Deny or Deflate?

A friend of mine has long thought that moral responsibility is incompatible with determinism. He recently became convinced that indeterminism is no more hospitable. Now he's not sure what to think.

Not surprisingly, my friend is loath to accept that he was wrong all along about responsibility and determinism. But he says he finds it hard to believe that no one's responsible for anything. At least, he says, he can't give up responding to people as though they're responsible--sometimes getting mad at someone, sometimes becoming indignant, sometimes thinking that someone's punishment is deserved.

My friend has heard of a philosophical approach according to which, to determine what, say, responsibility is, we collect the truisms about responsibility and then find the item in the world that best fits them (provided, of course, that something fits well enough). In this way, he's been told, we sometimes learn that things aren't what, in our armchair theorizing, we thought they were. My friend wonders whether, taking this approach, he ought to say that we are, after all, responsible, though perhaps responsibility isn't quite (maybe not even close to) what we thought it was. And he wonders whether, if this is what he should say, he should then say he's now a compatibilist, or instead say that his incompatibilism was, in a way, correct after all, or perhaps say neither of these things.

He's asked me for advise, but, frankly, I don't know what to tell him.

Comments

[James Gibson]

Here is a suggestion, though I am not sure how satisfied he will be with it: become an agnostic autonomist. There are very few people who adopt this description, and those that I know of who categorize themselves in this way are a bright group. It wouldn't be completely unreasonable, I think, given the difficult issues involved, to adopt this position.

[Al Mele]

I agree with James. How many people are in this bright group now, James? Two? BTW, Randy's friend is a good friend of mine.

Al Mele

[Rob]

If your friend came to believe that indeterminism is no more hospitable to moral responsibility than determinism, then in some way he probably recognizes the crippling centrality of self-causation to widely- and deeply-held notions of justice which inform the Western tradition. In other words, he has probably not (at least yet) been persuaded by compatibilism to suppress or in some other way ignore the relevance of questions of ultimacy to those of moral responsiblity. So, it seems to me that Professor Clarke can either recommend to his friend some more promisingly persuasive variety of compatibilism or he can direct him to Nietzsche's agenda of dwelling upon the developmental factors which have led us to this impasse.

[Eddy Nahmias]

I certainly like the idea of looking for the meaning of responsibility by gathering truisms about it (seeing how people use the concept and carry out the relevant practices). But then this sentence of Randy's confused me:
"My friend wonders whether, taking this approach, he ought to say that we are, after all, responsible, though perhaps responsibility isn't quite (maybe not even close to) what we thought it was."
Shouldn't the "we" in the last sentence be "he"? If we take this approach, what *we* thought responsibility was is what we think it is, right? Unless perhaps some aspect of our responsibility practices belies our beliefs about responsibility.

[James Gibson]

Al: including your friend under discussion, as far as I know, there are three. The other is my previous professor, David Ciocchi, though he describes his own agnosticism slightly differently than yourself. On his view, being an agnostic autonomist should only be a temporary position, sometimes a stepping stone from one position to another. However, this is how he described it three years ago to me and his agnosticism is still running strong.(!)

[Eddy Nahmias]

Perhaps some of the truisms we draw will come from our legal institutions and practices. Here's a quotation from a recent article (by Paul Rosenzweig) attacking zero-tolerance policies (e.g., students getting expelled for accidently bringing a tiny GI-Joe gun to school):
"Zero-tolerance policies mock the legacy of Anglo-American jurisprudence. As Roscoe Pound, a preeminent legal scholar of the 20th century, explained, 'Criminal law is based upon the theory of punishing the vicious will. It postulates a free agent confronted with a choice between doing right and doing wrong and choosing freely to do wrong.' Does anyone believe these children chose freely to do wrong?"

Now we're left with the question of whether our legal theory of freedom is committed to the idea of 'self-causation' that Rob mentions above, or whether having a 'vicious will' and 'choosing freely to do wrong' can be cashed out in compatibilist terms (and in a way that jibes with ordinary conceptions or truisms about responsibility).

[Tamler]

Here’s what I would tell him:

“Ok, wait. Before you go back and think “oh oh—I’ve come to the conclusion that robust moral responsibility (RMR) does not exist, I must have missed something,"--before you become an agnostic autonomist, or a sophisticated compatibilist of some kind, at least consider the possibility that the arguments against RMR are sound. And then ask: now what? What are the implications of this fact? Think deeply about this. You say you “can't give up responding to people as though they're responsible--sometimes getting mad at someone, sometimes becoming indignant, sometimes thinking that someone's punishment is deserved.” Ok, that’s natural. It’s adaptive probably, or at least it has been adaptive in ancenstral environments, where retributive attitudes were crucial for protecting mates, food sources, status etc, for discouraging cheating behavior, and for solving commitment and coordination problems. We can’t just eliminate those predispositions overnight. But success in this endeavor is not an all or nothing affair. It’s true we often get visceral feelings of resentment or indignation and these feelings may—I stress may—be an ineradicable part of human nature. But whether these feelings are nurtured, whether we allow them to guide our lives, thoughts, and behavior, is something over which we have more control. (No contradiction—we still wouldn’t be RMR for how or whether we did this.) We don’t have to think like the underground man and assume that the denial of free will or RMR leads to hysteria, dread, despair. It was not that way for Spinoza, the Stoics, the Buddha, Einstein, Darwin, or Diderot. All of these thinkers recognized that the commitment to RMR brings a lot of destructive baggage with it: petty resentments, jealousy, hatred, wounded pride, righteous indignation, anxiety, fear, bitter remorse, and at times an all-consuming need for revenge. Maybe we can never live a life entirely free from these emotions. But we can certainly take the edge of them, soften them, until gradually they become deemphasized. (The analogy of someone who slowly comes to believe that God does not exist might be helpful here. The life transformation doesn’t happen overnight, but it happens.) It’s undeniable that there will be times when it pays to live in accordance with what P.F. Strawson calls “the objective attitude.” And in any case there’s no reason not to further explore the implications of taking this attitude—of denying RMR—especially since you now believe it to be, at least theoretically, the correct attitude to take at all times.”

[Manuel]

Lots of interesting things in this thread . . . but what about Randy's original question?

I'm inclined to think that Randy's friend should call himself "a recovering incompatibilist" until he decides how to sort out the issue of how he thinks of his post-Canberra Plan notion of responsibility.

Whether the post-Canberra Plan friend of Randy is a compatibilist or not seems to turn on whether or not he now believes that we should call the post-Canberra Plan notion "responsibility" or "responsibility*." If he thinks it is responsibility, then he is a compatibilist. If he thinks it is responsibility*, then he is an incompatibilist.

