What is incompatibilism?

Things have been a bit quiet here at the Garden, so I figured it was time for me to see if I could get another “chippy” discussion going. And, though it isn’t yet Friday (and thus time for a polemical post) I’m heading out of town tomorrow so it feels like Friday to me . . . .

Here’s the issue on my mind: how should we characterize incompatibilism? Before you start laughing at me for not knowing what anything important in the free will debate means, bear with me for a moment.

First, a point of clarification. As Joe noted before about compatibilism, it may be useful to distinguish between incompatibilism about free will (and determinism or the causal order, or what have you) and incompatibilism about moral responsibility (and determinism or the causal order, or what have you). For many of us, these things are inseparably linked (especially if you think that free will is the freedom condition on moral responsibility- call us the “lumpers”), but there are folks who think that free will raises concerns that are distinct from concerns about moral responsibility, and that as such, it is at least misleading to construe it solely in terms of the freedom condition on moral responsibility (call these folks “splitters”). So, when we talk about incompatibilism it may be useful to specify incompatibilism about what, to avoid confusion between the splitters and the lumpers. No real news here, but this is simply warm-up for the next point.

Now for the real point: There are some folks out there who sure look to me like incompatibilists about free will and moral responsibility, but say that they aren’t. I have in mind our own Saul Smilansky, as well as Ted Honderich (though the latter’s non-cognitivism about these things may give the issue a slightly different spin). As I understand things, they reject the label of ‘incompatibilist’ because they think that some aspects or senses of responsibility are compatible with (the truth of the thesis of, or knowledge of the truth of the thesis of) determinism. But, as I think about these things, incompatibilism about free will and determinism is the view that at least some significant aspect or sense of moral responsibility is incompatible with determinism (I’m a lumper, you see). And, I take it that if you agree with this much, then you are also likely to think that strictly speaking, moral responsibility in the fullest sense is one that is incompatible with determinism— even if some aspects of our practices, attitudes, and responsibility-characteristic beliefs are compatible with determinism. This last point, the one after the hyphen, has been made by a number of people (Bob Kane springs to mind, though I am sure other folks have made it, too). That is, the incompatibilist about free will doesn’t have to hold that NO aspect of responsibility (or if you prefer, our responsibility-characteristic practices, attitudes, and beliefs) are compatible with determinism. The incompatibilist simply thinks that some significant aspect of responsibility is incompatible with determinism. I take it that thanks to Bob and others, this is the sort of thing most of us are willing to grant to our incompatibilist friends. But this also makes the “I’m not an incompatibilist” line taken by Smilansky and Honderich-style positions seem puzzling— by my lights they are incompatibilists. So, what am I missing?

Perhaps what is going on is that I have an idiosyncratic conception of incompatibilism. Maybe I’m not thinking about incompatibilism in the standard way, and that on the standard conception of these things, Smilansky and Honderich are right that they are not incompatibilists. What do you think? How do you think about incompatibilism? How should we should characterize it? Do Smilansky and Honderich-style views count as incompatibilist by your lights? (And Saul, have I mischaracterized your position on these issues? These comments are based on a foggy dinner conversation we had a few years ago!)

This is one issue on which reports by philosophers would tell us something about a concept we are interested in— experimental philosophers, study thyselves!

A couple of further thoughts about some of the above issues: (i) One could think that some aspect or sense of responsibility is incompatible with determinism, but think that it is a relatively minor or unimportant aspect. A lot would depend on whether everyone agreed about the unimportance or minor significance of the thing that was deemed incompatible. But assuming that we did agree that the aspect of responsibility that was incompatible was pretty minor, I think we start to bump up against the borders of the concept of incompatibilism. The view under consideration would seem to have a more legitimate claim to being a kind of compatibilism than anything else. (ii) It also can be helpful to distinguish between, on the one hand, incompatibilism between the concept (or practices or attitudes) and determinism and on the other, incompatibilism about the property of responsibility and determinism. (Shameless self-promotion moment: This difference is one route to revisionism of the sort I favor- I say more about this in a forthcoming article “The Revisionist’s Guide to Responsibility,” available on the papers on agency blog.) So, even if you are an incompatibilist about our concept of responsibility, you might be a compatibilist about the property, about the characteristic practices, etc. But I don’t think this is what Smilansky and Honderich are up to.

What hangs on this? In one sense, not much. We’re just talking about labels. However, to the extent that our labels help us sort the ideas and keep track of what people are arguing about, it is good to keep them clear.

Comments

[Tamler Sommers]

How's this? An incompatibilist is someone who believes that strong accountability (SA) is incompatible with determinism.

