A Meta-debate Question: Must Theories of Moral Responsibility Appeal to Intuition?

This past year, I’ve been giving a paper arguing that cross-cultural differences in intuitions and attitudes about moral responsibility are deep enough to make it unlikely that there’s a principled way of establishing the truth of theories of moral responsibility (including skeptical ones). At the last conference (ROME in Boulder), I got a couple of comments along the following lines:

“I’m not interested in anyone’s intuitions or beliefs, I’m interested in the nature of moral responsibility. Your project doesn’t tell me anything about that.”

These comments confuse me because every theory of MR that I’m familiar with appeals to intuition about key principles and cases. So how is it possible to investigate the nature of moral responsibility and at the same time claim to be “not interested” in people’s intuitions?

Consider:

Incompatibilists tend to employ two principles to justify their theories: (1) the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP) and (2) the ‘Transfer of Non-Responsibility’ (TNR) principle. Some argue directly for the intuitively plausibility of these principles (e.g van Inwagen’s “Direct Argument”, Galen Strawson’s “Basic Argument”), and others describe specific cases in which an agent is intuitively not morally responsible and then argue that there is no relevant difference between those cases and all instances of determined behavior (e.g. Pereboom’s Four case argument, Mele’s “zygote argument” in a way..). “Generalization strategies” can’t get off the ground unless the reader shares with the author the intuitions about the moral responsibility of the agents in the original cases. Readers who don’t share those intuitions won’t arrive at the incompatibilist conclusion. So the two main strategies for defending incompatibilism seem ultimately appeal to intuition.

Now look at compatibilist counterexamples. If I want to insist that unmanipulated Jones is not morally responsible because he can’t do otherwise, I’m not making a logical or factual mistake. I’m just going against what seems like a dominant intuition. Same with Fischer and Ravizza’s Erosion counterexamples. Susan Wolf’s counterexample to the Deep Self View—Jojo, son of evil dicator Jo the First—is an explicit appeal to a controversial intuition: the judgment that Jojo is not MR for his cruel behavior because of how he was raised. One Prof. in the Boulder conference told me that he ran a study with his students and found that most students believed that Jojo was MR, just not as much as someone who had been raised differently. And compatibilist theories rely on the reader’s all-things-considered intuition (or considered judgment) that the theory has provided sufficient conditions for fair assignments of blame and praise, punishment and reward.

How about Strawson-style theories that base their analyses of MR on actual practices? At first glance, this might seem like a promising candidate of a theory that lacks an appeal to intuition. But it seems to me that the practices themselves are based on just the kind of intuitions that philosophers in the first two categories are appealing to. When Strawson says that we don’t resent someone who accidentally breaks a vase (or something) in our living room, this absence of resentment or “excusing condition” seems to be grounded in an intuition (not universally shared incidentally) that you are not blameworthy for unintentional acts that do not show ill-will on the part of the agent. (Indeed, if you were resentful at the moment of the accident, it’s exactly this kind of intuition that would make you calm down and realize that it’s not the agent’s fault that your vase broke.)

So two questions: First, does anyone know of a theory of MR that doesn’t appeal to intuition to justify an essential premise or principle? And (2), if not, is there any way to investigate “the nature of MR” without appealing to the intuitions of your audience? What, in absence of such an appeal, would count as the truth-makers of the key principles?

(Also, any references that address this topic would be much appreciated!)

Comments

[Mark Smeltzer]

Tamler,

I'm not aware of anything in particular in the literature (though I am a bit behind these past two years) that speaks directly to your question.

However, I am very confident that one can ground one's arguments on values proper without appealing to the secondary intuitions that pull us toward those values.

For example, I firmly believe that there are two major competing values that people generally believe to be in play when they think about FW and MR. I refer to them as the "value of definition" and the "value of expression". (I also believe that the "value of change" plays a minor, though important role, but it isn't necessary to mention in order to flush out my points here.)

I believe that all incompatibilists put more emphasis on the value of definition, and that all compatibilists put more emphasis on the value of expression. This seems to cut beneath the cloud of intuition quite effectively.

For instance, incompatibilists could doubt the veracity of Jojo's MR due to an impediment to define himself that his upbringing might have had on him. Or, compatibilists could doubt the veracity of Jojo's MR due to an impediment to express himself that his upbringing might have had on him.

Moreover, I believe it is possible to argue quite effectively against the legitimacy of the "value of definition", with arguments similar to Galen Strawson's. However, the "value of expression" seems much harder to dislodge.

So, an incompatibilist who absconds the "value of definition" and yet does not become a promoter of the "value of expression" would naturally become a skeptic about FW and MR.

I don't know if that way of looking at things could be helpful to anyone else, but it has certainly been useful in my own experience.

[Alan]

Just a thought: how about a Chalmers-like approach? Are beings conceivable that (i) are free, (ii) are morally responsible, but (iii) are devoid of intuitions (work in some purely physicalistic/computationally decidable fashion a la zombies)? If such beings are conceivable, and maybe along the familiar two-dimensional lines, at least we could admit for such beings that there is no need to base MR on intuition. It's at least one potential way to put one boundary on the issue.

[Cihan]

Alan,

I think you may be misunderstanding Tamler's point. The idea is not that you need intuitions to be MR - the idea is that every argument about free will appeals to intuitions.

So revising your thought experiment a little bit, I think the right experiment to think of would be: Imagine beings who have no intuitions about free will - is it possible to convince them one way or another?

At this point, I feel Vonnegut quote (also quoted by Tamler in his Strawson interview is apt):

“If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings,” said the Tralfamadorian, “I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by free will. I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.”

—From Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

[Matt King]

Hi Tamler,

Suppose we have two groups of people. Group A has one set of intuitions and Group B has a different set (they need not be entirely different - but they differ significantly).

Now take any theory T - how might we evaluate it? Well, we might wonder whether it's correct, of course. One traditional test has been to see how well it captures/explains our intuitions. (I believe Doris, et al. have a paper exploring this strategy and their claims about variantism).

Now, there's two important points to note. First, even if a theory T captures *all* of our intuitions, this wouldn't show that T is "grounded" on the intuitions. And such a result wouldn't tell us much about the "nature" of responsibility, I take it.

Second, the capturing of the intuitions is only relevant to the extent that such capturing is a desiderata for a theory. If we don't care whether a theory captures our/their intuitions, then those intuitions, and the differences between two sets of intuitions, don't seem particularly significant. This last point is better supported, I think, the better we get at explaining why particular groups might have the intuitions they do.

[Justin Coates]

And (2), if not, is there any way to investigate “the nature of MR” without appealing to the intuitions of your audience? What, in absence of such an appeal, would count as the truth-makers of the key principles?

Does anyone really think that our intuitions are the truth-makers of general principles? I mean, when I read a Frankfurt case I think to myself, "oh yeah, alternative possibilities aren't required for moral responsibility," but I don't take that judgment to be the truth-maker for the principle: moral responsibility doesn't require alternative possibilities. The truth-maker for that principle, whatever it may be, is something that is independent of my mind in a way that my intuitions about specific cases are not.