As I've tried to argue elsewhere (in "The Revisionist's Guide to Responsibility" forthcoming in Phil Studies), there are both compatibilist and incompatibilist versions of the view that responsibility ain't exactly like we imagined it to be. This general family of views is what I call "revisionism" and, of course, I recommend it to everyone. Though sadly, the average level of brightness might not be as high as "agnostic autonomists."

[Chris Franklin]

Tamler: I wonder if you have quite understood the worry of Randy's friend (of course Randy could shed more light on this than I). Randy's friend is in a common position as one reflects philosophically on the issues at hand. When he states, "I can't give up responding to people as though they were responsible," I wonder if the force of this "can't" merely refers to the lack of ability. Maybe by "can't" he means that moral responsibility is an obvious fact of the world, and given this epistemic status, he does not believe it is something he can simply begin to deconstruct.

I found your comments about the "baggage" of RMR rather interesting. I might want to add to this list of baggage: adoration, love, mercy, peace, forgiveness, and all consuming desire to help mankind. The coin has two sides, both of which must be considered prior to judgment.

[Tamler]

Chris,

I can see how the denial of RMR might rule out certain aspects of gratitude (but only certain aspects). But in what way does the denial of RMR rule out adoration, love, mercy, peace, forgiveness, and all consuming desire to help mankind?

Take love. It seems like we love a lot of things and creatures that we don't believe are capable of being morally responsible. Nothing about the denial of RMR prevents us from recognizing, appreciating, cherishing the rich and wonderful qualities of another person.
As for forgiveness, well, in a certain sense, everyone is forgiven. And if you have an all-consuming desire to help mankind, I don't see why denying RMR will get in your way. A lot of people (me included) have a partly consuming desire to save animals on factory farms in America, and no one thinks that they have RMR.

Regarding your first question, can you or Randy's friend really say (undogmatically) that RMR is an obvious fact about the world? That we do things is obvious. But that we are deserving of praise or blame for what we do is not. Not to me, anyhow. The possibility that RMR is an illusion should at least be up for grabs, shouldn't it?

[Chris Franklin]

Tamler,

I suppose I must have misconstrued you comment concerning RMR. You mentioned that a virtue of a denial of RMR would result in mitigating of certain attitudes normally considered to be undesirable. My post meant to point that such a denial of RMR seems to effect our attitudes normally considered to be desirable if it effects the undesirable ones.

I cannot understand what is dogmatic about claiming that RMR is a fact about our world. If by dogmatic you mean "believes it to be undeniably true", then I find nothing wrong this domatic position. If by dogmatic you mean something along the lines of "affirms RMR without reason, or against reason," then I would challenge the claim.

First, I mean this humbly, but the fact that you do not take it to be obvious flies in the face of most the human race for most history. Of course this does not settle the matter, but it should indicate that it is plausible and not dogmatic to think that the many brilliant minds before us were taking about something when they spoke of RMR.

Second, there are many strong theories that are meant to explain how it is that we are responsible. Randy's friend, who might not be sure which theory is true, could still think it probable that one is true and adopt the position of an agnostic automonist.

[Tamler]

Chris, I don't think you misconstrued me. I was saying that denying RMR mitigates certain harmful attitudes. And I was disputing your claim that denying RMR would affect the positive attitudes you mentioned.

I take your point on the dogmatism claim. I would just say this. If you're an atheist, you believe that a lot of brilliant minds were talking about a non-existent thing when they were talking about God. The same goes for an RMR skeptic. The urge to believe in RMR is strong, no one denies that. I even think it's biologically rooted (As opposed to Nietzsche who thought it to be merely an aspect of slave morality.) Now Randy's friend--or is it "friend" I can't tell--seems to be a convinced incompatiblist, and in addition does not see how indeterminism can help. All that's left then is RMR skepticism, it seems to me. Given that, and given that a lot of brilliant minds (Spinoza, Diderot, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Darwin, Einstein etc.) have DENIED RMR, I think it is a bit dogmatic for him to assume that he went wrong somewhere, and fall back onto a position that affirms RMR. At the very least, I think the option to deny RMR should be a live one.

[Robert Allen]

Tamler,

I believe that anger, as opposed to our kinder, gentler emotions, is shortchanged in discussions of this sort. How could someone witness something like 9/11 without becoming very angry towards the perpetrators? To do so, I believe, would be to shed an important part of one’s humanity. Shouldn’t our real concern here be, as Aristotle and Freud thought, to make sure that the objects of one’s anger are appropriate and that they are suitably punished?

Regarding the kinder, gentler side of the reactive spectrum, Derk Pereboom attempts to describe a case in which a teacher fosters learning without thinking that she would deserve credit for her students’ accomplishments. I hope, however, that such selflessness does not become one of my job requirements, as I doubt that I could get myself to seek the Good sans the desire for praise. (You should have seen me about a month ago when I found out that my daughter would be playing in a softball tournament for which an all-star team was going to be selected.) Nor could I deeply love, let alone adore, an adult without thinking of him/her as praiseworthy (and hoping that he/she thought the same of me). More importantly, as the elder Prof. Strawson famously pointed out, I am not unusual in these respects. But your position is that recognition of this fact should not move philosophers to defend free will, belief in which is just a product of natural selection. My metaphilosophical reason for not agreeing with you is the principle that we owe more to those who depend upon the notion of free will to make their lives meaningful. (Actually, I was taught to resist all forms of skepticism out of deference to common sense.)

Or maybe you think that Professor Clarke’s friend should become an “illusionist,” ala Saul Smilansky? “Unillusioned” persons, as Prof. Smilansky maintains in his great book on the subject, could yet feign attributions of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness for the sake of the “Community of Responsibility.” One wonders, however, whether the proposed suspension of disbelief is feasible. It is hard enough to imagine someone completely abdicating the belief that persons are appropriate objects of the reactive attitudes, let alone someone acting as if persons are responsible while acknowledging (at least to himself) that hard determinism is true. My interest in free will is vastly deeper than my interest in sports (speaking of which, your Red Sox are going to regret trading Nomar). Some sage might be able to convince me that henceforth I should only act as if the latter were important. I can’t see myself being a hard determinist, on the other hand, while continuing to outwardly praise or blame others and myself.

[Tamler]

Robert,

A lot to respond to. I'll address the most important point first. We had to trade Nomar. He hated being in Boston. He was playing hard, as usual, but with absolutely no heart. He was poisoning the team morale, and most importantly, the infield defense was the worst I've ever seen--it was taking years off my life. We had to do something. He's a great hitter, I wish we could have gotten more for him--but something had to happen. (What really has to happen is for us to hire a semi-competent manager along with third base coach who's not completely insane, but that's another matter.)