What's strong accountability? "For an agent to be strongly accountable for an action is for it to belong to the agent in such a way that she would deserve blame if the action were morally wrong, and she would deserve credit or perhaps praise if it were morally exemplary. The desert at issue here is basic in the sense that the agent, to be strongly accountable, would deserve the blame or credit just by virtue of having performed the action, and not, for example, by way of consequentialist considerations." (from a Pereboom essay, but the term is Watson's)

There's not much point in calling yourself a compatibilist if you argue for weaker forms of responsibility, because everyone agrees with you (incompatibilists included). As I've said before, the substantive disagreements seem to center on the existence of SA. I guess there's a dispute over the existence of alternate possibilities, but this only seems important if it affects an agent's SA. If it doesn't--let's suppose there are alternate possibilities, but only because the world is fundamentally indeterministic (dogs have alternate possibilities in the same sense as we do)--then again, there doesn't seem to be much to argue about.

So that's my suggestion: it all hangs on whether you think that strong accountability is compatible with determinism (or indeterminism for that matter).

I should say that it's late and the Red Sox somehow just found a new way to break my heart, kick me in the stomach, rip out my insides, and make me wish I had grown up in British Columbia.

[Fritz]

I'm puzzled by the claim that

"it may be useful to distinguish between incompatibilism about free will (and determinism or the causal order, or what have you) and incompatibilism about moral responsibility (and determinism or the causal order, or what have you)"

Joe isn't the only one to insist on this separation of issues -- John M. Fischer has and I have and so have many others. Why do we insist on this? Well, the issue of whether determinism is compatible with freedom is equivalent to the issue of whether determinism is incompatible with moral responsibility *if and only if* (necessarily) freedom is *both* necessary and sufficient for moral responsibility. Even if what you call the lumper position is correct (I'm strongly inclined to think it is when expressed as the claim that there is an "intimate link" between freedom and moral responsibility) this stronger claim needed for the equivalence of the two compatibility issues does not follow. When most of us "lump" moral responsibility and freedom we do so by claiming or arguing, controversially of course, that freedom is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. That's a very intimate link. But that link doesn't get the other direction (that freedom is sufficient for moral responsibility) and I don't see how to argue for that -- nor have I seen others argue for it.

As to how to characterize "incompatibilism" -- I say, first pick the debate. Let's say that it's on the compatibility of determinism with moral responsibility. Then an incompatibilist holds that necessarily, any world with determinism is a world without moral responsibility. As I understand their positions (I don't claim to be an expert on either Smilansky or Hoderich however) you are right that both are incompatibilists. If their position is really that (as you say in your post)

"they reject the label of ‘incompatibilist’ because they think that some aspects or senses of responsibility are compatible with (the truth of the thesis of, or knowledge of the truth of the thesis of) determinism"

then depending on which disjunct we take they are either making a simple mistake or need to say more in order to be understood (perhaps they have - again, I'm not expert on their positions). If we take the "some *aspects* of responsibility are compatible" disjunct then they are making a simple logical error [this claim is perfectly consistent with incompatibilism]. If they mean the "some *senses* are compatible" reading we need to hear why they think that more than one "sense" of moral responsibility is relevant to this debate. Of course there are different views of moral responsibility in the literature but surely the standard view is that these are *competing* views of the same central notion (responsibility), not different "senses" of responsibility.

[Manuel]

Fritz-

Sorry about the delay in responding- I've been out of town and then got back and got sick. I didn't mean to suggest that other folks (you, John, etc.) hadn't also made the distinction between incompatibilism about free will/determinism and incompatibilism about moral responsibility/determinism. And, I agree that it would be a mistake to think that freedom is sufficient for moral responsibility. In fact, I take it that we agree on most, maybe all the contents of your comments. I was mainly interested in soliciting the reactions of other folks on the plausibility of Smilansky's and Honderich's denials that they are incompatibilists. Though I take it both have done some work to explain why the labels don't stick, I'm inclined to think that they are incompatibilists for reasons discussed in the post and comments thread.

[Fritz]

Yes Manuel, either they are incompatibilists or they (not us, unless we're badly mistaken) are using the label in a non-standard and not easy to figure out way.

Maybe they are trying to signal that they are not incompatibilists of a normal sort (that is, not hard determinists or libertarians) but if that's what's going on there would be better ways to signal it. One might occasionally encounter a similar problem with compatibilists who deny that we are free: they affirm that determinism doesn't preclude freedom but reject freedom still (for other reasons).

But non-standard overall positions don't change the applicability of the incompatibilist/compatibilist labels, or so it seems to me. But perhaps I misunderstand part of their overall positions.