But as someone generally sympathetic with your concerns, perhaps we could just revise (2) by asking how, in the absence of an appeal to intuitions, would we access such principles.

[Tamler Sommers]

Thanks everyone!

Brief responses--

Mark, Ok, but what grounds those values? You write:

"For instance, incompatibilists could doubt the veracity of Jojo's MR due to an impediment to define himself that his upbringing might have had on him."

What could justify this doubt about MR due an impediment to define oneself because of one's upbringing? Anything besides intuition?

Alan,

I think Cihan makes a really nice point--the key question here is how those intuitionless creatures could possibly know whether someone was morally responsible or not. How could they assess, say, the soundness of Susan Wolf's argument for the Deep Self plus Sanity view?

Of course, you're right that there might be a fact of the matter about MR that they had no access to. But if that's the case, then the MR debate becomes sort of futile, no?

Cihan,

Great point! I like that idea a lot.

Matt,

You write:

"First, even if a theory T captures *all* of our intuitions, this wouldn't show that T is "grounded" on the intuitions. And such a result wouldn't tell us much about the "nature" of responsibility, I take it."

I think this is true for some theories. In debates over, say, group selection vs. individual selection in evolutionary theory, we don't proceed by examining the intuitions of various cultures and individuals about Darwinian natural selection. And even if everyone shared the intuitions, that wouldn't tell us anything about how natural selection works.

But, that's because we have other accepted methods for evaluating theories in biology. In the MR debate, it seems that people DO proceed by appealing to intuition. So unless someone proposes another method for discovering the nature of MR, it seems we're stuck with this one, right?

Justin, when you write:

"Does anyone really think that our intuitions are the truth-makers of general principles? I mean, when I read a Frankfurt case I think to myself, "oh yeah, alternative possibilities aren't required for moral responsibility," but I don't take that judgment to be the truth-maker for the principle: moral responsibility doesn't require alternative possibilities. The truth-maker for that principle, whatever it may be, is something that is independent of my mind in a way that my intuitions about specific cases are not.

But as someone generally sympathetic with your concerns, perhaps we could just revise (2) by asking how, in the absence of an appeal to intuitions, would we access such principles."

I think that sums up the case very well. Maybe this is an epistemological question: how could we access principles about moral responsibility without consulting our actions. And wouldn't that still make the remark "I want to know about the nature of moral responsibility but I don't care about people's intuitions" bizarre or incoherent?

[Kevin Timpe]

Tamler,

Quick question. Which other areas of philosophy, if any, do you see as being similar to the debates about MR in the sense that they (apparently) need to appeal to intuitions? What, if any, areas of philosophy are more like biology in your comment above in the sense that they have other (non-intuition based) methods for discovering truth?

OK, so that's probably 2 questions. But they are related. Thanks.

[Alan]

Don't want to press issues here--but with all due respect, my point was parallel to a Chalmers' point--not about epistemology of MR, but to the conceivability of the metaphysics of MR. I just wanted to suggest one parameter of conceivability on that. If intuition is not a necessary condition of *being* MR, then that plausibly affects epistemic arguments about intuition and MR. If the reality of the earth's spin relative to the sun accounts for the apparent movement of the celestial sphere, then the relevance of our intuition that the earth is static and it is the sky is moving to the matter of the movement of the heavens becomes moot.

[Tamler Sommers]

Alan,

Isn't pressing issues what the Garden is all about?

I didn't mean to dismiss your point in my enthusisasm for Cihan's revision of your thought experiment, and maybe I'm misunderstanding you. I wasn't claiming in the original post that our intuitions are an essential feature of the nature of moral responsibility. I was suggesting that we have no epistemological access to this nature--whatever it is--without appealing to our intuitions Even if you're right about the boundaries, it still seems impossible to investigate the nature of moral responsibility and at the same time not care about anyone's intuitions. Or at any rate, no one has yet suggested a method that proceeds in this manner. Does that seem right?

Kevin, good question, someone asked me something along those lines at ROME, and I wasn't too happy with the answer. What makes biology different is that we have a settled method (the scientific method) for investigating questions in that area. But the epistemological principles that ground the scientific method itself are justified in part by an appeal to intuition. So I'm not sure any area of philosophy escapes this completely. This is a familiar move in metaethics, right?--arguing that there is no clear distinction between moral and scientific investigation, both are ultimately grounded in our all things considered judgments via wide reflective equilibrium...

But there's still a difference between biology and moral resposnibility, it seems to me. The settled methodology for investigating questions of moral responsibility--at least, if you look at the theories--is to directly appeal to the intuitions of your audience. There's no buffer in the form of the scientific method.

The other difference is that there seems to be more agreement about epistemological principles than there is about principles relating to moral responsibility (although someone like Steve Stich might disagree...)

[Tomkow]

Tamler,

I posted an argument for compatiblism on this very blog only a couple of weeks ago which does not in the least rest on intutions. See:

http://gfp.typepad.com/the_garden_of_forking_pat/2008/07/is-the-burden-o.html#comment-123849936

[Alan]

One more try--I was just too tired last night to post more than a brief reply. And I am trying to avoid long posts anyway so I won't waste your time.

Intuition is a claimed way of knowing. I cited Chalmers because he's the best instance I could think of someone who takes a controversial claim like "zombies are conceivable" seriously by developing a detailed scheme of why that's conceivable. He doesn't just surrender to a claim that the concept of zombies is *intuitively* coherent. So if in a Chalmers-like way we could produce a coherent account of MR that excluded intuitions about belief, values, etc., it would be something potentially important to concerns about the the role of intuitions in ideas of MR. That's what I meant by saying that such a metaphysical claim about intuitions might well have epistemic ramifications about them as well.

For my part I have a pretty high level of skepticism about and distrust of intuition, though at the same time I also recognize the importance of surveying people about such things. But so many times in the past we have seen any number of instances where things were claimed to be intuitive (especially intuitions about values) but on reflection later were probably just expressions of socialization and acculturation.

[Alan]

And I just read your last post Tamler--thanks for that! And please don't get me wrong--you and other Gardeners keep my thinking going--and going--and going like an Energizer Bunny of FW!!

[Tamler Sommers]

Terry,

That's fine, I agree with that argument. But all you've shown with it--as far as I can tell (if I looked at the right argument)--is that it's possible that determinism is compatible with moral responsibility. Compatibilist theories of moral responsibility have to do more than that. They have to provide sufficient conditions for fair assignments of blame, praise, punishment and reward (conditions that are compatible with the truth of determinism). My claim is that no one has provided justification for such conditions--compatibilist or incompatibilist--without appealing to intuition. But maybe you have an argument that will prove me wrong?

Alan,

"But so many times in the past we have seen any number of instances where things were claimed to be intuitive (especially intuitions about values) but on reflection later were probably just expressions of socialization and acculturation."