On to your other points. I think you could keep your humanity by feeling enormous sorrow for the victims of 9/11, but not BLAMING anyone. You'd treat the incident like an earthquake. Do you try to root out Al Qaeda and kill Osama bin Laden? Absolutely. But you don't do it out of a conviction that they deserve to die or be punished. You do it to protect your country. (As for whether we could do this effectively without a deeply felt retributive impulse--I don't know. But I don't think that's an issue we have to face right now. The people in charge don't seem to be skeptics about moral responsibility.)

Second, do you really only seek the Good so you can be praised for it? I can't believe that. There are so many other good reasons to be kind, helpful, generous, and loving. I take your point about your daughter, but I'll say this: I just had one. She's 4 months old now. I love her more than anything, and I don't think she's praiseworthy for being what she is, for sleeping from 8 to 7:30 every night, and smiling and laughing all day. I think it's just a stroke of wonderful luck and I'm grateful for it. I don't see why that can't continue past the point where she's supposed to be morally responsible for who she is.

And as for love between two adults--I don't understand Strawson (elder), Ekstrom, Wolf, and I guess you. I don't understand why you have to think someone is praiseworthy to love them. I hesitate to bring up the analogy of love for one’s dog or cat, because then opponents will pounce and say “look—he’s comparing profound wondrous Keatsian love for another human being with the love we feel for a pet!” But the analogy can work Ok if we proceed carefully. Those of us who feel reciprocal love for our dogs form this deep bond without in any way viewing them as free or morally praiseworthy. We know that the dogs’ love for us is a result of our having cared for them, played with them, walked them, and fed them since they were puppies. Not only that, we know that dogs have been bred to form deep attachments with human beings—their loyalty and eagerness to please have been both artificially and naturally selected for. We know this, and we don’t care. We still love them, and we view their love for us as genuine.

But now the objection will come: But that’s love for a dog! How can you possibly compare it with the love of two rational mature adults? The answer is that the the two kinds of love are different, but this difference has nothing to do with free will and moral responsibility. The difference is that human beings have far more complex, maddening, and exciting ways of expressing and feeling love for one another. In saying that both human beings and dogs are not morally responsible, I'm not saying that human beings are just like dogs. The love I feel for my wife and daughter is deeper than my love for my dog, just like my love for my dog is deeper than my love for my TiVo (or like my love for TiVo is deeper than my love for my cat.) But it seems to me that nothing about love for human beings requires that we view them as free and morally responsible agents. Maybe I'm strange. Maybe my wife is strange. But we just don't have to think of one another as praiseworthy to love each other. We just have to know how good we are for each other.

So, finally, no. I don't think at all that Randy's friend or any of us should be illusionists. I don't think we need this belief in moral responsibility for the good of the community or to find life meaningful. (I do think we need a third base coach who doesn't send Dave Roberts down by one with no outs in the top of the ninth to get thrown out at the plate by twenty feet. With no outs. When a double play would tie the game if holds Roberts at third. No outs!)

[Rob]

I take one of Tamler's points to be that some of the resistance to envisioning the implications of "RMR skepticism" depends on overestimating the extent to which many of the reactive attitudes actually dependent upon belief in (or committment to) RMR. Nietzsche certainly seems to think that this is so and, moreover, that this overestimation hinders a more realistic -- that is, naturalistic -- understanding of our actual reactive attitudes. One way in which he seems to think that we can emancipate ourselves from our commitment to RMR is by the sort of encounter with the emotional economy of the past he stages in his "Genealogy of Morality" -- that is, before punitive practices became so heavily entangled with the ideology of RMR.

[Kip Werking]

Again, Tamler's posts make a good amount of sense to me. The one point I might take issue with is that that praise/blame (in all senses) are incompatible with denying RMR.

Honderich makes a point which I think does not get enough attention in the literature (Pereboom makes a similar claim, and the general idea goes back to the older Strawson and his distinction between objective and subjective senses of MR), that there are two motivations for punishment: utility and retribution, and if FW does not exist, then we need to get rid of the latter. This claim is what adds all of the drama to the free will controversy and makes free will denial revolutionary instead of trivial.

My point is that very often when considering these issues we have to distinguish between two senses of things, such as punishment for retribution/utility and punishment strictly for utility. These distinction have traditionally been drawn along the lines of compatibilist or incompatibilist (better would be compatible/incompatible with mechanism, not determinism) but the best way to draw the distinction is between those that require free will as described by Galen Strawson, and those that do not. I, for one, feel that no other account quite captures what motivated people such as Darwin, Einstein, Spinoza, etc -- no one ever denied that we have any of the varieties of freedom that compatibilists describe.

So if this is the best way to make these distinction, I think we can also distiguish between praise/blame' and praise/blame'', where the former involves GS-type free will and the latter does not. Rather, praise/blame'' is simply that praise and blame which can achieve goals or maximize utility, that has a consequentialist character, and makes no reference whatsoever to ultimacy or RMR.

Of course, the words "praise" and "blame" themselves, just like our traditional understanding of punishment, involves something like a mixture of these two meanings (or does it? this question needs more attention) but that should not stop us from using them in an appropriately qualified sense (my position on this is unlike my position on "free will", in which to say that a person has free will *just is* to say that he has GS-type fw). To claim that, because of GS' Basic Argument, a person should never say "I praise you for winning your Olympic medal", seems to me to ignore this consequentialist component of praise/blame.

[Tamler]

Kip, I think I agree with you entirely. I don't deny that there are aspects of blame and praise that survive the denial of free will and RMR. It's the concept of desert--the DESERVING of blame and praise (rather than just the assignment of them for pragmatic purposes) that seems threatened by a denial of GS style free will. I also thought that "praiseworthiness" and "blameworthiness" were incompatible with a denial of RMR, but I suppose you could look at them from a purely consequentialist perspective too. But this would require, as you say, a revolutionary overhaul of those concepts, since for now blameworthiness implies the appropriateness of a retributive attitude towards the blameworthy one. (I think it does, anyway. Does it?) And we seem to agree that if there is no such thing as GS style free will and RMR, then retributive attitudes are never appropriate.

