normal functioning adult, i.e., one who has undergone normal developmental processes (your assumption).

2. Normal functioning adults conform to societal norms.

3. Societal norms are culturally relative norms.

Therefore, morally responsible persons conform to culturally relative norms.

A libertarian could easily reject all three premises, and could accept a developmental account moral responsibility that was based on different assumptions. I guess a compatibilist could, too, but then the compatibilist would have to explain (a) why some cultures produce morally responsible people and others don't, and (b) how s/he knows which ones are which.

[Kevin Timpe]

Mike,

Even if I were to grant the truth of all the premises, the argument isn't quite valid at it stands. But even if it were, the truth of the conclusion doesn't entail the truth of cultural relativism, as per your earlier comment. So I'm still not seeing it.

[Robert Bauer]

Mike,

Following Kohlberg one could argue, solely based on empirical grounds, that the answer to b) is: There are different stages of morality / moral agency, which are developed in a fixed order. The order itself is independent from culture. There is an endpoint of this development. Higher development thus is better. The answer to a) is accordingly: Societies which have a lower frequency of higher developed individuals are different in certain aspects. This aspects are causes of different (lower) morally responsible people.

There is actually an abundance of literature on the philosophical and psychological aspects faced by such approaches, which might be fruitful to look upon.

[Mike in MI]

Kevin,
Ok, change the "are" in 3 to "=", and add the fact that culturally relative norms are mutually contradictory.

Robert,
And the highest stage of Kohlberg's theory is ...?

[Robert Bauer]

Mike

I feel a little bit concerned with presenting Kohlbergs stage theory in such a short manner, as it usually leads to misunderstandings. But here is your answer: The endpoint is stage 6: "Universal ethical principles" (He at some point added a seventh stage, but later dropped it and modern developmental psychologist use more and slightly different levels). Empirically more grounded as an endpoint is Stage 5, which is called "social contract".

But the point is not whether Kohlberg is right or wrong, but that there is no need to think of developmental aspects as necessarily leading to cultural relativism.

Besides that: Whats your argument for seeing cultural relativity identical with mutual contradictoriness? One could think of relativity as context-oriented translation of basic principles. Certain norms might thereforeonly appear to differ in different cultures.

[Mike in MI]

Robert,
Thank you for acknowledging that Kohlberg's theory is not simply derived from empirical observation (which raises problems for using Kohlberg as an answer to question b). Indeed, at the highest levels, it starts to sound more transcendental than empirical. Kohlberg's account of the highest stages supposes that the individual can eventually achieve autonomy, and choose to live by a set of principles that may or may not match those she was raised with. Again, a libertarian need have no problem with this, but it would seem to pose a problem for compatibilists (I guess they could simply redefine autonomy).

To say that cultural differences are only apparent is to deny cultural relativism. That might be a move that compatibilists could make in response to the claim I made in my first post. But one has to squint pretty hard to find the underlying universal ethical principle in some cases (Slavery? Female genital mutilation?).

[Robert Bauer]

Mike,

For b) No scientific theory is derived solely from empirical observation. The scientist doing so would make the error of induction (cf.Popper).

I think what you argue on is that even a - let´s call it - compatibilist developmental approach would need an ethical theory un-derived from empirical knowledge to attribute "true" morality/autonomy/goodness to a certain stage. If thats your opinion, i´d second you. But that does not forbid an (1) empirically oriented ethical theory nor (2) pure empirical research. To speak sensu (1) of the highest stage as the ethically mandatory stage, one has to add a bridging principle (cf. Russ) like: Highest empirical stage = ethical mandatory stage. Still, one could conceive the theory (and the notion of better) as solely empirical if he accepts to omit true ethical justification (2).

Besides: That certain culture-bound norms are mutually contradictory is no valid argument to say that all culture-bound norms are it.