You're preaching to the choir there! I think that goes on quite a bit in this debate especially. What we think are self-evident propositions about moral responsibility (it must involve control, say) are actually far more culturally local than we imagine

[Cihan]

Tamler,

After some reflection, here are more questions:
(A) Why do you call your view "meta"-skepticism? After all, if every argument makes some appeal to intuitions, isn't the burden on compatibilists/libertarians to show that (1) intuitions are a reliable guide in the FW debate, (2) the intuitive FW exists or it's possible to be MR? (But cross-cultural studies or x-phi work seem to undermine (1).) Absent (1) and (2), the hard incompatibilist wins.

(B) Do you think the reason why there are so varying intuitions about free will has to do with what Kip calls the semantic ambiguity in the concept of FW? That is to say, because FW is so ambiguous/poorly defined/unclear, people tend to disambiguate it by filling the missing bits on their own - resulting in varying intuitions?

However, again I'd disagree that semantic ambiguity of FW would lead to "meta"-skepticism. If you ask me SWAMBATTLE exists, I'd just say that's just meaningless and doesn't exist. If FW is akin to SWAMBATTLE in relevant ways, FW doesn't exist as well.

In your talk at SF, you said your view applied to, say, Pereboom's hard incompatibilism but here, I just see arguments for hard incompatibilism.

(C) Is there an area of (analytical) philosophical inquiry that does NOT make appeals to intuition? Almost, all philosophy I have studied appeals to intuitions in some way. (Isn't every thought experiment essentially an appeal to intuitions?)

(D) Finally, see Matti Eklund's attempt to explain why there are so many conflicting intuitions in the personal identity debate: “Personal Identity, Concerns, and Indeterminacy” The Monist 87 (2004) 489-511. (I hope that's the paper I read - I'm away from home now.) His main idea is that the concept of personal identity is "inconsistent" (in his defined way).

I think motivated by your work on FW intuitions, one could also work out that free will is an inconsistent concept.

[Tamler Sommers]

Hi Cihan,

Good questions. I'll do my best to respond.

A. It seems to me that MR skeptics like Pereboom and Strawson rely just as much on intuitions to justify their conditions for MR (e.g. Strawson's causa sui condition, Pereboom's control condition). The difference between them and the compatibilists/libertarians is that they argue in addition that these conditions can't be met. But if we don't accept their conditions for MR, it's hard to see why we should accept as a universal truth that no one is ever MR for their behavior. (Believe me, this hurts to say.) So first order skeptics share the burden of showing that intuitions are a reliable guide to truths about MR.

Let me say, incidentally, that I do think that all-things-considered intuitions are the best guide to the truth about the conditions MR. But I think that people will arrive at different conclusions via this method, and that there will be no way to resolve the differences in a principled way. That could still leave one with a relativized view of moral responsibility (compatibilist, libertarian, or skeptic).

B. I think conceptual or semantic ambiguity does account for some of the variation in intuitions about MR. (Incidentally, I'm only talking about MR here, not free will.) But I don't think this ambiguity can explain away all the variation. That's a tough case to make, but I think the evidence supports it.

C. You might be right, see my reply to Kevin. But that's way too big a question for me to even try to answer here.

D. I haven't read that paper, but I can say right now, having done little to no research on the topic, that metaskepticism about personal identity is almost certainly true.

And I do believe our intuitions about MR are inconsistent, but I also think that we have a commitment to making them consistent upon reflection. (See the variantism stuff by Doris, Knobe, and Woolfork for more insight on this question.)

[Mark Smeltzer]

Tamler,

Why do the values in play need to be grounded in order to discuss their logical consequences?

[Tamler Sommers]

Mark,

They don't, as long as you're willing to relativize your theory to a particular set of values. Most theories of MR don't seem to do this, although Fischer and Ravizza's might be an exception (see their remarks on methodology...).

[Paul Torek]

There's a lot of practical pressure for people to come to reasonable agreement about communal moral practices. And not merely pragmatic: this pressure stems from the nature of moral reasoning. In the long run for our interconnected globe, I think, that makes the relativization of MR theory to a particular set of values moot. (And I boldly predict that the resulting agreement will be implicitly compatibilist.)

[Mark Smeltzer]

Tamler,

That's exactly what I have in mind. In fact, one could even adopt the stance of agnostic autonomism and engage that sort of project very fruitfully. I believe a lot of Mele's work falls in that category.

Fischer's theory is certainly aligned with the value of expression. To the point, Fischer has stated that the value of moral responsibility is equal to that of artistic self-expression. The fact that he states his grounding value as an equality allows him to move right along with the rest of his project without having to get distracted with quantifying that value.

In other words, Fischer doesn't engage the question, "How do you ground your grounding value?" He merely fixes a reference and moves on. I like that.

[Tamler Sommers]

I was just reading Michael McKenna's excellent new Phil Review article on the Direct Argument and struck gold for my case in this post. Michael cites this passage from van Inwagen's defense of the argument.

"If the compatibilist wishes to refute the direct argument here is what he will have to do….He will have to produce some set of propositions intuitively more plausible than (B) and show that these propositions entail the compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism, or he will have to offer a counterexample to (B), a counterexample that can be evaluated independently of the question of whether moral responsibility and determinism are compatible." (1983, 188)

Recall that the counterexamples offer to Rule B (otherwise known as TNR) can only work if they are intuitively plausible as well. This seems to be a straightforward appeal to intuition. And van Inwagen is no intuition-mongerer or experimental philosopher!

Terry, I don't know if you're still reading this thread--but if you are, do you still maintain that appeals to intuition aren't an essential feature of the MR debate?

[jon kvanvig]

I think when PvI or anyone talks about what is intuitively plausible, it doesn't commit them to a role for intuitions in defense of theories. Compare: I sometimes walk awkwardly, but that doesn't require the existence of a special kind of walks that are appropriately called "awkwards". In PvI's case, it requires plausible cases of a certain sort, and given what he says about appeals to intuitions, the sort in question will have to do with the obviousness of the cases (maybe to PvI, maybe to him and others).

As I see it, the force of the question from the conference is in two parts. The first part is whether we need some special mental state independent of some particular kind of strongly held belief or disposition to believe in order to defend a theory. The second part is what the word on the folk on the issue has to do with the first part. Suppose we do need intuitions about MR or anything else in philosophy. Why would the thoughts, ideas, responses of the uninitiated count as that? Why wouldn't it count as, say, the remnants of dead theory instead, or simple lack of reflection about moral responsibility or whatever else one is theorizing about? The responses of ordinary folk might tell us something about the ordinary concept in question, but the force of the objection is that it takes a number of argumentative steps to get from an interest in moral responsibility itself to the idea that the the best theory of it is encoded in the ordinary concept of moral responsibility. There are 20th century historical explanations of how these steps were taken, but turning those explanations into good arguments would need to be done if that's the basis of the connection between MR and the ordinary concept of it.

[Cal Lopes]

Hi all. I'm a no philosopher reader of garden and i appreciate if someone could explain to me the Terry's argument on compatibilism. I didn't understood it. Thanks.