[Robert Allen]

Rob,

I see that you didn’t take my advice regarding the unphilosophical Nietzsche. I’ll try again, though, this time being explicit: real philosophers don’t need a “naturalistic understanding” of free will, moral responsibility or anything else. That sort of thing is best left to the psychologists and evolutionary biologists. What philosophers need are sound arguments, in this case one to the effect that there could not be a factual basis for attributions of responsibility. Nietzsche produced no such thing; he was merely a very seductive writer. The Geneology of Morals- that’s what it was called in my day- is one long genetic fallacy, something on the order of Jews and the Christians resented being oppressed therefore their moral and religious beliefs are false.
I made this point to Prof. Brian Leiter during his appearance on the Philosophy Talk show. His response was that Nietzsche was “aware” of the genetic fallacy, as if being aware of a fallacy means that you cannot commit it. One of the show’s hosts, Prof. John Perry, then said that Nietzsche’s point was that sometimes it turns out that the motives of the proponents of a view turn out to be different than what had been thought, making their beliefs suspicious. So now the argument is: Jews and Christians sought power- just like everyone else-therefore …. This stuff is most unphilosophical.

[James Gibson]

Tamler,

You wrote to Chris Franklin: "...in what way does the denial of RMR rule out adoration, love, mercy, peace, forgiveness, and all consuming desire to help mankind?" And later in another post to Robert Allen (responding to his 9/11 case): "I think you could keep your humanity by feeling enormous sorrow for the victims of 9/11, but not BLAMING anyone. You'd treat the incident like an earthquake. Do you try to root out Al Qaeda and kill Osama bin Laden? Absolutely. But you don't do it out of a conviction that they deserve to die or be punished."

Perhaps I have misunderstood your position here, but if you think that RMR rules out justified blame, then I think Chris Franklin has a viable path to rule out mercy and forgiveness as well. As I reflect on cases of when others have been merciful to me, for example, their mercy is a particular response (attitude) toward me *in spite of* my *deserving* something else. And so it is similar with forgiveness. I don't understand what mercy amounts to without someone being a candidate for blame (where someone worthy of blame is a necessary condition). I'll stop short here since I'm not totally sure that I understand your position.

[Rob]

Robert,

If you should wish to disabuse yourself of your outdated underestimation of Nietzsche as a philosopher with substantively argued things to say about human nature, you could do no better than to read the Clark/Swenson annotated translation, and then "Nietzsche on Morality," Brian Leiter's magisterial book-length treatment of "The Genealogy of Morality," in which Leiter directly addresses the genetic fallacy issue, instead of dismissing Nietzsche on such inadequate grounds as a mere radio interview. And, if you don't have the patience to try to figure out in what relationship the content of Nietzsche's views should stand to their uncommon presentation, then, I reckon, you could settle for reading Bernard Williams' last three books, which are heavily informed by Nietzsche and which bring his thought into a perhaps more manageable contact with contemporary philosophical argumentative style.

Besides Leiter's book, here are some excellent essays which should put to rest your mistaken notion that Nietzsche's critique in "The Genealogy of Morality" is "one long genetic fallacy" and, I hope, convince you that his mature thought remains far from being fully plumbed:

"Slave morality, Socrates, and the bushmen: A Reading of the First Essay of On the Genealogy of Morals." Mark Migotti. Philosophy & Phenomenological Research. Dec98, Vol. 58 Issue 4, p745, 35p

"Nietzsche on Ressentiment and Valuation." Bernard Reginster. Philosophy & Phenomenological Research. Jun97, Vol. 57 Issue 2, p281, 25p

[Eddy Nahmias]

Some questions about "robust moral responsibility" (RMR) of the sort G. Strawson and others believe is (a) the target of philosophically interesting conceptions of free will; (b) the conception that ordinary people employ at least some of the time when they praise, blame, etc.; and (c) conceptually impossible or incoherent. As a compatibilist I of course reject (a) and, for various reasons, I question (b). Of course, as a sane person I accept (c) since RMR is pretty much defined in such a way that it is self-contradictory (more on this if anyone's interested). So here are the questions:

1) Suppose that (b) is correct in this sense: Westerners in the Judeo and (especially) Christian tradition have, perhaps under the influence of theologists and philosophers(!), come to see RMR as the only sort of free will that could justify eternal punishment or reward (Strawson puts it this way) and perhaps the only sort that could hope to answer the problem of evil. OK, the question then is how often and to what extent does *this* conception of free will influence people's (and societies') expression of reactive attitudes and praise/blame practices? An interesting test to answer this question might be to look at the practices (and concepts) of non-Western cultures. I disagree with Tamler that RMR arises under selection pressure to punish cheats in cooperative social interactions. A strong conception of personal responsibility might evolve but it need not be one that requires the idea of *eternal* damnation (as witnessed by the lack of that idea in many cultures). If RMR is divorced from the idea of justifying *eternal* damnation (and hence *infinite* control of a God-like sort), then I think the arguments for (c)--that it is impossible--are not going to work.

2) As informed by a conversation with Al Mele, does it make sense for people to want something they believe is impossible? If RMR is really impossible, and that is made evident to people, can they continue to want it? I'm inclined to say 'yes' but it is an interesting question.

[Tamler]

James,

Forgiveness and mercy, like gratitude, have multiple aspects. They have the aspect that you describe and, as you say, that aspect can’t survive the denial of RMR. But there is another sense of forgiveness which remains. It requires that we follow Richard Double’s advice and replace the question “Was S free in doing a?” with “Was a reflective of S’s character?” To forgive someone is to believe that the act to be forgiven was not an essential and ineradicable part of their character.So if a good friend betrays us in some way, and we believe that the act was out of character, we may forgive him. Why? Because we believe that the act does not reflect his character and that is he will likely not perform such acts again in the future. Pereboom in his book gives a good description of this feature of forgiveness. He writes:

"Suppose a friend has wronged you in a similar fashion a number of times, and you find yourself unhappy, angry, and resolved to loosen the ties of your relationship. Subsequently, however, he apologizes to you, which, consistent with hard incompatibilism, signifies his recognition of the wrongness of his behavior, his wish that he had not wronged you, and his genuine commitment to improvement. As a result, you change your mind and decide to continue the relationship."

In my view, the friend does not even have to recognize the “wrongness” of his action. He may simply express regret at having made you unhappy and angry, and resolve not to do it again. Our decision whether or not to “forgive” him, in this sense, will then depend on what kind of character we believe the friend to have. Is his regret sincere? And is he capable of refraining from performing the kind of action that make us unhappy? If we judge that he is, and we remain friends, then we have forgiven him. This is, I readily admit, a purely pragmatic view of forgiveness. It also sounds colder and more calculating that it is or needs to be.

I hope that clears things up about my position. But please let me know if it doesn’t.

(This might be a good time to confess that some of what I’m posting on this site comes out of my dissertation. So thanks for raising objections, everyone. I’ll soon be facing some of these questions under more formal circumstances.)

[Tamler]

Eddy,

A quick point of clarification. One point of disagreement between me and Galen is on this heaven/hell story. I think it's an unhelpful way of getting at the type of RMR that we're speaking about, for a lot of the reasons you and others mention. When I use the term RMR I'm refering to the idea that one can be deserving of praise, blame, and perhaps punishment (but not eternal punishment). It's a kind of RMR that makes resentment appropriate under some conditions. And I still maintain that this less dramatic form of RMR cannot be justified. (As does Galen, I'm pretty certain.)

[Tamler]

Robert,

While I think it's best to stay out of your dispute with Rob, I would like to respond to one point. If you're defending an error theory of free will and RMR, as I am, then providing naturalistic account of why we make the error--why we believe in RMR--would be quite helpful, if not essential.

Why can't "real philosophers" refer to work in other disciplines as a means of defending premises in their arguments?

[Rob]

"...if there is no such thing as GS style free will and RMR, then retributive attitudes are never appropriate." (Tamler, above)

One reason why I keep bringing up Nietzsche is that while he also certainly holds that "there is no such thing as GS style free will and RMR," in his mature (post-"Daybreak") work he doesn't seem to accept that retributive attitudes are therefore never appropriate -- because he doesn't hold that such attitudes are in fact as dependent upon commitment to "GS style free will and RMR" in the first place.

"...punishment as *retribution* developed completely apart from any presupposition concerning freedom or lack of freedom of the will [...] and to such a degree that in fact a *high* level of humanization is always necessary before the animal 'man' can begin to make those much more primitive distinctions 'intential,' 'negligent,' 'accidental,' 'accountable,' and their opposites, and to take them into account when measuring out punishment. The thought, now so cheap and apparently so natural, so unavoidable, a thought that has even had to serve as an explanation of how the feeling of justice came into being at all on earth -- 'the criminal has earned his punishment *because* he could have acted otherwise' -- is in fact a sophisticated form of human judging and inferring that was attained extremely late; whoever shifts it to the beginnings lays a hand on the psychology of older humanity in a particularly crude manner." (GM 2.4)

[Rob]

Apropos Tamler's commentary on forgiveness:

In her "Pride, Shame, and Guilt: Emotions of Self-Assessment" (Oxford, 1985) Gabriele Taylor raises the question as to whether one can be forgiven without having expressed contrition, and (if I recall correctly) suggests that contrition is a necessary condition of forgiveness and that without contrition there can only be condoning. One difference, then, between forgiveness and what could be referred to as condoning is that forgiveness involves a shared attitude towards the future, whereas the attitude towards the future of the one condoning is confined to the one condoning. To feel contrite, of course, requires, among other things, that one apprehends oneself somehow as an agent.

[Tamler]

Eddy,

Regarding (2), the answer is an unqualified yes, made evident by the fact that I want the Red Sox to win the world series this year.

[Dan Speak]

All of this is very interesting. But the real question seems to me to have been missed; namely, are we going to let Randy get away with his "a friend of mine" reference? This "friend" is also a friend of Al's? Come on... we know you are talking about yourself, Randy!

[Dan Speak]

All of this is very interesting. But the real question seems to me to have been missed; namely, are we going to let Randy get away with his "a friend of mine" reference? This "friend" is also a friend of Al's? Come on... we know you are talking about yourself, Randy!

[Robert Allen]

Thank you Rob, I'll check those out.

[Robert Allen]

Tamler,

I like anthropology just as much as the next guy. But, were I convinced that free will did not exist, it would make no difference to me as a philosopher how human beings came to believe that it did. I'll have nothing more to say re. this issue, however, until I've completed Rob's assignment.

[Chris Franklin]

Tamler,

I believe James and my point is that the denial of RMR entails a denial of the appropriateness of *those* very aspects of forgiveness and adoration, etc., that you conceded. So, in a certain manner we agree.

I think there is somthing to Rob's point about contrition being a necessary condition of forgiveness. It seems that the case you employ, one agent causing another to be unhappy (say, by being latge for a date), importantly differs from a case where one agent murders and rapes the spouse of another agent. Your view (correct me) would support the the following reaction once the muderer asks for forgivess on the part of murdered victims spouse: 1) "I forgive you for killing my spouse because it was not an action that "fits" with your character," or 2) "I forgive you for making me unhappy or angry." The fact that a denial of RMR only allows for such a response *is* my worry.

I am interested to hear what you think

[Tamler]

Robert,

My point was that an account of why we erroreously believe in free will and RMR will be an important part of the argument which convinces you free will and RMR do not exist.

Chris,

The rape and murder of wife/daughter issue is a tough one for me. To answer our question directly, I don't think I could, or would want to, forgive (in my sense) anyone who did anything like that. But more troubling for my position is this: I feel like it would wrong somehow if I didn't want to kill the guy and make him suffer for what he did. And yet I'm committed to the view that he is not RMR for what he did (because no one is RMR for anything.) I'm particular sensitive to this issue since my daughter Eliza was born. I taught a seminar on moral responsibility at Duke this spring, and I ended with a discussion on this very topic. I feel like I can live more or less consistently with my denial of RMR except on an issue like this one. Now I know that this kind of retributive instinct is a deeply ingrained one. Fathers who didn't feel violently protective of their wives and children probably didn't pass on many copies of their genes. But knowing this doesn't make me want to reject this impulse, as it does in other cases. On the contrary, I feel like I'd be betraying them if I made my actions consistent with my theory.

But does my inability to be consistent on this one point count as evidence against skepticism about RMR? I don't know.

[Joe]

Tamler,

I’d say that your reflections about cases involving your wife and child make it clear how difficult it is to live with the consequences of your philosophical view. Here are, I think two other difficulties:

1) You write: “It’s true we often get visceral feelings of resentment or indignation and these feelings may—I stress may—be an ineradicable part of human nature. But whether these feelings are nurtured, whether we allow them to guide our lives, thoughts, and behavior, is something over which we have more control.”

Why isn’t the kind of control noted above also undermined by Strawson’s argument? Or to put the question another way, in as much as we have control over whether certain feelings “guide our lives, thoughts, and behavior” why isn’t this kind of control enough to support a theory of moral responsibility?

2) There are serious problems with a purely utilitarian theory of punishment. If this theory were correct, we would be justified in punishing those who are LIKELY to commit crimes, regardless of whether they actually committed a crime yet or not. That someone has committed a crime is only relevant so long as this information can be taken to be an indication that he is likely to commit a crime again. In the cases of crimes that are unlikely to be repeated, there is on basis for punishment at all.