[Tamler Sommers]

Jon, you wrote:

“Suppose we do need intuitions about MR or anything else in philosophy. Why would the thoughts, ideas, responses of the uninitiated count as that? Why wouldn't it count as, say, the remnants of dead theory instead, or simple lack of reflection about moral responsibility or whatever else one is theorizing about? The responses of ordinary folk might tell us something about the ordinary concept in question, but the force of the objection is that it takes a number of argumentative steps to get from an interest in moral responsibility itself to the idea that the the best theory of it is encoded in the ordinary concept of moral responsibility”

You’re right that by itself, finding variation in intuitions among the “uninitiated” isn’t enough to draw the conclusion that there is no principled way of discovering the truth about moral responsibility. But noting the variation is only one step in the argument. Here’s the strategy, let me know if you find fault withy it. First, identify the wide range of intuitions and attitudes about moral responsibility. At the very least, it would be interesting to discover that certain intuitions about MR that we find to be obvious and self-evident are far more culturally and historically local than we ever imagined. Next, try to find out if the different intuitions among the uninitiated are indeed the “remnants of a dead theory.” That’s certainly possible, as you point out. But it’s also possible that people with completely different starting intuitions could become ‘initiated,’ be perfectly rational, and still draw completely different conclusions about moral responsibility, because of the deep differences in where they started. If that’s the case, then it seems that we cannot draw universal conclusions about moral responsibility without begging the question. As I see it, the universalist has just as much of a burden to explain away the variation as I have to show that the variation is deep enough to be unresolvable. But all universalists do is point out that that it’s POSSIBLE that the intuitive differences would be resolved if one side or the other became more rational, better informed, less superstitious etc. Well, yeah, it’s possible. But why should I think it’s plausible? (This is analogous to the debates in metaethics about moral realism. Doris and Plakias have a great paper called “How to argue about disagreement” that outlines a strategy like this in more depth…)

[Andrew Richey]

Being a decade out from school I can't give any citations that speak to the first question, but as to the second one my "intuition" is an emphatic "no", because I don't find it useful to style normative investigations on empirical investigations. Even the verb choice "investigate" is a little suspicious to me. It makes it sound like if we just lift enough fingerprints and get a big enough magnifying glass then we could figure out whom to condemn and whom to praise.

In fact, I see a lot of dueling metaphors getting tossed around here. Are theorists supplicants "appealing to" intuitions? Zoologists trying to "capture" them? Architects trying to be "grounded on" them?

Cihan (and via him, Vonnegut) makes an excellent point, and I like the phrasing of the issue in terms of intuitionless audiences. IMO it's pointless to ask questions about "the nature" of MR the way you'd ask questions about "the nature" of group selection. What you get at the end of the day with an empirical theory is an organized description of experiences that lets you predict the content of future experiences, but what you get with a theory of moral responsibility is an an organized expression of your own psychological willingness to ascribe praise or blame to people that lets everyone else predict the future contents of your judgments, and exhorts others to follow suit.

[Clark Goble]

Have any of you read Jonathan Ichikawa’s paper "Who Needs Intuitions?" It touches on the difference between conceivability arguments and intuition appeals. Even if most arguments have appealed to intuition I wonder how many need do this.

[Clark Goble]

But all universalists do is point out that that it’s POSSIBLE that the intuitive differences would be resolved if one side or the other became more rational, better informed, less superstitious etc. Well, yeah, it’s possible. But why should I think it’s plausible.

It seems one problem is asking what the ground for intuitions are. To draw an analogy to physics where most peoples intuitions are wrong we know they are useful for the kinds of encounters our ancestors evolved to need deal with. However by doing more careful analysis informed people teach themselves intuitions that better match the real physics. But that works because of an appeal to empiricism. With regards to morality and responsibility what possible empirical content could do that unless one adopts Evolutionary Psychology. (Which has a whole slew of its own problems)

[jon kvanvig]

Tamler, I think there are two points in your response to what I wrote. The first point is about intuitions themselves. To that point, I'd suggest replacing talk of intuitions with talk of what's obvious or what is strongly believed, and see if any methodological issues remain. I think they won't: false beliefs are pretty normal in matters philosophical, and I don't think any theory or defense of a theory has to do much to explain why some people hold other views, especially when those people give no arguments and have thought very little about it. So, if there is a problem, it has to arise because intuitions are a different type of thing than strong beliefs or things that are obvious. If so, I'm with PvI on this: why should we need such things?

The second part is about the epistemology of disagreement, and there's lots of new and interesting stuff on this issue coming out soon. Warfield and Feldman have a volume of essays coming out (maybe already out, but what I've seen was pre-publication versions), and I've got a piece coming out in a volume on evidentialism and its critics. Lots of disputed stuff here, but I don't see how rational entitlement or truth of any view is held hostage by the fact that other people disagree. As I see it, nobody needs to care whether or not the universalist is right.

So I find things obvious and theorize in a way to try to achieve understanding of the phenomenon in question. You do the same. If we disagree about what's obvious, that provides information to each of us to be assimilated in the process of theory construction. There's no recipe about how the assimilation must go, or so I argue: sometimes we rationally defer, sometimes we resist, etc.

I also think we should resist using the begging the question charge here. Begging the question is a rhetorical flaw, and such flaws have no implications for rationality of belief or truth of the view in question. There is a related logical flaw, circular reasoning, but that's addressed by handling the problem of the criterion in whatever way one thinks it must be handled. If it can't be handled, then skepticism wins; but I'm hopeful for an alternative!

[Tamler Sommers]

Jon, thanks, this is very helpful.

“..I'd suggest replacing talk of intuitions with talk of what's obvious or what is strongly believed, and see if any methodological issues remain. I think they won't: false beliefs are pretty normal in matters philosophical, and I don't think any theory or defense of a theory has to do much to explain why some people hold other views, especially when those people give no arguments and have thought very little about it.”

I’m happy to use your terminology here—‘intuitions’ can mean a lot of things--but I think the methodological issues don’t go away. When it comes to moral responsibility, people who have thought a lot about the topic still find different things obvious. For example, the Greeks seemed to deemphasize control and knowledge conditions for responsibility. But they can’t be accused of thinking very little about these issues, nor of failing to make arguments. The same is true for honor cultures in Albania, Saga Iceland, in the middle east etc. I think theories do have to account for this variation in what seems obvious.

“So I find things obvious and theorize in a way to try to achieve understanding of the phenomenon in question. You do the same. If we disagree about what's obvious, that provides information to each of us to be assimilated in the process of theory construction. There's no recipe about how the assimilation must go, or so I argue: sometimes we rationally defer, sometimes we resist, etc.”

Why shouldn’t there be a recipe, or at least, why shouldn’t we try to find a recipe? It seems pretty important. If you and I disagree about climate change, we have a recipe for trying to resolve our disagreement. We try to figure out if one of us has our facts wrong, or if we’re too focused on the present (or future), or if we have fundamentally different values. It could turn out that the disagreement turns on one of us not being aware of a recent study. And so we can make progress in determining what the most rational thing to believe really is. Why shouldn’t we do the same for disagreements about moral responsibility.

“I also think we should resist using the begging the question charge here. Begging the question is a rhetorical flaw, and such flaws have no implications for rationality of belief or truth of the view in question.”