[Kip Werking]

Tamler,

I strongly agree that an account of why people make the mistake of desiring GS-type fw (and like Pereboom, I would resist the claim that desirability is a necessary condition for any true definition of fw) would be extremely helpful. If you want such an account, I suggest at least three:

1. Laziness. Believing that an agent accounts for, or is ultimately responsible for, all events in hir life is *metabolically inexpensive*. Contrast "you, as a self-caused agent chose to shoot those children at Columbine, and your genetics and environment are, in the end, irrelevant" with "a complex myriad of causes and events, tracing back before your birth, which I cannot understand nor alter, made you the way you are, and dealing with these causes earlier would have been *just* as good as dealing with you later." The latter doesn't work -- at least not for cavemen. Notice all of the CNC controllers and (as I would point out) *meta-controllers* within the literature that are relatively futuristic. These involve brain manipulations and moral-pills that were simply unavailable in the ancestral environment. If you wanted a person to stop doing something in the past, your best option was to deal with the person as an agent and let the chain of explanation end with the person hirself. So belief in free will was a useful heuristic but ultimately false. Trying to appreciate or understand the more complex situation would have cost more effort without any reward. Indeed, this is, at least partially, why psychologists find that humans so often commit the Fundmantal Attribution Error (which, it seems to me, is intimately related to the free will controversy).

2. Insecurity. At the risk of being elitist and arrogant, the vast majority of the world's population can, when feeling defensive, claim to believe some pretty ridiculous things. Indeed, I think Galen underemphasizes the extent to which non-acemedics *do* deny that the Basic Argument, for what its worth, works. Strawson gives the impression that most everyone recognizes the argument as cogent, but trivial -- not so. Imagine a dialogue similar to the following: "Did you choose and are you responsible for X1? Yes. Well, your choosing X1 was a consequence of motivations and beliefs X2, did you choose and are you responsible for these too? Yes." And so on. (Even if satisfying this is ultimately impossible, it is has the appearance that, were it possible, one would have perfect control over their lives.) I have had this conversation with many people, including friends and family members. Most people are loathe to deny that anything whatsoever is outside of their control. It is a natural human inclination to control and have power -- more power and control are adaptive and can prevent harm. At some point, the person might switch from the "responsible for infinite causes" approach to the (superficially more plausible) "my heredity and environment are ultimately irrelevant to what I do right now" approach but both are patently wrong.

3. Cruelty and habit. Given that Strawson's Basic Argument works, it requires a revolution in, at least our cerebral moral philosophy and conception of the world, if not our legal practices. As Honderich, Pereboom and others here note, retribution dies with free will. But many people have a vested interest in retribution. It's comfortable, familiar, one could even speculate that it affords more opportunity for punishing others. A retributivist theory of punishment conflicts with a future of perfect predictors, brain surgeons, and moral pills, where punishment, as opposed to therapy, is unnecessary. Many people find such a future quite disturbing -- they want to keep the world where criminals suffer for their crimes. In this sense, a belief in free will is a sort of ethical Luddism.

In answer to Eddy's question:

"2) As informed by a conversation with Al Mele, does it make sense for people to want something they believe is impossible? If RMR is really impossible, and that is made evident to people, can they continue to want it? I'm inclined to say 'yes' but it is an interesting question."

Sure. I hope that the above gives a sketch for why people might want to possess GS-type free will. As an analogy, many atheists have argued that the notion of God is logically impossible in many, many ways, and yet people continue to believe in a being possessing these mutually exclusive attributes (often without appreciating the consequences of their premises). Pereboom reminds us that the FWD remains the most popular response to the Problem of Evil.

[Kip Werking]

One more post in response to Joe. You write:

"2) There are serious problems with a purely utilitarian theory of punishment. If this theory were correct, we would be justified in punishing those who are LIKELY to commit crimes, regardless of whether they actually committed a crime yet or not. That someone has committed a crime is only relevant so long as this information can be taken to be an indication that he is likely to commit a crime again."

First of all, I would resist the term "utilitarian" because utilitarianism, strictly defined, has many problems in my opinion. In particular, utilitarianism values others as equals to myself -- I don't. So I use the term consequentialist, meaning that punishment must simply be done with respect to accomplishing future goals, and the past is only relevant to the extent that it might convey information about the future (such as that criminals are likely to repeat).

Second of all, I found your last sentence very telling:

"In the cases of crimes that are unlikely to be repeated, there is on basis for punishment at all."

You write this as if it would be such a horrible thing! Of course, we must be strict with our premises. Imagine that we had a magical orb that told us with certainty that punishment had no deterrent effect whatsoever on the criminal (or any other criminal) -- it just satisfied our natural lust for revenge. In other words, if we know for sure that punishment is done just with respect to the past, ought we to still hurt these criminals? I understand that many people find this prospect disturbing -- that is the same feeling that Southern slave-owners had for the Emancipation Proclamation.

[Joe]

Kip,

It strikes me that a necessary condition for someone's deserving punishment is that one actually did something wrong. But if we accept your consequentialist view of punishment, there is no basis for this condition. That you are justified in punishing some people who do not commit crimes and not justified in punishing some who do commit crimes--indeed, that the question of commission is more or less irrelevant to considerations of punishment--seems absurd.

Also, you make it seem as if your consequentialist view of punishment is more humane than other views but there is no basis for this belief either. Doesn’t it follow from your view that if torture helps us to accomplish our future goals, then it is a permissible form of punishment?

Your ad hominem attack is especially humorous since, on your view, slave-owners are not blameworthy for their actions.

[Joe]

Kip,

It strikes me that a necessary condition for someone's deserving punishment is that one actually did something wrong. But if we accept your consequentialist view of punishment, there is no basis for this condition. That you are justified in punishing some people who do not commit crimes and not justified in punishing some who do commit crimes--indeed, that the question of commission is more or less irrelevant to considerations of punishment--seems absurd.

Also, you make it seem as if your consequentialist view of punishment is more humane than other views but there is no basis for this belief either. Doesn’t it follow from your view that if torture helps us to accomplish our future goals, then it is a permissible form of punishment?

Your ad hominem attack is especially humorous since, on your view, slave-owners are not blameworthy for their actions.

[Tamler]

Joe,

Regarding your earlier post, I have two responses, one satisfactory (I think), one not so satisfactory.

(1) I don't think THAT kind of control is undermined by Strawson's argument, because it's not a kind of control that makes me deserving of blame or praise for how I excercize it. The extent to which I'm able to prevent visceral feelings of resentment from guiding my actions is ultimately a matter of luck--a result of an enormous confluence of factors: my temperament, self-discipline--my character, in other words-- as well as who I hang out with, and all the external circumstances that lead me to have that feeling of resentment. I'm RMR for none of those factors and so not RMR for the degree to which I excercize that control. But the control still can be excercised.

I agree that that kind of control is sufficient to support a theory of moral responsibility, but not one that can justify non-consequentialist assignments of blame and praise. And that's the only kind of responsibility that I want to deny. Everyone (skeptics included) agrees that we have 'take-charge responsibility' or weak accountability--the kind of responsibility that allows us to plan our lives to some degree. We're just not deserving of blame or praise for how we do it.