This might be a terminological issue as well. I meant begging the question in the sense of assuming the truth of a premise that your reasonable opponent disagrees with. As in “your theory of moral responsibility is obviously false because it doesn’t have a robust knowledge condition.”

Andrew,

You may very well be right that the best we can do is develop a subjective theory that can systematize our own beliefs and predict future behavior. But this doesn't seem to be what contemporary theories are after, and even I think it's a little soon to dismiss universalist attempts. But again, things might go the way you say.

Clark,

I haven't read that essay, thanks for point it out. I do want to distinguish between to claims. The first is that our intuitions are unreliable guides to truth, whether or not they are universally shared. I don't want to say that (although I recognize that there are strong arguments one could make for the claim). What I am more focused on is a second claim: Assume that our intuitions and considered judgments are the best guides we have to truth. When it comes to MR, there seems to be fundamental cross-cultural differences that cannot be resolved using standard epistemological strategies. Therefore, since theories of MR appeal to intuitions and considered judgments in support of their principles, if there are truths about moral responsibility, they will likely be relative to a specific culture (or person).

[Clark Goble]

It seems to me that Ichikawa’s move from intuitions to conceivability is quite interesting. I think that ultimately conceivability arguments are still problematic as we all recall from when we studied Anselm's ontological argument. However I do think they are stronger than appeals to intuition. I'm not sure they end up being any more convincing. Is anyone convinced by Chalmers on zombies once we realize we're not talking about our intuitive reaction to the idea of zombies but rather whether they are simply physically conceivable?

I do think, however, that a move to conceivability rather than intuition may rescue questions of responsibility from the cultural relativism that you point out. I'm not sure how one would do this. But it seems at first glance to be possible.

[jon kvanvig]

Tamler, what you need is that the methodological issues somehow threaten the rationality or truth of a theory that starts from what's obvious to one person or group but not to another. As your post begins, you think cross-cultural or other differences may undermine a "principled defense" of a theory. If "principled" doesn't affect rationality or truth, then it wouldn't matter if we couldn't have such a thing. That's what the point about recipes was--as clarified by the two remarks that follow it. Neither irrationality or falsity is implied by the disagreements you note. Of course, seeking agreement is worthwhile, but that's not at issue here.

On the terminological point, that's precisely the rhetorical flaw I was noting. Failure to avoid that rhetorical flaw doesn't have any implications for rationality or truth. In a joint project or debate or conversation, it's a good thing to avoid. And in philosophy, if you can avoid it, it's valuable to do.

[Trevor Pisciotta]

As a long-time reader, but first-time poster, I regret to say I don't have much to contribute to the current debate, except to endorse Cihan's point above that appeal to intuition, at least at some point, appears common to all philosophcial inquiry.

I was thinking about some of the debates around (the nature of) possible world in metaphysics. At some level, theory choice seems to require appeal to intuitions. I mean, there's a sense in which all the options on the table (say Lewisian realism, Stalnaker ersatz view, Rosen's fictionalism) are "plausible stories" - that's why they're contenders in the debate. And it's just not clear to me how we aer to choose among them, apart from some appeal to the theory or account that best systematises our intuitions - I recall Lewis has some interesting things to say about theory choice in the first chapter or so, in On the Plurality of Worlds.

Not sure how much this adds, I'm afraid.

On a slightly different tact: Mark, I was very interested in your distinction between the value of expression and the value of definition, and was wondering whether you had written anything exploring this? I'd be interested to understand how it's related to Watson's distinction between accountability and attributability.

[Brian Parks]

Tamler,

I think the root problem is that philosophers take a realist position about this matter, i.e., they proceed on the assumption that “morality” and “moral responsibility” represent real features of the world, rather than artifacts of the way that our minds construct and interpret the world.

It makes a lot more sense, in my view, to understand “morality” and “moral responsibility”—or the projected feelings and emotions to which those concepts refer—to be phenomenological, like colors. Though there are substrates in external reality that evoke the experience of colors in the mind of an organism, the colors themselves don’t *literally* describe any features or properties of external reality. Nor do our projected feelings of praise and blame.

If we assume that “morality” and “moral responsibility” really do exist in an extra-mental sense, insurmountable problems emerge. If we are going to understand moral truths to be something more than empty logical or mathematical statements, then there must be some sense-capacity that puts us in contact with them. What sense-capacity puts us in contact with the moral features of reality? How do philosophers come into contact with moral truths? As you said, the only available answer is ‘intuition.’

But ‘intuition’ is an incredibly flimsy and dubious answer. We have the intuitions that we have about moral responsibility not because they are true in the literal sense, but because they are evolutionarily expedient to the survival and reproduction of our organism. Evolution operates blindly. It doesn’t care about morality; it has no reason to preferentially select for a mind that is tuned into moral truth.

Suppose that there is such a thing as objective, extra-mental moral truth—moral truth that is on a par with scientific truth. What in the evolutionary process could possibly cause our brains to evolve in such a way that our basic moral intuitions would come to reflect this truth? Why would evolution care about setting things up that way? Again, it cares about what is expedient for the survival of our genes, not with theoretical questions about what is ‘really’ right and wrong, or what people ‘really’ deserve.

Consider an example. Assume that we live in a universe where killing every baby that is born is the moral thing to do. Every baby deserves to suffer and die—that’s the moral law, laid down by God or whatever else. Any group of human beings with brains that embraced this moral truth would quickly die off. So, even if it were true, evolution would never design our minds to see it or embrace it.

Likewise, suppose that there is no such thing as an enduring ‘self’. Suppose that there are ephemerate moments of consciousness that are successively produced by a brain, but that they are not numerically identical with each other. If this is true, then (intuitively) we do not deserve to suffer for our past actions—they are not ‘our’ actions. They belong to a self that no longer exists. But even if this is true, evolution is still going to design us in a way that we hold each other responsible. Doing so fulfills vital practical functions for our species. It promotes the survival of our genes, and that’s all that really matters. Evolution is the only game in town when it comes to these kinds of things.

You say: “But if we don't accept their conditions for MR, it's hard to see why we should accept as a universal truth that no one is ever MR for their behavior. (Believe me, this hurts to say.)”

No one is ever MR for their behavior in the same way that no color is ever really ‘on’ an object. The whole notion of MR is a projective creation of our own minds.

This conclusion allows for a kind of pragmatism about MR. There may not be a privileged sense in which a human being deserves to suffer for a given behavior, but there are still practical reasons why we need punishment. If we measure punishment by these practical reasons, we can minimize unnecessary suffering—a goal that I think most of us would embrace.

[Kip Werking]

I'll try to be quick:

1. I find Mark's distinction between definition and expression to be very helpful, and worthy of further investigation.

2. Personally, I find intuitions to be more helpful in understanding the common usage that defines terms. If you ask people what their intuitions are about whether squares have four corners, then you can generally trust their intuitions. If you ask people what their intuitions are about whether alien civilizations exist, you can't trust their intuitions the same. People's intuitions about definitions, as a consensus, are immune to criticism in a way that they are not about empirical investigations. Copernicus could prove us all wrong about whether the earth circles the sun, but was powerless to prove that "the sun" designates something other than that orange ball we see in the sky.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Brian,

Just curious, but what do you think about Kant's approach to morality? He claims to have laid down a "scientific" approach to discovering extra-mental moral truth, and he views those moral truths as something that any mind, free of deception, put to the task would have to arrive at if the method is correctly applied. For instance, on Kant's view it would be rather easy to show that killing babies is abhorrent (in any universe).

I think history shows that Kant's method didn't work out as well as he would have hoped (part of that is certainly due to his theory's super-naturalistic underpinnings), but there are still a number of ardent Kantians around, and more still if you count hybrids.

Trevor,

The answer to the first question is: not yet. Depending on how things go with the company I'm currently starting, it could be a number of years before I turn my professional attention toward philosophy, but it is something I look forward to doing. In the meantime, I make due by poking and prodding those who are already working in the field.

Regarding your second question, I will have to give it some thought. Do you sense a strong relationship there? Offhand, I doubt that one amounts to the other.

[Brian Parks]

Mark,

<<>>

I think it fails.

<<>>

If we grant that violating the categorical imperative is immoral in every possible universe, then the rest might turn out to be easy (or maybe not... consider the abortion debate.)

But why do we have to grant the claim that violating the categorical imperative is immoral in this universe, much less in every possible universe? How is this a conclusion that is logically forced? What fact logically forces it? What formal proof does Kant give to establish it? From my reading, he doesn't give one.

<<>>

There are Kantians who argue with utilitarians and pragmatists over moral theory, but none of them have given a persuasive argument for moral realism. Rather, they assume moral realism as a part of the grounds for the debate.

I think Plantinga's skeptical argument is conclusive here. If we want to claim that we know moral truth, then there must be some evolutionary selection pressure that has forced our brains to evolve in such a way that our basic moral intuitions track that moral truth. But there can be no such pressure, because moral properties are causally inert. There is no way that the intrinsic 'rightness' or 'wrongness' of an action or object can act on a sense organ. Nor can the 'rightness' or 'wrongness' be a consequence of logical rules, because logical rules are empty of content.

Suppose that retribution of all kinds is intrinsically immoral under all circumstances in this universe. It certainly won't help a primate living 50,000 years ago to have genes that code for a brain that is appropriately sensitive to this truth. To the contrary, it will hurt--significantly. The genes won't select.

[Brian Parks]

***I screwed up the above post... it ate my brackets... here is a repost, apologies to the mods***

Mark,

"Just curious, but what do you think about Kant's approach to morality?"

I think it fails.

"For instance, on Kant's view it would be rather easy to show that killing babies is abhorrent (in any universe)."

If we grant that violating the categorical imperative is immoral in every possible universe, then the rest might turn out to be easy (or maybe not... consider the abortion debate.)

But why do we have to grant the claim that violating the categorical imperative is immoral in this universe, much less in every possible universe? How is this a conclusion that is logically forced? What fact logically forces it? What formal proof does Kant give to establish it? From my reading, he doesn't give one.

"but there are still a number of ardent Kantians around, and more still if you count hybrids."

There are Kantians who argue with utilitarians and pragmatists over moral theory, but none of them have given a persuasive argument for moral realism. Rather, they assume moral realism as a part of the grounds for the debate.

I think Plantinga's skeptical argument is conclusive here. If we want to claim that we know moral truth, then there must be some evolutionary selection pressure that has forced our brains to evolve in such a way that our basic moral intuitions track that moral truth. But there can be no such pressure, because moral properties are causally inert. There is no way that the intrinsic 'rightness' or 'wrongness' of an action or object can act on a sense organ. Nor can the 'rightness' or 'wrongness' be a consequence of logical rules, because logical rules are empty of content.

Suppose that retribution of all kinds is intrinsically immoral under all circumstances in this universe. It certainly won't help a primate living 50,000 years ago to have genes that code for a brain that is appropriately sensitive to this truth. To the contrary, it will hurt--significantly. The genes won't select.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Brian,

You would of course agree that the truth of falsity of evolutionary biological theory as an explanation for the phenomenon of speciation is in no way relevant to the question of whether punishing babies is wrong, correct?

Curious that you name Plantinga as your trump card. Doesn't he take that same argument further to mount an attach against atheistic evolutionary theory? I seem to remember him taking the same approach to the problem of selecting for truth conducivity and using that as a rather sticky reducio. Though I suppose you must get off the bandwagon somewhere before that point...

I'm struggling to see the relevance of bringing evolutionary theory into the debate here. It seems like an exasperated stab against moral realism, but maybe you've got something else in mind?

Because here's the rub: those who are stringent moral non-realists don't have anything interesting to say in this debate. They can all line up and with Richard Double and not wave the meta-compatibilist flag (because wouldn't waving it constitute an instance of the sort of irrational enthusiasm exhibited by those who believe themselves to be on the *better* side?).

[Brian Parks]

Mark,

"You would of course agree that the truth or falsity of evolutionary biological theory as an explanation for the phenomenon of speciation is in no way relevant to the question of whether punishing babies is wrong, correct?"

Yes, I would agree. There is no need to focus specifically on speciation, however. Evolution explains much more than just the fact that there are different species of life on the earth.

To make the point more clear, let's return to the example of color. The truth or falsity of evolutionary biological theory is not relevant to the question of whether objects in themselves really have colors on their surfaces. BUT, it is relevant to the question of whether it is likely that the colors that we see on objects match the colors that really are on objects.

In order for evolution to select brains that experience colors on objects in a way that matches the colors that are really on objects, it must make some kind of difference in terms of fitness for there to be a match. Otherwise, colors would be invisible to evolution, and a brain calibrated to see them correctly would have no reason to evolve. (Of course, it could evolve to see them correctly by random chance, but the probabilities are infinitely low).

Putting aside the debate on color realism, the same point applies to the debate on moral realism. In order for evolution to select brains that intuit moral truths in a way that match the actual truth about morality, there must be some fitness advantage for there to be a match. Otherwise, moral truth would be invisible to evolution. There would be no reason for evolution to select for a brain that properly intuits or experiences it.

But this point runs against the theme of moral theory, at least the non-consequentialist variety of moral theory. The intrinsic rightness or wrongness of an action is not supposed to be a function of fitness. Killing a disabled baby, for example, is supposed to be wrong whether or not doing so confers survival advantages (and note that sometimes it does confer such advantages).

If you are a moral realist, then I challenge you to answer the question. How is it that evolution can select for a brain that properly senses or intuits moral truth? How are moral properties causally efficacious or otherwise visible to evolution?

Suppose that determinism and incompatibilism are true. No one deserves punishment. Retribution is morally wrong. Why would evolution select for a brain that is specifically sensitive to this wrongness? Given the obvious fitness advantages of retribution, wouldn’t evolution select *against* such a brain?

“Curious that you name Plantinga as your trump card. Doesn't he take that same argument further to mount an attack against atheistic evolutionary theory?”