(2) The perhaps unsatisfactory reply. I don't worry so much about what would happen if my position gained widespread acceptance. Because I think that it'll never happen, not for the forseeable future anyhow. Powerful biological and cultural forces are at work urging us to be RMR realists. (This was Darwin's view, by the way. He thought that only people who could come to the view would know how to deal with it properly.) With all of these articles coming out in all sorts of popular magazines, however, now I'm not so sure. Still, imagine a politician in America running a "No Moral Responsibility" platform. He would lose to Kucinich in a landslide. In any case, the more imminent issue seem to me to be how an INDIVIDUAL would live his or her life according to this new belief (no RMR) in a world that is pretty much the same as it is now.

That said, I do think there are replies to your objection to utilitarian theories of punishment. There are many counterintuitive features, I admit, but on balance, I think it results in a more compassionate system than the one in place now. (And it would have the added bonus of being founded on justifiable principles.) But I'm afraid we'll never know for sure.

[Tamler]

Kip,

Just a quick point of clarification. What I want is an account of why we (mistakenly) DO believe in RMR, not why we mistakenly WANT to believe in RMR. That's a useful component of an error theory of anything--an explanation for why we make the error. (Many of your points address this question as well.) Like you and Pereboom, I think perhaps too much attention is focused on the varieties of free will worth wanting, rather than on the varieties of free will we actually have.

But another of my projects, as everyone can see, is to show that RMR skepticism is a position that we can accept cheerfully, or at any rate without dread and despair.

[Kip Werking]

Joe,

In response to your first remark: there are two strategies one might take here (and I feel comfortable with both of them). One could simply "bite the bullet" and deny that "wrongdoing" is a necessary condition of punishment. Even better, however, would be to emphasize that punishment, or what has the appearance of punishment, does not really deserve the name, so long as it lacks this retributivist element. Instead, "punishment" should be regarded a sort of therapy or medicine. From this perspective, there is no more reason to think that wrongdoing is a necessary condition of "punishment" than there is to think a cancer patient must have done something wrong in order to receive chemotherapy.

In response to your second comment:

"Also, you make it seem as if your consequentialist view of punishment is more humane than other views but there is no basis for this belief either. Doesn’t it follow from your view that if torture helps us to accomplish our future goals, then it is a permissible form of punishment?"

Of course! The reason your comment might sound compelling, I suspect, is that you are questioning the content of a consequentialist's goals and not the way in which he/she approaches these goals. Of course, I might maintain that torturing people is good for its own sake, and there is not much you could do to refute me. But I am not committing myself to these or any other values, so attacking them would be to miss the point of my argument. Obviously, all or most goals are not valuable enough to warrant torturing a person. I can imagine, however, some such goals: I might be willing to torture a person to prevent thermonuclear war. So long as we remember that the contents of these goals can be reasonable, consequentialism will lose its appearance of absurdity.

Finally, I would deny that my comment is an ad hominem attack (what do the others here think?). If it was, I apologize -- I surely want to continue this enjoyable discussion in a civil tone. I do not think the comment was ad hominem, however, because it did not refer to any specific person (surely not yourself, Joe) but rather an abstract group of people. It was intended as a counterexample to the logical idea that "whatever feels disturbing or makes me nervous must be wrong." If anything, it might commit the fallacy of "guilt by association" but I did not intend to assert that such conclusions are always wrong, simply that they can be.

[James Gibson]

Kip,

You wrote: 'One could simply "bite the bullet" and deny that "wrongdoing" is a necessary condition of punishment. Even better, however, would be to emphasize that punishment, or what has the appearance of punishment, does not really deserve the name, so long as it lacks this retributivist element. Instead, "punishment" should be regarded a sort of therapy or medicine.'

I fail to see how this is better given that it appears *your* account of "punishment" is not worthy of the name. On Joe's view, I think, he can maintain that there is a clear difference between *punishment* and *rehabilitiation*. In order to deflate RMR while retaining some sense of social responsibility, you've conflated two really distinct concepts. Surely, a confused distinction in play at the basis of our linguistic use of "punishment" can hardly be better than an account that attempts to get the concepts right.

[Joe]

Tamler,

Thank you very much for both responses. Strange enough, though, I actually found the SECOND one to be more satisfactory than the first one!

As for the second response, I think that James has raised some interesting concerns above. I would only add that the pessimist is in no position to criticize the compatibilist for revisionist notions of ‘free will’ given the work-over that the concept of ‘punishment’ gets on this view. (This is a follow up to some points that Eddy first made in the Against Retribution posting.) Lastly, as I indicated above, I’m not convinced that the consequentialist view of punishment IS more compassionate than other views.

As for your first response, consider this short version of a Strawsonian-type argument for pessimism:

(1) In order to be truly responsible for one’s actions, one must have chosen to be the way one is.
(2) No one can choose to be the way one is, for this requires the actual completion of an infinite regress of choices of principles of choice (which is impossible).
(3) Therefore, no one can be truly responsible for one’s actions.

The challenge is to accept this argument without also accepting the following argument:

(1') In order for one to have genuine control over one’s feelings of resentment or indignation, and in order for one to control whether or not these feelings guide one’s thoughts and behavior, one must have chosen to be the way one is. (Otherwise it is not the agent who is really controlling the feelings. Rather, the feelings are merely the byproduct of forces beyond the agent’s control.)
(2) No one can choose to be the way one is for this requires the actual completion of an infinite regress of choices of principles of choice (which is impossible).
(3) Therefore, no one can be truly responsible for one’s actions.

The challenge is to accept (1) yet deny (1') and I don’t see how this can be done. Actually, matters are even worse for the pessimist since even if he did provide a viable concept of ‘control’ in an effort to deny (1')—one that would allow us to think that our feelings of resentment and indignation were genuinely up to us instead of merely being handed to us by outside forces—then I don’t see why this same notion can’t be co-opted by a compatibilist like myself and used to build a theory of moral freedom that gets around the first argument. (This last point, too, is supportive of Eddy’s comments in the Against Retribution posting.) I know that you said that such a view of control would only support a consequentialist view of punishment but I’m not sure why this is so.

In any event, I think that your project is interesting and I thank you for your comments!

Kip,

I did think that your comment was a form of guilt by association and not a personal attack. I classify guilt by association as a kind of ad hominem argument: circumstantial ad hominem as opposed to abusive ad hominem. I was just noting that, coming from a pessimist, GUILT by association seems to lose a lot of its bite. (Come to think of it, I wish I had put the point this way to begin with! It is pretty funny, huh?)

[Kip Werking]

Joe,

If I might push this punishment=medicine idea further, one can see why I can dislike slave-owners even though I do not blame them. I dislike slave-owners in the same way that I dislike cancer. I do not think this particular situation was funny, however I can imagine others that would be. For example, if a free will denier proclaimed: "You might feel like using the death penalty against murderers, but then you would be just as much to blame as Nero!" That would be funny.

[Joe]

Kip,

Well, I think that my joke was funnier than your joke but perhaps that is just a matter of personal taste.

As to the more substantive points, I too dislike cancer and slave-owners but notice that you never mentioned a dislike for cancer victims. Clearly there is something wrong with this attitude. Yet if we press your analogy further why shouldn't we be driven to this conclusion? Why a dislike for slave-owners but not for people with other 'diseases'? And, more importantly, how is it that dislike is a more suitable or appropriate or humane attitude than blame?

I admit that these rhetorical questions do not alone make for a strong case against the consequentialist theory of punishment. But that is not my purpose. The point is to illustrate that the pessimist is no better off than the compatibilist when it comes to preserving our common sense intuitions about matters concerning free will and moral responsibility.

[Daniel Cohen]

There is a presupposition which everyone seems to be making here, but which seems rather dubious. Why should the responsibility sceptic be forced to rely on a consequentialist theory of punishment? Is there any reason to think that non-consequentialism entails that people are sometimes responsible? It’s not even clear to me why responsibility sceptics need deny to retributivism – the view that people should (only?) be punished when they have done the wrong thing. After all, responsibility sceptics may still think that people sometimes do the wrong thing.

The issue, rather, seems to concern *why* one might think it right to punish wrongdoers. Responsibility sceptics don’t seem to be able to say that it’s because they *deserve* punishment (although even here I’m not certain – surely it depends on how one conceives of desert). However, responsibility sceptics might still defend the value of punishment in various other ways appealing, for instance, to its expressive power or it’s role in undergirding social norms.

In any case, my point is just that it’s not clear why responsibility sceptics should be held hostage to any particular theory of normative ethics.

[Tamler]

Joe,

I think you have the Strawsonian argument wrong on just one important detail. Premise (1) should state: "In order to be truly responsible for one’s actions, one must have chosen to be the way one is IN SUCH A WAY THAT ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT CHOICE.

(Now premise (2) makes a lot more sense. No one can choose to the be the way one is IN SUCH A WAY...for THAT requires an infinite regress of choices.)

Now if we change (1') in similar fashion, I think we can deny it, because we are talking about control, and not responsible control. And we can still accept (1). Does that make sense?

No RMR skeptic that I know of denies that we can form second order volitions etc. and in that sense choose to become a certain way. We only deny that we can be RESPONSIBLE for those higher order volitions.

I think this is a common confusion that makes the skeptic's position seem a lot less plausible and appealing than it really is.

(Also, a personal appeal to everyone: please stop calling this the "pessimist" position. If I have one mission in life, it's to show that denying free will and RMR can be done quite optimistically.)

[Kip Werking]

Joe,

I think there is a meaningful sense of compatibilist blame, so I am not sure how much I would be willing to part with the word entirely. My emphasis is less upon a revolution in words than simply asserting the GS-type free will does not exist. Like punishment, love, and so many other words, blame may or may not have a component that implies GS-type free will. I do not think my free will denial (or skepticism) stops me from blaming (in this compatibilist or optimist sense) a murderer for killing their victim -- but I could also blame his environment and heredity.

Considering that I have little control over this complex web of antecedent factors (no moral pill yet), using a system of "I blame you" and "I punish you" works for now. I would just remind people that this murderer did not choose these antecedent factors and, in a sense, is a victim of them. The murderer is not to blamed in this ultimate sense. The above might strike you as word games of little value, but I think their importance becomes apparent when we consider future or possible words where we do have this control (such as moral pills) and we remember the collapse of the wicked/sickly distinction.

Daniel,

to see why fw-deniers might be committed to consequentialism, see Honderich's How Free Are You? and Pereboom's Living Without FW. I think the advantage of consequentialism is that it is silent about blame and past events, whereas a Kantian or deontological system emphasizes free agents and what they have done in the past. For example, from a consequentialist perspective, it might be possible that a person satisfied all the requirements for freely committing a murder, and yet it would be wrong to punish them (we might just give them a moral pill). This scenario is awkward from a Kantian perspective, which demands that rules about murder and punishment are followed.

[Joe]

Dan,

Good point. I'll have to look more closely at the readings noted by Kip above. I was merely making the connection between the free will view and the punishment view because Kip and Tamler were making it. I'd like to investigate this more closely before commenting any further on the matter.

Kip and Tamler,

I think that I've been running your projects together. I'm thankful for the clarifications.

Tamler,

The second argument that I use above to undermine control is valid as it stands. I don't have to change the wording of the first premise in order to get a premise that you can deny. I can just leave it as it is and ask you, If you don’t accept the conclusion, which premise must go?

As I see it, the responsibility-undermining gets done in the second premise and it gets done in a way that would equally undermine any substantive notion of 'control.' I understand that people often distinguish control from responsibility in the way that you suggest. But given the structure of the argument against responsibility, this strikes me as a distinction without much of a difference. I admit, though, that more work needs to be done here in order for me to fully present my case.

Finally, I understand why, given your goals, the labels 'free will nihilism' and 'pessimism' don't really fit. I’m willing to use almost any name that you suggest but I won't call your view 'skepticism.' ‘Skepticism’ is the name of an epistemological position and it seems to me that you have a metaphysical view. Your view, if I understand it correctly, is not that we don't know whether or not we have free will or moral responsibility. It is much stronger. Something like: We have damn good reasons for thinking that we have neither!

[Tamler]

First, you're absolutely right that "skepticism" is an inaccurate term to define my position. I use it sometimes only for lack of a better one. (I also use the term "RMR denier" but I'm not even sure 'denier' is a real word.) 'Free will and RMR nihilism' is accurate, but the term nihilism has recently been tainted with other associations (apocalyptic, anarchistic, evil, destructive, with a penchant to fly airplanes into buildings etc.) This difficulty of finding a good term came up in an earlier thread. I struggle every day--really--to find a good and accurate term. All suggestions welcome!

Second, right, I guess I would deny premise (2). For me to accept it it would need to be rephrased as follows: 'No one can choose to be the way one is IN SUCH A WAY THAT ONE WOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT CHOICE, for this requires the actual completion of an infinite regress of choices of principles of choice (which is impossible).'

But then the argument would no longer be valid. Because controlling the effect of one's feelings does not require that kind of choice of how one is.