Yes. He articulates a problem that needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, he doesn’t address the problem, he compounds it by positing magic (God).

Suffice it to say that Plantinga’s problem is partially solvable if we abandon certain kinds of mechanistic epiphenomenalism. If our beliefs about the world have causal import to our behavior, then evolution has a means by which it can select brains that are in some sense inclined towards true beliefs.

I say partially, of course, because most of our native pictures of the world, though useful for the level of reality in which we exist, are to a large extent inaccurate—modern physics seems to confirm this.

But I think his point with respect to moral theory is conclusive. If we bar the influence of magic, and we accept the obvious fact of our evolution, then we have no reason to believe that our moral sensibilities reflect anything other than biologically useful ways of conceptualizing behavior. Whether a moral intuition matches some transcendent normative truth is completely irrelevant to the survival and reproductive capacity of the organism (notice that the same is not true about factual truths—whether an organism's beliefs match a factual truth might actually make a difference to its survival and reproductive capacity).

“I'm struggling to see the relevance of bringing evolutionary theory into the debate here. It seems like an exasperated stab against moral realism, but maybe you've got something else in mind?”

I disagree. Evolution is *extremely* relevant to this debate, particularly at the level that Tamler’s paper seems to be focused on. Philosophers ignore it at their own peril.

The compatibilism-incompatibilism debate has gone on for a very long time. The reason for the lack of progress, I would argue, is that philosophers make a huge category error in the way that they conduct the debate.

If we treat the ideas of ‘desert’ and ‘moral responsibility’ as real properties that have objective existence outside of the mind, rather than as evolutionarily adaptive modes through which minds evaluate and interpret behavior, then we naturally run into the problems that Tamler mentions.

How is it that we come to know what an individual really ‘deserves’? What sense-faculty do we use? Our moral sensibilities? Our feelings? Our emotions? But how can we trust such things, when we know that they evolved purely in virtue of their adaptive advantages, rather than out of some need to track normative moral properties that are themselves causally inert?

“Because here's the rub: those who are stringent moral non-realists don't have anything interesting to say in this debate.”

Again, I disagree. If the basic question in the debate is ill-posed or misguided, then that is extremely relevant to the debate.

It’s the primary job of philosophers to clarify confusions, right? Well this seems to be a perfect opportunity for that. The confusion arises because we take the ideas of ‘desert’ and ‘moral responsibility’ to be real properties of the world. If we instead understand them to be artifacts of the way that minds construct and interpret behavior, then we can bring science into the picture—and from there we can actually get somewhere.

Instead of asking whether compatibilism or incompatibilism are 'really' true, we can ask the more precise question: are human moral sensibilities more compatibilist or incompatibilist? We can actually *test* this question with experimentation under different conditions. We can bring the question into contact with other fields of science, such as evolutionary biology and psychology.

From what I’ve read of experimental philosophy, it seems that our sensibilities are divided and conflicted. We have compatibilist sensibilities, and also incompatibilist sensibilities. These sensibilities can be stimulated by different conceptual triggers.

As for the practical question of how we should set up punishment in our society, there is no external requirement. My admittedly subjective recommendation, however, would be to proceed on some kind of pragmatism that minimizes suffering.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Brian,

1) It seems your worry about evolution selecting for moral perceptivity only applies to naturalists. So, I see no need to respond. However, I am sure that naturalists who feel the tug towards moral realism will say something to the effect that moral truths are natural facts, that a mind of sufficient caliber would capable of recognizing them, and that evolution just happens to select for such minds.

2) So how would you resolve Plantinga's worry about an ability to know anything on a naturalist picture? To recap, his argument is that if belief producing mechanisms don't function reliably, all produced beliefs lack warrant, and unless evolution selects for reliabilism then all of our beliefs lack warrant. However, that conclusion is absurd, so either 1) evolution must select for reliabilism even though it has no intrinsic survival benefit (insects and bacteria still don't have it, and there are many cases when such knowledge is harmful), 2) there's something missing in the naturalistic picture, or 3) ________ (feel free to fill in the blank).

The reason I press this point is that it seems to me that if you are willing to concede some degree of mystery (I wouldn't dare call it magic) as to why evolution selects for producing warranted beliefs in sentient beings, why couldn't it also select for producing sensitivity to moral truths?

3) Moral non-realists are on the side lines in this debate for one simple reason: if moral non-realism is true, then all concepts of moral responsibility are automatically false, and there's nothing more to say on the issue. For the answer to the practical question about how to setup punishment is: there isn't one. All answers equally lack value.

A person who finds themselves in that position could engage in the debate about meta-ethics, but this debate presumes that there is at least SOME way of making value stick.

[Brian Parks]

Mark,

“It seems your worry about evolution selecting for moral perceptivity only applies to naturalists. So, I see no need to respond.”

Well, I’m not familiar with your worldview. Do you believe in evolution? Do you believe in a personal God?

If we make the Plantingan move of positing a supernatural creator that guides the evolutionary process so that our moral sensibilities match actual moral truths, then yes, we are off the hook. But I doubt that many philosophers would want to make that sort of move. It creates many more problems than it solves.

“However, I am sure that naturalists who feel the tug towards moral realism will say something to the effect that moral truths are natural facts, that a mind of sufficient caliber would capable of recognizing them, and that evolution just happens to select for such minds.”

If by a mind of ‘sufficient caliber’, you mean a mind whose moral sensitivities match actual moral truths, why would evolution select for such a mind? Why would evolution care about whether a mind was sensitive to a specific moral truth? Suppose that it’s a natural fact of our universe that killing one’s first born child is morally obligatory. Why would the truth of this fact cause evolution to select for it? A gene that codes for a brain that is inclined to kill every first born child is going to die off regardless of what the moral fact of the matter about killing first born children happens to be.

If by a mind of ‘sufficient caliber’, you mean a mind with a certain level of intelligence, that won’t work either. The examples of Phineas Gage and other frontal lobe patients show rather clearly that moral knowledge does not follow from the ability to think logically. There has to be some felt emotional sensitivity that puts the organism in contact with the intrinsic ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of an action. If the nature of that felt sensitivity is shaped by an evolutionary process, then it is going to track behavioral fitness, rather than objective moral truth.

“So how would you resolve Plantinga's worry about an ability to know anything on a naturalist picture? To recap, his argument is that if belief producing mechanisms don't function reliably, all produced beliefs lack warrant, and unless evolution selects for reliabilism then all of our beliefs lack warrant. However, that conclusion is absurd, so either 1) evolution must select for reliabilism even though it has no intrinsic survival benefit (insects and bacteria still don't have it, and there are many cases when such knowledge is harmful), 2) there's something missing in the naturalistic picture, or 3) ________ (feel free to fill in the blank).”

Why would you say that reliabilism has no intrinsic survival benefit?

Would you agree that a mentally-competent human being is more fit for survival than a mentally-ill schizophrenic? The difference there is in the reliability of the mental faculty.

As I said in the previous post, if mechanistic epiphenomenalism is false, and beliefs have causal import for behavior, then it will make a difference whether or not a human being is inclined towards beliefs that map to logical and factual truths. Therein lies the opening through which evolution will ‘select’.

”The reason I press this point is that it seems to me that if you are willing to concede some degree of mystery (I wouldn't dare call it magic) as to why evolution selects for producing warranted beliefs in sentient beings, why couldn't it also select for producing sensitivity to moral truths?”

Because being sensitive to moral facts per se doesn’t confer any fitness advantages. Moral properties of reality can’t push back on an organism like other properties of reality can.

“Moral non-realists are on the side lines in this debate for one simple reason: if moral non-realism is true, then all concepts of moral responsibility are automatically false, and there's nothing more to say on the issue.”

Here’s how I would phrase it. Moral anti-realists are on the field, trying to get the other two sides off the field.

It’s as if two people were debating whether a woman’s being aesthetically beautiful is compatible with her being morbidly obese. Compatibilists scream, yes! Incompatibilists scream, no! Each side appeals to their own feelings about what’s aesthetically beautiful, and no one gets anywhere. Moral anti-realists are saying “Hey guys, have you considered the possibility that you’re asking a fundamentally misguided question? There is no fact of the matter about whether something is ‘really’ beautiful. The question that can have an answer is whether something will evoke feelings of aesthetic appreciation or attraction in the mind of a human being. Can a picture of a morbidly obese woman evoke such feelings in a person's mind? If so, under what conditions?”

Likewise, we might rephrase the compatibilism-incompatibilism question as follows: Does the fact that human behavior is neurobiologically determined disincline individuals to place blame on transgressors? If so, to what extent and under what conditions? How does this disinclination vary across personality types and cultures? Unlike the original compatibilism-incompatibilism question, those are well-posed, meaningful questions that can be resolved.

“For the answer to the practical question about how to setup punishment is: there isn't one. All answers equally lack value.”

There isn’t an objective, factual answer like there would be for a question in physics. But if we can agree to (arbitrarily) start from the perspective of minimizing suffering, then we can address a different question: what kinds of punishment strategies create the least amount of overall suffering? That question can have an objective, factual answer.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Brian,

So, meta-ethics aside, you agree that moral non-realists have no entry point to *this* debate?

[Brian Parks]

Mark,

"So, meta-ethics aside, you agree that moral non-realists have no entry point to *this* debate?"

What is *this* debate?

If this debate is about whether people are really morally responsible for what they do, then moral anti-realism certainly has an entry point. The answer that it gives is “No, people are not really morally responsible for what they do. Moral responsibility is an evolutionarily useful construct through which human minds conceptualize behaviors, rather than a real ontological feature of behaviors.”

Go back to the issue of color. Suppose that a color-blind person is debating a color-normal person over whether a stick of grass is really green. The color-blind person says no, the color-normal person says yes. The color anti-realist is saying “Hey guys, that stick of grass doesn’t really have a color. But it preferentially reflects a certain wavelength of light. If you shift your investigation onto what that wavelength is—or onto what color experience, if any, the wavelength will evoke in the mind of a certain type of organism—then you will be able to get somewhere.”

The color anti-realist reaches the same conclusion as the color-blind person—“the grass is not really green”—though they don’t necessarily reach that conclusion by the same path. Similarly, the moral anti-realist reaches the same conclusion as the Pereboomian—“no human being is really morally responsible for what she does”—though they don’t necessarily reach that conclusion by the same path.

We can see, then, that moral anti-realism has extremely important implications for this debate. Those who casually dismiss it as irrelevant are making an enormous mistake.

Now, if this debate is about whether “A person’s being really morally responsible” is compatible with the fact of neurobiological determinism, then moral anti-realism dissolves the debate. “A person’s being really morally responsible” represents a category error. Whether we choose to call such dissolution an ‘entry point’ into the debate is a matter of semantics.

I would remind you that the initial focus of the thread was meta-skepticism about moral responsibility. Moral anti-realism is definitely relevant to that focus.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Brain,

By "this" debate, I was referring to the long running discussion about how moral responsibility works. Even hard incompatibilists like Pereboom and Galen Strawson say that it doesn't work for reasons other than moral non-realism.

For, as you say, moral non-realists can just dissolve the debate. This isn't just semantics.

In order to charitably evaluate any theory of moral responsibility, one must at the very least judge that theory within the context of its starting points, which invariably include an appeal to some form of moral (semi)realism. Which is to say, that one must "put off" one's moral non-realism in order to have anything interesting to say -- that's how Richard Double got himself off the sidelines long enough to write a book on free will that is more than three sentences in length. He took the time to engage various theories on their own level.

The fact that you're posting here on a blog about philosophy that is focused on questions of free will and moral responsibility is interesting enough. For, if you are correct in your view, there isn't anything philosophically interesting to say here: it's all a matter of cultural anthropology and genetics, and the best research will win the day. Right?

But, I digress. I apologize for hijacking the thread!

[Brian Parks]

Mark,

There are different kinds of debates taking place on this forum. The debate that I'm especially interested in is the debate on whether human beings are morally responsible for their behaviors. The question of whether moral responsibility is a projective construct through which the mind conceptualizes behavior or an actual ontological feature of behavior is highly relevant to that debate. It is also relevant to the meta-skeptical concerns that Tamler raised in this thread. So I will continue to participate. But thanks anyway for your comments ;-)

[Daniel Cohen]

Hey Tamler,
In answer to your first question, Hilary Bok explicitly presents her defense of compatibilism in such a way that it doesn’t rely on intuition. (I’m basing this on the extract from her book that’s reprinted in Watson’s Free Will collection.) She acknowledges, first, that there is a ‘dialectical stalemate’ of intuitions when it comes to defining the sense of possibility relevant to free will: Compatibilists argue that the relevant notion of possibility is fixed by abstracting away from facts about people’s actual choices, while incompatibilists prefer a ‘tout court’ interpretation of the relevant notion of possibility. Bok argues that both senses of possibility have their source in normal intuitions about free will and that intuition is, thus, unable to settle the free will debate. She argues that the debate must be settled, rather, by looking at what reasons we have for using one, or another, sense of possibility, for different purposes. Theoretical reason, Bok suggests, requires a tout court sense of possibility while practical reason requires a ‘general’ compatibilist sense of possibility. (This constitutes a putative answer to your second question. The truth-makers for facts about free will are facts, not about people's intuitions, but rather about the reasons we have for using terms in certain ways in certain contexts.)

[Paul Torek]

Daniel,
Thanks for that excellent contribution to the thread. Bok is brilliant, as usual.

Brian,
For what it's worth, I agree that meta-ethics is highly relevant to the "meta-debate question" here. Are there any good meta-ethics sites on the Blogroll?

[Brian Parks]

Paul,

I don't know of any that are devoted to meta-ethics per se, but I'm new to philosophy blogging, so I may not be the person to ask. Are you familiar with PEAsoup? Some of the meta-ethical discussions on there looked pretty interesting.

http://peasoup.typepad.com/peasoup/

[Tamler Sommers]

Daniel thanks! Very helpful.